A Shepherd's Heart (Galatians 4:12-20)

Today in verses 12 through 20, our sermon is titled A Shepherd's Heart.

It's a beautiful moment where Paul transitions from this very aggressive doctrinal defense of the truth to now this bleeding of the heart for his sheep.

It's a unique moment to look into the shepherd.

As I was studying the text this week, I was reminded of a study that was done in the year 1944 here in America.

The sociological study found that in 1944, the average voter, when given two choices of what to listen to, almost always chose what they wanted to hear over what they must hear from both sides.

It's a fascinating moment, and over the next 16 years, they continued to move into this and said, is this a thing or is it just politics?

Is it just a moment?

And by the year 1960, they had effectively created and coined the phrase selective exposure theory.

And it was the idea, very much so, that you and I, as human beings, are prone toward comfort.

We like when people say nice things.

We like when people are nice to us.

We like when people compliment us.

And not all of those are inherently bad, but what is bad is our natural tendency to take what God has made us good and to inordinately make it everything.

And that's where you get to the point where you've created echo chambers where all you can hear with all the people around you, all the podcasts you listen to, all the TV channels, the preachers, everything is what you want to hear already.

You don't want to be challenged on what you believe or what you think or what you feel.

You simply want to be affirmed.

I'm right.

I'm justified in feeling this way.

They're stupid and don't know what they're talking about, which means that I'm smart and do know what I'm talking about.

We have this tendency to create this self-affirming bubble around ourselves.

Here's the problem.

In 1960, there was finally a clinical term for it.

We have this idea, and we're like, this is a new finding.

But I'm here to tell you that nearly 2,000 years ago, Paul was dealing with a church that was running into the exact same issue.

This isn't a new development.

It's not happening because politics is getting better nowadays.

Or we've made so much advancement in psychology and sociology.

It has always been and will always be a sin problem.

You and I love to create this self-affirming atmosphere, and anything that doesn't affirm or encourage me is bad.

Why do we do that?

I may not answer that question fully today, but the text will lean into how the shepherd pleads with, remembers for, discerns, and groans for the sheep that are in the midst of this struggle.

Some of you have grown up in or around church, and especially in rural conservative America, I'm here to tell you that tradition is king.

We've done a Sloppy Joe's Supper on the seventh Saturday of every month for thirty-five million years, and we will do nothing else until those are served.

We build up to these monumental moments, and we'll die on those hills because we've been told to.

Why?

Why was it okay for decades for children to be around a church service?

But by golly, if they ran in the building, somebody's ear was getting torn off.

Why was it that you had to dress a certain way or you were looked at funny?

Why was it that you had to speak a certain way, have the language down, honor the correct families, make sure that you're in order, make sure that you guys are all presentable and you've painted on your fake mask for Sunday morning.

Why was that necessary?

And it's the same reason why the Galatians are struggling with these Judaizers today.

The Judaizers came in and said, Yes, your Christianity is just fine, but we have a better way.

What if we put some adornment on top of that free grace that you have?

What if we just measured a little bit on who's really serious about this thing and who's not?

What if we made your performance the metric upon your security and comfort is found?

The problem is that you and I love to be measured.

We love to perform.

We love to be acknowledged.

And even when we fail, we want you to soften the blow.

I'll never forget being a part of my first SEN Network assessment.

That's the church planning association that we are a part of.

And they're writing a report about me.

And there's two columns.

The one was strengths, and the other one was areas of opportunity.

I'm here to tell you, in the 90s they didn't have areas of opportunity.

And each generation would be able to add to that again and again because everyone knows that the generation before you had to climb up the hill both ways in the snow, backwards, forwards, and sideways.

Why are we so sensitive to correction?

Perhaps it's because we like to identify with how we think we're doing.

Paul's heart today is not to come down and condemn those that have found themselves trying to keep up on the treadmill of performance.

But rather, as our text will break down today, in verse 12, he will plead with them.

In verses 13 through 15, he will remind them.

In verses 16 through 18, he will discern for them.

In verses 19 and 20, he will groan for them.

Please read with me God's holy word.

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.

We begin with our first heading, a shepherd who pleads.

Verse 12.

Paul says, Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also became as you are.

You did me no wrong.

The word entreat there is the word to plead, to cry out to, to desperately ask and request of.

Paul had the authority to simply command.

He had every right.

By golly, that church was born because of him.

At any moment in time, he can just throw his weight around and say, okay, look, I kind of died to build this thing.

Stop it.

But instead, he pleads with them.

And the plead has a specific angle.

He says, become as I am.

Now, what is he saying there?

Is he saying, time for you guys to all become missionaries?

You guys all need to become church planners.

Is he saying, time for you guys all to have this great historic Jewish background that I have?

This prolific career that I had.

He clarifies for us.

He says, For I also became as you are.

What he's referring to is very simply this.

He had all the trappings of the Jewish religion.

He was measuring up better than anyone in his class.

And he considered it all to be trash in comparison to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It was worth nothing.

In fact, it was disgraceful to look at.

Paul says, I came to you all the way.

I didn't bring along all my expectations and my own personal performance and say, okay, look how good I'm doing.

I didn't then uh find Christian language to dress up my legalism in and say, Look how many churches I've planted.

Look how many sermons I've preached.

Look how many men I've discipled.

What are you doing with your life?

He says, No.

I became as you are.

Free from under the law.

No need to perform in order to be okay.

I became as you are.

Now I'm pleading with you.

Come back.

And then he clarifies here.

He says, You did me no wrong.

Upon first reading, you look at that and you say, This looks really random.

He's like pleading and pleading, and all of a sudden it's like, you did me no wrong.

Also, and then he keeps going.

What is Paul trying to communicate and he saying, You did me no wrong in the middle of this thought?

He's clarifying.

This is not a personal attack.

He's not offended right now, which he would have every, we'd say, human right to be, because they have completely thrown out everything he's taught them.

They have listened to the Judaizers who said, This man is a fake.

He's a phony.

And so he wants to clarify: I have not taken this personally.

This pleading with you is my own heart coming to you.

Paul crossed the whole distance to them first, and then from there, he pleads with them to come.

And he begs them, do not walk into the slavery that both he and you walked out of.

One of the things that stood out to me most in this text, it's always fun writing, I call them diagnostic questions because I'm a nerd.

Um, for each of these different units of thought.

And for every one or two I give you, there's eight to twelve behind them.

The one I sat with probably the most this week was this.

When I saw Paul pleading with the Galatians, the question placed before my eyes was when was the last time you pleaded with someone regarding their Christian life?

When was the last time you saw someone going the wrong direction in life?

And you were broken for them.

And you humbled yourself to the point of begging them to turn, to listen, to love, to change.

It's very easy to get to the point where we look at Christianity as this academic endeavor.

I just need to find the right answer.

Right?

If I if I have a Bible verse for that, I'll be good.

Dear friend, get the Bible verse.

But maybe just as importantly, bring the broken heart that pleads with the sinner.

There is something to be said for a mom, for a dad, for an ex, for a coworker, that looks at the one they love and humbles themselves to the point of pleading.

Because there's an absolute humility in that.

What am I doing if I am pleading?

I am admitting I am powerless.

The ultimate fear of humanity.

I am admitting I am unable, and thus I beg you to turn.

On the other side, when you look at your life, if a leader in the church or a brother and sister in Christ begs you to look at your life, what's your initial reaction?

Do you immediately believe the best?

Or do you immediately believe the worst?

I want you to grow this week in receiving faithful gospel pleading as an expression of love.

Strong truth and deep affection are not enemies.

They are many times one and the same.

And that leads us into a shepherd who remembers, verses thirteen through fifteen.

Paul says, You know that it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first.

Let us pause for a moment.

Paul didn't set out to go and preach to the Galatians intentionally.

Paul was a strategic man.

He writes to the Romans and he's looking at Spain.

He's like, I am on my way.

I'm looking ahead.

He wasn't looking at Galatian like, I'm gonna preach here when this happens.

No, no, no.

He finds himself with a bodily ailment, and he literally says, It is because of that that I preach to you.

The reason this church exists is because God allowed a bodily ailment to strike the greatest missionary that's ever lived.

I was perplexed as I looked at that, thinking through my life and the hardships that I've had.

You know, when finances get tight, when your body fails, when people betray you, when you're not sure what's gonna happen next, when the rug is literally pulled out from under your feet, it's hard to sit there catching your breath, hoping you can see the ceiling and saying, God's gonna use this.

And yet, the good God in heaven, who loves you and me more than we could ever think or imagine or even wonder at, sees you in your pain and your suffering and your sickness and your sadness, and he says, I will use it all for your good.

The problem is just like the selective exposure theory, you and I tend to conflate terms, which means we we mix them up and make them mean another word that they're not.

And we say, well, if God's gonna work all things for my good, then I will feel good.

And that is often not the case.

The man in this pulpit would not be here if he had not been broken many times in many ways.

My beautiful wife, who is the greatest earthly blessing I have, would not be who she was and who she is if God had not broken her in many ways.

Paul's suffering was redeemed.

But the most important part of this is how the Galatians responded to Paul's situation.

He says, and though my condition was a trial to you, he goes, I not only was weak, but it was literally an effort for you to work through it with me.

It'd be like having a preacher with a speech impediment, or who can't stand.

Or maybe in your life it might look like someone discipling you, who you have to wait for five minutes for them to think of the right verse that they were supposed to say to you five minutes ago, and they hoped to have it real like punchy and quick, and now they're calling Dan Ashton and hoping that he has the answer.

Look at how the Galatians responded.

These baby Christians, by the way, they weren't like the supermature, because we can get to that point.

We read every church in the Bible as supermature.

Paul just says they literally weren't Christians.

He preaches the gospel to them in weakness.

He's the opposite of impressive.

He is the exact definition of stumbling, staggering, and simple.

In their heart posture.

Did they scorn him?

Did they spise him?

Despise him?

No.

It says they received him, and that would be enough, right?

Like you and I have this tendency to over-exaggerate masculinity and femininity.

It's like when you see a guy who's like super weak and is like weeping and he like can't do anything and he's like throwing a fit, everyone's like.

Is perfect and the message was perfect, and they received it with faith and said, This must be true because there's no other answer to life.

There's nothing else that can heal this brokenness.

There's nothing else that can fill the hole.

I have nothing left, and this broken man is giving me a message.

And it seems to fill the hole.

The gospel does not require you to be an impressive messenger.

It simply requires Christ to be sufficient.

Do you know how hard that is in this life?

You and I grow up around social media, and we're like, that picture was the first picture.

There's no filter on it, there's no editing, it looks perfect.

That video, they definitely, it was one shot.

They didn't think about it at all, just did it all natural.

We don't actually say that out loud, but we act like it.

We compare, we contrast.

I'm here to tell you, you never measure up.

Ever.

We do the same thing with our faith in Christ.

You look at your children, you have a moment to speak into their life and to say truth, and you barely stumble over the words, Jesus loves you, and they're off.

You're like, man, I really could have done a much better job than that.

I think, I hope, maybe, probably not, never mind.

Like there's this moment where there's this pressure, and you think about your loved one who's not saved, and you say, I need to be impressive.

I'll never forget that from the apologetics class.

People, I need to have these answers inside of me so I can explain them clearly and eloquently.

Or if I can just get these people to Pastor Dan, then he could explain it and he would do it so much better than me, and they would listen.

The power has never been in the man or the woman.

The power has always been in the fact that the gospel changes people from the inside out.

That people who don't deserve it, who don't look like they are impressive, who don't look like they have it all together, they know it, can rest and have true peace and true love and true joy.

Paul showed up weak and repulsive, and the message landed, anyways.

Then he asks a question, and he says, What then has become of your blessedness?

You have all the blessings of the gospel.

Why is your life not resembling that?

And we get into this weird tension of spiritual drift, where you and I tend to not even recognize that it has changed in our lives, that the gospel we were once excited about is now just a part of the life.

If you ever want to know where spiritual drift will show up first, it is in your changed affections.

It will show up in what you stop loving, in who you start to suspect, or in what you begin to resent.

Our affections are not divorced from our doctrine or the truth that we believe and know.

Rather, every affection you and I have comes from a belief that we hold dearly.

So, when you look at your life, what has become of your blessedness?

Do you still rejoice in the same gospel that first saved you?

Or does it now feel small, inadequate?

In the busyness of life, in the battle with sin, it can often feel like the gospel is just one part of the puzzle that is my life, as opposed to being the heart and soul.

When you think of a sermon, a teaching, a discipleship, a counseling, are you only willing to receive God's word when it comes in an impressive, polished, and socially comfortable package?

Or will you receive it when it arrives in weakness?

Because when a message arrives in weakness, what tends to flare up in you and I is pride.

A weak messenger makes me think little of you or less.

Am I more impressed with the message or the messenger?

I want you to regularly remind each other of what the gospel has done here in Henderson County.

I want you to regularly remember the people who have been saved, who've been baptized.

I want you to remember the answers to prayer that have happened in this building.

The answer to prayer that this building is.

Dear friends, last February there were 18 people in the community building down in Biggsville.

Living on a hope and a prayer.

Not a budget, not a building, a hope and a prayer.

This church has been built on the foundation of the words, but God.

Do not let memory, though, curdle into some sort of sentimentality.

As you and I remember these things, it has to return us to Christ.

Not living the glory days, not reminiscing and remembering how good it used to be, but remembering to be thankful today and go out and worship the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And that leads us into a shepherd who discerns, verses 16 through 18.

Paul says, Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?

If you've never experienced this, you will one day, because if you're a Christian, you're responsible to speak the truth to people.

And I'm here to tell you that today, in the world of my truth, your truth, his truth, what truth.

People don't like truth.

And the hypocrisy is the fact that people that would laugh at that joke are the same ones that would be offended if you called something out in their life.

Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?

And then he clarifies 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.

So he clarifies and gives a caveat there at the end.

He says, These people are coming in and they give you measurements and they build you up.

But what is it building you up toward?

See, false teaching, or teaching that leads us into sin, even at this point, leads us towards isolation from Christ.

It leads us towards a dependence on the things of this life, the actions of this life, rather than on the creator of this life.

He says, They make much of you.

They are what we would call flatterers.

You know, the people that make you feel real good about yourself.

Like, do I look fat in this?

And they're like, you never look fat in your life.

Like, like that kind of person.

They make much of you, but not for a good purpose.

They want to shut you out.

Why?

So that you'll make much of them.

Right?

It's this like, I'll I'll be the savior of you in this moment if you'll make sure that everyone sees and knows and remembers it was me that did that.

Then he clarifies, let's make sure we're clear.

It's always good to be made much of for a good purpose.

So he's not saying Christians are anti-compliment.

Because I've been in plenty of churches like that too.

Like, don't say anything good about the sermon, because that'll make them proud.

Don't ever say anything good about the music, because then they'll just get puffed up.

Be like a peacock up there.

Like, like we get to this point where it's like, like, don't tell her that she did a good job with the cookies.

Because then she'll just live it up in cookie veil.

I don't even know what like we get to this point where it's like compliments are bad.

The Bible says no.

But it also clarifies it for us, and this is the discernment part.

A compliment is good when it trains my affections toward Christ and is motivated by holiness or fruit of the Spirit.

So when someone compliments me, if that encourages me on to greater service and sacrifice for Christ, if that picks me up when I'm down and helps me to keep trudging forward in this life, that's a win.

But if the compliment leads me to the point where all of a sudden I begin to look down on others, where I begin to create some distance, where I begin to think I'm self-sufficient, and all of a sudden these compliments have gotten to my head, and you won't find me praying or reading my Bible because I'm self-sufficient.

I got this.

Did you hear the compliment I got?

And then he also clarifies and says, not only when I'm present with you.

So again, just like the first verse in this, he's clarifying, I'm not saying that I have to be there and do it.

That's not what I'm saying.

I'm teaching you a principle.

And the principle is very simply this faithful shepherds may wound you with the truth.

But false shepherds will always comfort you into slavery.

And perhaps the better coined phrase for our generation is that not everyone who makes much of you loves you.

We have a hard time with that because we equate attention with love.

When people pay attention to me, they're showing me love.

That must be the ultimate end.

We have to understand the human heart, though, because when truth creates internal friction, when it creates this uncomfortability, human nature doesn't want to change the behavior.

Right?

When someone shines the mirror into your life, you're not like, oh, thank you so much.

What's the natural reaction of human nature?

It wants to break the mirror or get rid of the person holding it.

That's what human nature does.

Don't show me my sin.

Have you seen your sin?

I've heard that before.

So who in your life has the permission to tell you a truth that ruins your day?

I'll say it again.

Who in your life has permission to tell you a truth that will ruin your day?

Because if the answer's no one, you have successfully created your own little bubble of yes men.

But you would lie to yourself and say they're not yes men.

And then maybe a more personal one for these intrapersonal relationships.

Interpersonal relationships.

When someone does bring a correction or some sort of thing that's wrong in your life, an observation about something maybe that should change.

Are you more easily offended at by the tone of the correction or by the danger that made it necessary?

You and I, we act like everyone needs to be completely reasonable and never sin against me, even if they're bringing their sin my sin to me.

Right?

Like if I'm the kid who's playing in traffic and a semi's going 70 miles per hour is about to run me over, please bring a five-page paper that you can read in a gentle voice from across the street to me, explaining why and why not I should do this and what my options are.

Don't yell at me and tell me to get out of the way.

That's mean.

But if someone did that to your favorite habit, if someone did that to your greatest weakness, would you act the same?

I want you to be able to discern the difference between faithful truth and manipulative attention.

The voice that flatters you always feels better in the moment, and that's exactly the danger.

Sin always feels good when you give in at first.

It's the aftermath when you pay.

And that leads us into a shepherd who groans, verses 19 through 20.

Paul says, My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.

It is ironic that Paul is their spiritual father.

And when he looks for the most painful moment he can possibly express, he chooses childbirth.

And all the women folks said, Amen.

Paul knows what he's doing.

He says, I am in pain.

I am in labor.

I am hopeful of what is to come.

Right?

Just like with childbirth.

But I'm still living in the midst of it currently.

And what is the end goal of this childbirth?

It is that Christ is formed in you.

If you want to know what the aim of ministry is, if you want to know what the purpose of preaching and discipleship and counseling and evangelism is, it is very simply we desire for Christ to be formed in you.

And that means two things.

Number one, Paul wants to make sure that they're saved.

It is a strange moment, as you do years and years of ministry, when you realize uh that someone you've poured your life into for a couple of years can just all of a sudden stop attending church, completely ghost you, back out of everything, and you kind of look and you're like, uh, yeah, I don't know.

Like, maybe I really did look at this like it was a stair stepper, and you just broke the code.

Like, like we easily fall into this paradigm where we just expect people to just constantly keep getting better.

And the moment they have a backslide, we're like, huh, that was a that doesn't make sense.

Like, why would why would they get more like more immature out of nowhere?

As if the rest of us have not grown by going two steps forward and one step back our entire lives.

Look at the language.

He says, My little children, this is a very familial term.

He is intimately and personally involved in their lives.

And he says, I am again in the anguish of childbirth.

Why?

Because when you are evangelizing to somebody, right?

You're you're you are preaching the gospel to somebody, you're sharing the truth with them, there's a pain.

Right?

I desire for you to be saved.

I want you to understand this truth.

And then as they keep going along, and they make this stupid decision or go this foolish direction, you're like, I wish I could just I wish you could come on.

The anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed.

That is the goal, the aim.

But dear friends, I want you to see that the aim of ministry is not that people make much of the shepherds or of the leaders of the church.

It is rather that they make much of Christ and Christ in them.

A shepherd will groan through the pain because the goal is worth the pain.

He says, I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

Give your Christian life long enough, and eventually you'll get to a point where someone you love, their life will go sideways, and you will just look at them, jaw open, hands just wide open, wondering what happened.

The truth is that only a shepherd who genuinely loves his sheep, only a mama who really loves her children, only a spouse who really loves their other, only a friend who really loves their friend can sit in a moment and say, I am at my wits.

And what I've often found in my life is that that's the point in time where I start praying as much as I normally should.

That often God leads me to the end of my rope so that I'll finally realize I wasn't holding myself up on the rope.

Where in your life right now are you resisting the slow, painful labor of spiritual growth?

You know, you and I, we went the instant quick fix.

Like, don't tell me it's gonna take two years to lose all this, okay?

Give me the 30-day plan.

What do I gotta do?

Drink just water, nothing else for 30 days, I'll do it.

I'll lay in bed.

I ain't got no problem.

We love quick fixes.

The problem is that character that growing more like Christ.

The Bible says we you and I do it degree by degree.

And my saying has always been if you want to grow faster, add a lot of suffering into your life.

And then you can grow two degrees maybe in one year.

Maybe.

Are you willing to let people in the room groan and labor over you?

This has been a fascinating one for me.

People are really bad at accepting help.

I don't know if you know that or not.

I mean, just like awful.

Like you see somebody struggling with a box that's falling out of their hands and come over to help them.

Like, no, no, I got it, I got it.

You're like, you're about to get the floor.

Like, I don't know what we are doing here.

We tend to lack the capacity to let others help, and the church is no different.

I cannot tell you how many dozens of people I've had to look in the eyes on a Sunday morning and say, this is not a social club.

It's a hospital for sick and dying people.

It's okay to come in broken.

It's okay to act like life is not okay.

That's the point.

If a family can't be real in its house, it definitely won't be real outside.

And if you and I can't be authentic and real in here, we're not going to make much progress.

So do you have a tendency to put up a polished wall the moment that your spiritual messiness requires some attention?

Are you willing to be vulnerable and say, hey, here's all my garbage.

Here's where I'm at.

To someone who's further along in the faith.

I want the aim of your life to be that Christ is formed in you.

I don't want you to settle for being informed, having lots of information, and being unchanged.

I don't want you to settle for being affirmed and never corrected.

I don't want you to be active and doing lots of things, but uninformed.

The goal is not that you become impressive, the goal is that you become like Christ.

I want you to see that through this entire text, every motion of Paul's heart in this passage ends with a question mark.

He pleads and doesn't know if they're gonna listen because he writes this down and sends it off.

He remembers and the blessedness is already fading.

He discerns and cannot be sure they'll choose the true shepherd.

He groans and admits that he's at a loss.

Paul is a faithful under-shepherd, but human effort has its limits.

A human leader can be tuned out.

A human pastor can be unfollowed or ignored or blocked.

And human persuasion can fail to change a heart.

But the shepherd Paul is reflecting is not in this room.

Where Paul says, I am perplexed about you, Jesus Christ says, I know my own, and my own know me.

And no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Paul labored in hope that Christ would be formed in them, but Christ labored on a cross to guarantee it.

Your standing does not finally rest on a shepherd who might lose you, but on the shepherd who cannot.

I want you to bring your drifting, your backsliding, your fading joy, your half-formed, half-hearted obedience to him.

And I want you to let him finish forming Christ in you.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you that you are in control.

Thank you that you are the good shepherd.

And while we can see your shepherd's heart through Paul, Lord, we're able to see more importantly your perfection as our shepherd through Paul.

Thank you that our standing does not rest on our drifting or our backsliding, on our obedience that's impartial at best.

Lord, help us in our weakness to keep our eyes fixed on you.

And may you get all the glory and the honor and the praise in this place.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.