Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morning. 9:30.
[00:00:07] Good morning. If I have not had the opportunity to meet you, my name is Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the village church and I want to invite you. Would you open up your Bibles? We're going to be in the book of Galatians and we're going to be in chapter four. All right. Have you ever, we'll just say spiritually or relationally poured into someone, like, you have loved them, you have prayed over them, and for almost all of the parents listening, the answer is yeah, you know exactly what that feels like.
[00:00:43] Maybe though, you're a mentor or a teacher or a grandparent or a pastor and you had the awesome privilege to have a front row seat to the transformation of someone's life by the power of Jesus, they grew for a season and they were flourishing and they were repenting and they were experiencing, like, real spiritual freedom. And then you watched them fall away.
[00:01:20] Their old life, their old sin, the old people that used them and did not love them. Like, it is a unique kind of pain and sadness to be able to look at someone and to be able to see what God can do in their life, to be able to see what God has made them for, to be able to watch them for the first time experience freedom and then throw it in the trash and then walk back to the old, old life that destroyed them. So I'll just tell you that whenever I watch God start to work in someone's life, they may have already actually been a Christian, or when I watch God start to draw a non Christian back or to himself, here's what I have learned. Dark forces will go to work to make that process as difficult as possible. So I wanna share with the principle. It's a principle. It applies to everybody. I don't care how old you are, how long you've been walking with the Lord. But you and I are uniquely vulnerable to this principle. Maybe in the first, like two to three to four years of our. The beginning of our spiritual growth. So maybe you were saved younger, but maybe like by college, you're like, I'm gonna take my faith seriously. So after you started growing, you're uniquely vulnerable to the reality of this principle. But to be clear, everyone is vulnerable to this.
[00:02:46] The demonic realm aims to put a wedge between you and God and you and godly people.
[00:02:58] Sometimes the wedge is a friend, sometimes the wedge is a teacher. Sometimes it's a family member. It could be a sibling or an aunt or uncle. It could even be your mom or your dad. Sometimes it's a neighbor. Honestly, most consistently I've watched girlfriends and boyfriends be, be a spiritual wedge. Sometimes it's a spouse now emerging. Sometimes it is unchecked AI, sometimes it's an influencer online, Sometimes just the general algorithm of social media. I don't know if you've recognized this. It doesn't love you, right? And it's not for you, by and large. And so maybe just the general algorithm of your social media is attempting to build a wedge between you and God, or you and godly people. So with this kind of principle in mind, I want you to look at the Book of Galatians, chapter four. And so let me take a moment and set some. Some context. If you remember, there is a nefarious group of people that are entering into the churches in the region of Galatia. They are called the Judaizers. They also got a nickname. They were called funnily, the Circumcision party. And so here's what Satan would do. He used this powerful, very intelligent group of people to build a wedge between the Galatian churches and, and God and a wedge between the Galatian churches and their spiritual leader, the Apostle Paul. And so these Judaizers, they rejected the way of salvation given by Jesus. And so here's what the Judaizers taught. They taught that salvation was by faith plus obedience to Old Testament law. And so it would look like this. If you were a dude and you wanted to be forgiven by God and have the confidence of eternal life, you would have to first go and get circumcised, hence the circumcision party. And then you would have to follow the Jewish calendar. And then you would have to follow all of the Jewish laws. And if you believed in Jesus and obeyed all the Jewish laws and became a Jew, then you could have the confidence of eternal life. And in case you've missed it and you're new with us, that's a lie.
[00:05:05] That's a false gospel that has no power whatsoever to forgive you or to bring you into relationship with God. For but Jesus and the apostles, they taught that salvation is, and by the way, always has been by faith alone. This is one of the main points of the Book of Galatians. Anybody who tells you that you can be forgiven and saved in any other method than by believing in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus by faith, they're not telling you the truth, okay? And so here's the deal. If somebody comes to me and they're like, listen, I. I want to be in a relationship with God, like I Don't want to go to hell. I want to know God.
[00:05:48] How do I do this? I would just basically take the principles of Jesus and say, listen, stop trying to earn it, because you'll never be able to undo with your good works all the damage you did with your bad works. But thankfully, you have a God whose hand is extended and he is offering forgiveness not by those who are good enough, but by those who ask him for it and believe they have faith in what Jesus did for them on the cross. Like, that is incredible news. I don't know about you all, I am not interested in wondering my whole life if I accrued enough good works to be forgiven. And thankfully, that is not what Jesus or the apostles taught. But these Judaizers, they're up to no good. And so Paul has invested in this church a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of prayer. He loves them. And these Judaizers, they have come in and they have built a wedge between the Galatian churches in God and the Galatian churches in Paul. And he's upset. And if you haven't picked it up, like, every sentence in this letter has a tone of anger and frustration and hurt. We get to Galatians, chapter four, verse eight, and I just want to give you some forewarning, okay?
[00:06:51] We have a lot of ground to cover. Lock in. Open up your Bibles. Pay attention. It'll be 87 minutes long and you will be fine. No, but this is one of those messages where you gotta focus, right? And I absolutely believe you can do it. We're gonna walk through this, and then toward the end of this, we're gonna get to what I think is in the top three most complicated, frustrating passages in the New Testament, okay? Chapter four, verse eight. He says, formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.
[00:07:26] Draw your attention to a few things. Number one, before the Galatians came to faith in Christ, they were pagans. They were not Jews. They were pagans worshiping pagan gods and pagan systems of worship. That is who they were. And then they came to faith in Christ. Now, before they were Christians, okay, they didn't know better.
[00:07:50] Like, I have never in my life spoken to somebody who believed in a false religion and said, oh, yeah, I know that demons came up with this false religion just so they could distract me and keep me away from the real pathway of salvation and forgiveness. So the demons that come up with these false ideas and these false religions, they are very intelligent and sneaky. And the vast majority of People who find themselves in these false religions, they don't understand the depth of devastation that they were created to cause. And so most people don't willingly do this. But here's what happens when. Whenever you and I engage in an idea that is demonically, we'll say motivated or come up with by demons or a religion that was created by demons. What you don't know when you participate in it is that they are designed to enslave you and trap you. Okay, an analogy that I would give is if somebody has done hard drugs, most people don't walk into doing hard drugs thinking, I am gonna be enslaved by this, and then in 10 years I'm gonna be dead.
[00:08:56] Most people don't have that idea in their brain. Most people think, I'm me, I'm strong, I can handle anything. It didn't kill my friend, I can handle it. And so then they do this. And this is a thing that like, I'm sorry, but no spirit is telling you go use hard drugs for recreation to escape your life's problems. No good spirit. It's the demonic spirits who do this. And so once you enter into it, you realize, oh no, I'm trapped, I'm slaved. And this trick was actually put in front of me that not to help me escape, but to ultimately destroy my mind, my body, my relationships and everything in my life.
[00:09:30] And so you don't know it until you're into deep. And he's like, listen, I want you to remember this. Before you came to Jesus, you were a pagan. And by the way, the gods, quote unquote, that were like you were worshiping, they're not even gods at all. And he's just calling them for what they are. And I look at verse nine, he says, but know that you have come to God. And then, I love this. He's like, actually, let's get a little bit like clear theologically rather to be known by God.
[00:09:58] How can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world whose slaves you want to be once more? It's like you were freed from these drugs and now you're going to go back.
[00:10:17] You already know what they do to you, so why once you're set free, would you go back? Now there's some funny things going on here, and if you just kind of read, you're going to miss this. So let's get very technical. We just said this, but before they became Christians, they were pagans, they were not Jews.
[00:10:36] Now he's saying, don't go back, but what are they going back to?
[00:10:40] They're actually not going back to their paganism. They are going back to Judaism.
[00:10:46] And not just like kind of pure Judaism, a perversion of it that tells you that you are saved by faith plus obedience to their Jewish Old Testament laws.
[00:10:57] And I want you to catch this.
[00:10:59] If you're a judaizer and you're reading this, here's what he just did.
[00:11:03] Paul essentially just said your obedience to that Old Testament law is as useful as your worship to pagan gods.
[00:11:12] In fact, it's no better. It's all the same. I don't care what name you put on it. The moment you try to earn a relationship with God by being a good person, it is false, it is evil. And then look at this, the words, elementary principles. This is one word in the Greek and it refers to specifically the demons that run the world and create false religions. That's what it means. And these false religions create a way of life that is designed to keep people from God.
[00:11:48] And essentially the Judaizers, here's what they're hearing.
[00:11:51] Are you comparing our gospel to demon motivated and created pagan worship? And Paul's like, yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing.
[00:12:01] Do you think he's making friends by this letter? He's probably making some like real enemies.
[00:12:06] Like demons don't care what religion you worship, they don't care what you can call it. Christian, right? I don't care what veneer you put on it. They don't care what you do, what you worship or how you do things, as long as you don't have a pure gospel.
[00:12:23] Call yourself a Christian at works, they don't care as long as you don't have a pure gospel. In other words, any religion or gospel other than that which comes from Jesus is false and evil. Most people don't think about false religions as evil. But if you double click on them and you go behind the scenes, their origin isn't from a good intentioned dude. The origin of false religions is demons. And they make these things very intelligently to sway and to keep people away from the one thing that has the power to save them and change their lives.
[00:13:02] The good news of Jesus Christ.
[00:13:04] In verse 10 he says this. You observe days and months and seasons and years. And he's like, listen, yeah, good job you're following the Jewish calendar. It is as useful for your salvation as worshiping your pagan gods.
[00:13:17] Verse 11. It's actually pretty meaningful if you kind of slow down. He says, I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain. In verse 19, he says this. I am in the anguish of. Of childbirth. And here's essentially what he's saying. He's like, listen, I feel like your spiritual mother. I carried you. I gave birth to you. I fed you, I held you in my arms. I did everything I could. I sacrificed myself and my body and my life for you. And, like, you were growing, like this was real. And again, I think mothers understand this uniquely. But imagine you give birth to this.
[00:13:57] You carry this child. You do everything for this child. And then as it grows up, some adult enters into their life and flatters them and never confronts them and never says the hard thing to them. And then one day, your child looks at you and says, why can't you be more like them?
[00:14:19] You mean the person who will never tell you the truth and the hard thing, Right?
[00:14:24] And then your child creates distance. And this person who didn't raise them, who doesn't love them, who didn't invest their entire body into them, has created a wedge between you and them. As I say this, I am palpably aware. Like, I see faces in this room. And this is your story.
[00:14:43] And some of your children have been hijacked from you, and a wedge has been built between you and them and them and their God.
[00:14:51] Some of you have lost your children actually to cults, some of them to very strange digital communities, some of you to the LGBT world. Like these communities, some of them are actually designed to make sure that wedges are built between birth parents and children or adoptive parents and children and grandparents and children. And some of you, you're like, I know this world really well. And Paul's saying this, he's like, I feel like a mother who birthed you, who poured myself into you. And now, like, these losers have come in, and they've built a wedge between us, and they don't love you. And he's like, I am. I love you. With a parent's. Spiritual parents love. They don't have this love for you. I want to come back to this principle one more time.
[00:15:35] The demonic realm aims to put a wedge between you and God and between you and Godly people.
[00:15:42] Verse 12, he says this, brothers, I entreat you. I'm begging you, become as I am.
[00:15:49] What is that? A true Christian? Verse 13. He says, you know, it was because of a body 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. And I don't want you to miss this.
[00:16:13] The Galatian Church dearly and affectionately loved the Apostle Paul. It was a real relationship and something. When Paul got there, he had a physical issue that seemed to keep him in Galatia. He couldn't move on. And I do think we actually get a little insight into what this could be. So. So what we know is that right before he came to Galatia, Paul was stoned. Now, we can't prove this, but the evidence comes together, you start to see this. I think it makes a lot of sense. Well, we know that he was stoned and then he came to the churches in Galatia. Here's what's really funny. After he was stoned, he got up and went back into the city to the people that stoned him. And if you don't know how stoning works, it's not great. But most people think you just throw rocks at somebody. But essentially you have the people accusing somebody and they throw the rocks and then there's like a final death blow. And so what you do is you put the person sort of at the bottom of like a 10 to 12 foot cliff and you have a big boulder, and when they're effectively almost dead, you roll the stone on them and you crush them to pieces. That's basically how stoning works. And so the Apostle Paul went through this process and lived and got up the next day and went back into the city that stoned him. Okay, so he's stuck in Galatia and he is saying, listen, my body, it was not okay, and it was a huge inconvenience to you. And the whole time I was with you like you loved me, like my body issues didn't get in the way of what you knew to be from God. I preached the gospel to you. I taught you the Word, I trained you in holiness and godliness. We raised up elders and spiritual leaders from you. And my condition, although annoying, it didn't get in the way. In fact, it made you love me more as you served and took care of my body.
[00:18:00] Verse 15 might give us a clue to what specifically was the major ailment. In verse 15, he says, I testify to you that if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and give them to me. And some people think that the issue that was residual was a constant eye issue or a constant pus or maybe a blindness that overtook him for a while so that he was really a huge inconvenience to them. Later he says, look and see with what big words I write to you and people have surmised that it wasn't just the stoning, that it was possibly some issue with his eyes. But either way, here's what's so great about this. He's like, you loved me so much that you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me.
[00:18:43] And so it was bad, but they loved him.
[00:18:48] Now verse 16, how sorry have I then become your enemy? And how did I become your enemy?
[00:18:57] By telling you the truth.
[00:19:01] How did I go? Paul's thinking to himself and saying out loud here, how did I go from being your beloved friend to your hated enemy?
[00:19:13] So quickly you loved me.
[00:19:18] And somehow these losers, these wedge builders, destroyed it. And you've rewritten our story and our past.
[00:19:28] I don't know if you remember this, but I want to just put it back on the screen. The demonic realm aims to put a wedge between you and God and you and godly people. Have you guys figured out that that's the point of the sermon, yet there it is.
[00:19:42] Almost every single time God starts working in somebody's life, wedge builders show up.
[00:19:52] And here's the frustrating part about wedge builders. They are sneaky, they're smart, they're very effective.
[00:20:01] And I have learned, I've been around a bit and I have watched so many relationships broken by third party wedge builders. And they always do the same. 2.
[00:20:15] Flattery and slander.
[00:20:18] Look at verse 17. How are these Galatians duped?
[00:20:21] They make much of you. What do we call this?
[00:20:26] Flattery?
[00:20:28] But for no good purpose, like, their motivations are not pure.
[00:20:33] They want to shut you out that you may make much of them. In other words, they're cool if you go to hell because you're a number for them.
[00:20:45] You are another person in their theological tradition giving them power. Look how many people are after us. They don't care the cost because they don't love you.
[00:20:56] And here's what he's saying. They're flattery. It's not good.
[00:21:00] It's not for your good. And then he says in verse 18, it's always good to be made much of for a good purpose. Yes, build people up, sincerely, genuinely call out what God has put in them, but with a good purpose. Now, ongoing flattery is a dead giveaway that possibly you have a wedge builder in your life. But either way, they're probably up to no good, whether they realize it or not.
[00:21:23] I wanna share with you a couple examples of what flattery looks like. Because for most of us, we have a sort of simplistic view of it like flattery is just you saying nice things to me and making me feel good about myself. Flattery is actually a little bit more complex than that. So here's some examples.
[00:21:39] Laughing at every joke you tell. Some of you aren't funny and the jokes you tell aren't good and nobody should be laughing. Right. But the flatter is like, yeah, okay.
[00:21:51] Avoiding or never saying hard things.
[00:21:56] Always affirming. Yeah. Never challenging.
[00:22:01] Most of you are smart enough that if somebody's gonna be like, oh yeah, go murder that person, you're gonna be like, that's bad. But what flatterers do is they enable you and encourage you to sin in small ways.
[00:22:12] They subtly but regularly affirm what you believe you deserve.
[00:22:19] And they encourage you to put your desires over your God ordained roles.
[00:22:27] In other words, the idol of self they put at the top. And they encourage you to make yourself the most important person in the world. And people who flatter you like this are almost always using you.
[00:22:44] You may be thinking to yourself, pastor Michael, you don't know me. I would never fall for this kind of flattery. And I think it's really easy to underestimate both the power and persuasiveness of these Judaizers. They were powerful enough to make both Peter the leader in the church and Barnabas afraid of them. And they were persuasive enough that they could go to the mother church in Jerusalem where Jesus half brother was the leader. And they could somehow get themselves into this church church, where they could only be gotten out if there was a council called. And they had to have a debate with these people and finally had to have the apostles together to be able to say no, the Judaizers need to leave. They're false.
[00:23:28] They were persuasive enough to trick the elders of the Galatian Church. They were persuasive enough to get men who were not circumcised circumcised, believing that if they did that, that would actually get them saved.
[00:23:41] So I think we underestimate how persuasive they were to these people and their cultural context. But in our moment, the idol of self is the easiest way to deceive somebody and to flatter them. You may not fall for their flattery, but there is a different kind of flattery that I think we are susceptible to and I do think we underestimate that. About 99.87% of all humans are under encouraged and are desperate for people to call out the good things in us, are desperate for someone to notice us and to See who God made us to be like, that is most every human being I've met. And so the demonic realm very easily can motivate or move somebody just to bring various words of flattery. And we're like, you really think so? You think so? I appreciate that. Thank you. Wow. I mean, I thought so, but, you know, and before you know it, you don't even know what they're up to. And you're like, I really like that person. They think my hairline is just. Just right, you know? What's so funny?
[00:24:47] Here's a. Here's what he says in verse 20. I love this line. He just says, I am perplexed about you.
[00:24:54] Like, you allow them to build a wedge between you and God and you and me.
[00:25:01] You.
[00:25:03] I gave you the keys of freedom, and you took those keys, went back into the cell and locked yourself in and threw them out. What are you doing?
[00:25:11] You know, the slavery. And now you had freedom, and you're just going back to the same slavery with just a different name, different veneer.
[00:25:18] What are you doing?
[00:25:20] Okay, so when someone begins hating you because of the influence of a wedge builder. And again, I am probably thinking most practically about moms and dads and their kids, but I'm telling you guys, it applies in so many other ways.
[00:25:35] Sometimes you can win them back. And there's a test.
[00:25:39] There's a test to know whether or not there's hope in this relationship right now. And the test is simple.
[00:25:46] You tell them with a loving heart the truth of what went down. The truth of what is.
[00:25:54] No lies, no exaggeration, no covering up your own stuff. And if you made mistakes, you own it. You just sit down and you say, can we just use truth and logic and love, and can we talk? Sometimes you can sit down with people and use truth, logic, and love and be like, all right, it's going to take a while, but we can work through this, right?
[00:26:10] But sometimes when truth, logic, and love, right, you can't overcome. The wedge is so deep that there is no amount of truth, logic, or love that will ever overcome this. And these are the moments where you can try. But demonic wedges require something far stronger than truth, logic, and love. And the only way to undo a demonic wedge that resists truth and logic is by the power of the Holy Spirit. And there are some conversations you and I need to stop having. And we need to get on our knees and understand this wedge is demonic. And there will be no recovery until the Holy Spirit works and does what only the Holy Spirit can Can do.
[00:26:46] So this next section, we're going to move fast. But what Paul does is he uses logic and truth to try to win them back.
[00:26:58] It's going to be a test. Is there still hope? Now, this is one of the most complicated sections of scripture and I'm going to make a deal with you.
[00:27:09] If you want to go deeper into this, I've got two probably 50 minute lectures by somebody who did, I think, a masterful job, and explaining these. And if you wanna go deeper, text me, call me, let me know, and I will send you those two lectures. I found them to be very, very helpful.
[00:27:25] Most of you, you're not gonna do that. Because this complicated section has one point.
[00:27:31] And here's the point, okay? For them, cast out the Judaizers.
[00:27:37] They're leading you to hell. They don't have the power of God. Get them out of your life. And what he does is he actually uses this Old Testament story in the law.
[00:27:47] And let me just help you kind of set the framework. I want you to imagine there is a husband. His name is Abraham, because that's who it was. And Abraham gets his maid pregnant. Whoops. And then he gets his wife pregnant. Uh oh. And they live in the same house and they don't get along. The wife wants to work in the marriage. Sure.
[00:28:04] Who do you kick out of the house, the maid or the wife?
[00:28:10] The maid. The marriage covenant always wins. Right, okay, got it. So that, that like is a tidied up version of the story of Abraham, Hagar the maid and Sarah the wife. Okay? And then in verse 21, and I added some notes on here just to make it as simple as humanly possible.
[00:28:26] He says, tell me, you who desire to be under the law, Galatians, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abram had two sons, one by a slave woman, essentially their live in maid servant Hagar, and one by a free woman, his wife Sarah. But the son of the slave, Ishmael, of whom Islam came, was born according to the flesh in a sinful way, while the son of the free woman, Isaac, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, was born through the promise, the marriage relationship. You're like, whew, right? You'd have to like take a bit of time just to get there. Oh, we're not even into the heavy part yet. Okay.
[00:28:58] And then he says in verse 24, now this, that crazy story that I just told you may be interpreted allegorically. Now we have in English, allegory is a big word, but very simply, you, here's what it would mean to the people reading it, this is like an illustration or an analogy.
[00:29:18] And this whole thing that he's about to say is one point. I just said it earlier.
[00:29:22] Get the wedge builders, get the maid. Get those people out of your house. Get them out. Because they're gonna lead you to hell. It's not for your good. Like the promises of God. The good things for God aren't found with the maid, they're found with your wife. The promises of God aren't found with the judaizers, they're found with the apostle Paul.
[00:29:40] And then verse 24, he goes on. Now these women are two covenants. Verse 24 again goes on. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. She is Hagar. It goes on and on and on. But go down to verse 30 with me. And here it is. What does the scripture say? Cast out the slave woman and her son. Who does that mean? The judaizers. Get rid of them.
[00:30:01] For the son of the slave woman shall not inherit. With the son of the freeman, you're going to inherit salvation. They're inheriting hell. Get rid of them. Because if you keep them, you're going to go to hell with them.
[00:30:11] So brothers, we, Paul and the apostles, we're not children of the slave, but of the free. Again, you want to go deeper into that? That's a big, long sermon. We don't have time.
[00:30:21] Now I have three. So what's. And I want to bring this home for you. Number one, discern the wedge voices in your life and cling to God and godly voices.
[00:30:36] What are examples of wedge voices?
[00:30:39] Anyone or anything that builds a wedge between you and God.
[00:30:47] You and godly behavior, you and confidence in the Bible, you and your God pleasing relationships, or you and your good spiritual authority.
[00:31:00] Now, as you process that list, I want you to notice what is not on this list.
[00:31:05] Wedge voices are not the voices that are politically different than me. Wedge voices are not those who have different opinions than me. I don't know about y'. All. I kind of like a little bit of diversity. And I like when people push back and I like when they challenge me. And you can have a different opinion on me. And it doesn't mean you're trying to destroy my relationship with God or my relationship with godly people.
[00:31:24] Wedge voices are not those who disagree with me. Wedged voices are not those who confront me on sin. Wedged voices are not those who tell me things that I don't like or I don't agree with. That's called probably somebody who Loves you if someone's willing to confront you on sin and tell you something you don't agree with. And listen, I just think Christians, we should be the best at this. We should be the best at hearing things we don't agree with and not getting upset about it.
[00:31:47] Right. And so that's not a wedge voice. Wedge voices are actively trying to stand between you and God and you and godly people.
[00:31:56] How do you discern wedge voices? I'm so glad you asked. Great question.
[00:32:00] Are there people, platforms or ideas, perspectives that are creating distance between me and God and me and godly people?
[00:32:08] And you'll start to recognize this and ask the Holy Spirit, like, would you reveal voices or people or platforms or perspectives that are just getting in the way if I'm not in a relationship with them? Like social media or influencers, websites, podcasts, Block them. Like, I'm not afraid of dissenting voices, but I'm also not interested in opening my heart and mind up to people who hate me, don't love me, and hate my God, and want to just destroy my life and my mind. I'm just not interested. Now, I do like hearing different opinions on things, but I don't really just love listening to people who hate me from the bottom of their heart.
[00:32:41] If I'm not in a relationship with them, block them. If I am in a relationship with them, ask them kindly to respect my beliefs. And here's just what I found. Some people don't even know they're a wedge voice.
[00:32:50] Like, have the conversation, give them the benefit of the doubt, and say, hey, I love you. I want to be friends. I just need you to respect what I believe.
[00:33:00] And you might find that they are like, yeah. Some people, though, might be like, no, I'm not going to respect that. I think you're an idiot at that point. If they refuse, gently but swiftly create the appropriate distance.
[00:33:11] But we don't want to just discern the unhelpful. We also want to discern the people, the platforms, the ideas, the perspectives that push you to God and push you to godly people? Protect them, use your words and thank them. Cling to them, because that is the person who loves you.
[00:33:31] So what? Number two, I think this might be the shortest so what in so what history. But here we go.
[00:33:36] Be honest with yourself and ask, am I the wedge voice?
[00:33:43] I think if the Holy Spirit is maybe nudging you a little bit, maybe the best thing you could do is call the person that you fear you're being a wedge in their life and ask Gently prepare your heart to hear what is true. And then if it is, repent.
[00:33:58] Number three.
[00:34:00] Trying to get salvation in any other way than through faith in Jesus is not just useless, but I want you to feel the weight of what the Apostle Paul is saying. It's immoral.
[00:34:12] So in scripture you can desire a good thing, but then go get it in an evil way. Let me give you an illustration.
[00:34:22] You want to commune and talk with God, that's good.
[00:34:27] And if you use witchcraft and divination to do it, that is evil.
[00:34:32] Or you want to be protected from evil, that's good. In fact, Jesus says you should pray that protect us, that's good.
[00:34:42] But if you try to get protection by praying to dead people, also called sometimes saints in some traditions, that's evil because it's also called an abomination.
[00:34:52] We're not allowed to talk to dead people. So you can want a good thing. And even with good intentions, not even knowing it's wrong, you can go do it in an evil way.
[00:35:02] And so here's what the apostle Paul and I think I wanna just draw this in for you, is you can want something good, but go about it an evil way. And here's what they want. You want forgiveness in a relationship with God, that is so good. I wanna affirm that God wants to forgive you and to be in a relationship with you. Yes, but if you go about that in an evil way, you don't get the thing you want, no matter how good your intentions are. And so you have all of these demons who have created elementary principles, ways and rhythms and false religions, all designed all with no power to save and listen. The reason it's evil is because of their origin and because they only damn, they can't save. And so here's what Paul does. He just calls it for what it is. It's essentially all demonic origins, anything other than the gospel. And so this what he wants to do, and what I would love to do with you, is to show you the weight and devastation of every other pathway to salvation apart from the true good news, Jesus Christ.
[00:36:01] And so if Paul was here, he would look at you and say, you can't go to heaven by being good and you can't go to heaven by being religious. You can't go to heaven by being spiritual. You can't go to heaven by following the Old Testament law. You can only be reconciled to God by coming to him and saying, I'm sorry, I believe what you did for me on the cross, I can't add to that. I can't take away from that. All I have is your offer to forgive anyone who sincerely asks, you come to God and you sincerely ask, you know what the answer's gonna be. Absolutely. Guys, that's awesome news. I don't have to wonder, was I good enough? As I sit on my deathbed and wonder, did my good works outweigh my bad works? I don't have to wonder that I can know with certainty because I took God at his word. I asked him forgiveness, and I believed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And so if you are here and you have never done that, you're like, how do we bring this full circle? Not only do I want you to get the wedge voices out of your life and cling to the good voices, but I want you to cling to the good, pure, true gospel of Jesus Christ that has the power to save you. And God is willing, if you will ask. Amen. Village Church. Amen. Let's pray together.
[00:37:08] Father, we love you.
[00:37:11] We thank you.
[00:37:13] You have given us this very aggressive letter for our good.
[00:37:18] When I think about Paul's intensity, I think about the weight and the severity of the issue and the danger that these Galatians face by locking themselves into the prison of a false religion and a false gospel. I just also want to thank you that you pull back the curtain on what is really happening in the spirit realm you call every other gospel. Elementary principles, overseen, run, come up with by demons. God, I just really appreciate that you write with such clarity so that we are just not duped. We don't want to be duped.
[00:37:50] I think most of us in this room confess that before we came to Jesus, we didn't even know any better. But, God, you have revealed yourself to us. So just thank you, God. I pray if there's anybody here who is realizing that they have been duped, God, that you would give them the confidence and the courage, the clarity to come to you and ask for forgiveness. I thank you that you're always willing to say yes. And for the rest of us, God, would you by your holy Spirit, reveal wedge voices or reveal. If we have been a wedge voice, we want to repent. We want to honor you and glorify you, and I thank you that the blood of Christ covers our sin when we ask for forgiveness in Jesus once and for all and forever. We pray all of this and we do it in Jesus name. Amen. Village Church. Amen. Well, this time we're gonna celebrate communion together.
[00:38:39] And communion is for each and every one of us who have personally trusted in Christ.
[00:38:45] And when we partake of communion, we are coming back to the pure, simple gospel. I added nothing to my salvation. It was all of Christ. He saved me. He forgave me. I didn't get this by law. I didn't get this by good works. I got this because Jesus paid the price for my sins by giving his body on the cross. And so we eat the bread, we drink the cup, and we are reminded that Jesus died for our sins in our place. And I'm not bringing anything to the table. There is. You hear me talk about this when I do communion, but I think it's something that needs to be said regularly.
[00:39:17] Some of you have been really, really ridiculous this week. You have sinned. You have sinned willingly, and you have sinned persistently. And you are feeling, I am not worthy to partake of communion. And I would like to affirm you are not worthy to partake of communion.
[00:39:33] I do not take communion because I am worthy.
[00:39:36] I take communion because he was perfect for me. Now, if you are intent on living in belligerent sin, I would encourage you don't partake of communion. But if maybe the Holy Spirit is piercing you and you're like, I want to repent. I don't want to do the things that I have been doing. If your heart is in a posture of repentance, if you have believed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, I want to encourage you partake of communion. And by doing this, you are proclaiming not your goodness, but the profound of Christ who died for your sins. In your place, we're gonna have a time of silence. And in the silence, it's an opportunity for you to talk to God, to repent and thank him for how good he's been. And then at the end of the silence, we are going to actually, you know what?
[00:40:18] Wait, are we doing that now? Yeah, so. No, we're doing that later. I'm so sorry. We're gonna do that later. So we're gonna do Dre Day communion of first service. So. Phew. All right, we're gonna have a time of silence, Then we're gonna worship together. And then at the end of the song, I'm gonna come up, and then we're gonna partake of communion. Forgive me. But during the song, what you can do is you can go get the elements. They're at the column to my right and to my left and behind the double doors. And then at the end of the song, I'm gonna come back up and we're gonna partake of communion together. All right. Sound good? So we're silence singing, then we participate together.
[00:40:53] Let's take some time before the Lord and do that together. Together.
