Set Free to Live Free - Until Christ is Formed in You - January 4, 2026

So in the mornings on the way to school, I've been listening to a

book called Be Your Future Self, and I've been listening to it

with my daughter who I'm taking to school and dropping off

there. And it's a fascinating study on

how to be your future self. So I'm wondering for you.

It's a great question as we come to 2026.

Are you being your future self? The the shocking question for

Mika when I asked her was Can you imagine yourself 20 years

from now? And she's like, Dad, I'm just

18. I, I think at 18 I would have

had a great difficulty myself imagining myself 20 years out.

The way I imagine myself now is I, I have 25 years out and

having built up a bit of discipline around it, I, I do

start to find it easier to push out and say, well, what do I

want? And if I want that, what does

this mean about today and who I am today?

Now for many of us as followers of Jesus, we sometimes miss that

a lot of the commands of Jesus actually press us to look

forward with our faith, to look forward with hope, to look

forward with love towards the kind of person we are becoming.

So we say it very simply, I want to become like Jesus, be like

Jesus. And so we we actually are

pressing forward with our future self and that really should help

us in some ways about making decisions because of the

decisions we make today actually do influence how we become our

future self. We've been studying the book of

Galatians and the book of Galatians is Paul's intervention

about the future self of the church in Galatia.

He is concerned because he recognizes they have come to a

crossroads, they have come to an intersection in the road where

if they choose one way, their future self as a church goes a

different way. But if they choose the other way

that he says is true to the gospel of Jesus, true to Jesus

himself, then they will go a completely different way.

As a church and as individuals, we're not used to thinking about

the future self of our church. And some of you really aren't

all that keyed in to your future self.

You're just hoping you graduate. I hope I graduate.

I hope this happens. But are you making the decisions

today that actually move you to be your future self now?

Are you thinking about yourself as a church and as participants

in a church that actually shape us for our future?

The answer is, is yes. Even if you're not doing that,

well, you are. But let's look at the Apostle

Paul's movement of where he gets really, really personal in his

movement towards the big ask. And we're going to talk about

his big ask next week. But he's being very careful as

he gets to that. And you know, what is the big

ask that some of you are hoping someone ask you?

It's like, will you marry me? That's a big ask.

Now Paul has a different big ask coming up, but he's moving

towards it with as much care as someone would take in asking

someone to marry them. He knows that what he's going to

ask them is going to be really difficult for them.

Being a follower of Jesus does not protect us from having to

make difficult decisions. In fact, it ushers us into them.

And so let's let's dive in here to Galatians chapter 4.

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

We're picking up in our series here at verse 8.

Paul says this formally. When you did not know God, you

were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.

But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is

it that you're turning back to those weak and miserable forces?

Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?

You are observing special days and months and seasons and

years. I fear for you that somehow I

have wasted my efforts on you. I plead with you, brothers and

sisters, become like me, for I became like you.

You did me no wrong. As you know, it was because of

an illness that I first preached the gospel to you.

And even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat

me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I

were an Angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself.

Where then is your blessing of me?

Now? I can testify that I if you

could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and

given them to me. Have I now become your enemy by

telling you the truth? Those people are zealous to win

you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate

you from us so that you may have zeal for them.

It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good,

and to be so always, not just when I am with you, my dear

children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth, until

Christ is formed in you. How I wish I could be with you

now and change my tone because I am perplexed about you.

You should recognize there some of Paul's very emotional sense,

but what he knows about them now is that they know God and

they're known by God. He's questioning a little bit

about, are you really keyed into knowing God?

But at least you know God are known by God because he knows

this is what brings them the greatest freedom in their lives.

That the greatest freedom in our lives comes when we know God and

are known by God. Our sense of truly being known

by God, but maybe not knowing God as well, started in the very

garden when Adam and Eve ate of that fruit and realized their

own sense of guilt, their own sense of shame, their own sense

of fear, and they ran to hide from God when he came to walk in

the garden. And God calls out to them, Hey,

Adam, where are you? Hey, you dust creature, that's

Adam. That's what his name means.

You dust creature, where are you?

I don't think God had lost them, but they had lost their sense of

God. The greatest freedom from guilt,

shame, and fear comes when we know we're known by God and that

we know God, that we know we're loved by God and love God, that

we delight in dwelling with God. So my personal prayer for 2026

is that I would dwell more deeply with God.

It sort of builds on our Christmas series that God

himself came to dwell in creation, to make creation his

home. In case you forgot it, you are

part of creation. You are an atom, a dust

creature, but you've been filled with a spirit, and so God would

make his home with you. This is my greatest prayer.

And but we know that that movement back into a dwelling

and life with God is actually a kind of exodus, and it's played

out in the scripture. But for Paul, he's envisioning a

new kind of exodus, a new kind of movement.

This is a review of the last sermon, which feels like it was

lots of weeks ago. But Paul sees that they have

been enslaved. He makes reference to it here.

Why are you wanting to go back and be enslaved again to these

miserable forces, these passions that control you?

Why do you want to be go back to slavery?

Because he's envisioning now that for every follower of Jesus

there is a new kind of exodus. This new exodus is from slavery

to redemption, where in redemption you experience your

adoption into the family of God, into the family of Christ.

And in that experience of adoption, it becomes real

because the Spirit of God is poured within you.

The Spirit of God is there to care for you, to communicate

with you, to guide you, to help you experience the love of God

so that you actually call out to God, ABBA Father.

And then having that experience, you now look forward to your

future self, your future inheritance and the fullness of

it. I'm not just experiencing the

Holy Spirit now in your life. You begin to experience the Holy

Spirit with the Son and the Father fully in creation that we

look forward to the new heaven and the new earth.

This is our new exodus. But they've come to a crossroads

in the now and not yet. They've come to a crossroads

because they want to go back into some kind of slavery.

He says, look formally, when you did not know God, you were

slaves to those who by nature are not gods.

He's saying for all of you, Jew and Gentile in the Galatian

context, whether you are an idol worshipper or not, you were

enslaved to those that were not gods.

Jesus spoke about this. He said some of you are enslaved

to mammon, to money. He treats money as if it's a

kind of power, a miserable power that must be mastered.

The only way to master it is to see that to yourself is the

throne room of God. Seek first his Kingdom and his

righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

So Paul's concerned they're they're at a point where they're

tempted to go back. He says, look, you're at a

turning point. You're turning back to those

weak and miserable forces. Do you wish to be enslaved by

them all over again? For the Jewish listener, they

would be thinking, oh, he's talking about Israel in the

wilderness, saying let's go back to Egypt, let's go back to the

way it was because at least we had Raisin cakes in Egypt.

We're starving out here in the desert.

Our life is more difficult now that we're trying to follow God

in the wilderness. What was happening in Galatia?

In Galatia there was a group of teachers, false teachers, Paul

would say, who've arrived and are telling them your experience

of Jesus is not enough. You need to become more Jewish.

In fact, you men in the group, you need to be circumcised and

submit to the Law of Moses in order to be a complete person.

Now Paul is doing an interesting thing because the Jewish

listener is going to be saying, well, what?

What kind of miserable forces are at work by being attached to

the law? Why is the law a bad thing here?

And you'll have to go back and follow his argument again.

But Paul is arguing that now in Christ they are free of the

constraints of the law, for the law was meant to pull them back

from idolatry. That was tempting them.

It wouldn't completely free them from the idols.

It wouldn't completely free them from a heart that's an idol

factory, but the law would remind them of this great

problem to which they were enslaved.

And so Paul is saying, I, I know this is a problem for you

because you've already started to observe special days and

months. Somehow the teachers that had

arrived there with them had said you need to start following the

holidays of the Jewish calendar in order to experience the

goodness of the law. He wasn't saying he wasn't

having a problem with celebrating somebody's birthday.

Happy birthday, you December babies.

We we didn't get to do that for you.

We'll pick you up at the end of January if you felt left out.

He wasn't actually condemning the celebration of the Passover,

but he was. He was saying that this kind of

movement is actually not necessary for you to be a

complete person in front of God. He's getting ready to make a

really big ask in their lives, but you can see he's emotional

here. Look, he says, I fear for you

that somehow I've wasted my efforts on you.

Isn't that the last thing you want to have a teacher say to

you? I mean, OK, Paul, you're really

getting close here to that line of where this is almost too

much. Do you want to have a coach say,

I fear I've wasted my efforts on you?

Do you want to have a parent say, I fear I've wasted my life

on you? I mean, Paul is getting really

close here to a desperate feeling, and he's starting to

pull it back. He's just been so reasonable all

along the way, and now he's pulling back the curtain on his

emotion. I think there's something for us

to learn about this, that Paul is venturing very carefully in

this great conflict. He knows that this is a high

stakes, high emotion conversation because it's a

conflict. It's high stakes and high

emotion. Have you ever been in one of

these, a high stakes? Like the implications of this

conversation are big, but you also felt great emotion just

approaching it. Your heart started going.

It felt like your heart had horses in it.

It was just going to gallop away.

I, I think just a little, a little pause here in the

theological movement here and, and let's look at how Paul

actually has a high stakes, high emotion.

It's not a conversation. It's a letter that's prompting a

conversation. But I think there's still

something for us to learn about it.

Let me see your hands. Do you think that between now

and December 31st that there's a chance you might actually have a

conflict with someone? Some of you are living in OK

there we're starting to see some of you recognized.

Oh, my goodness. Like do you think that there's a

high stakes, high emotion conversation you might need to

have and you already know it's there?

All right, let's just look a little closer at what Paul has.

I think it'll help us in 2026. He says, look, I plead with you,

brothers and sisters, become like me for I became like you.

You did me no wrong. As you know, it was because of

an illness that I first preached the gospel to you.

And even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat

me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I

were an Angel, as if Christ, as if I was Christ Jesus himself.

So he's recalling the foundation of their relationship.

He's recalling how the relationship started.

In fact, let's just look a little closer at what what he's

doing here. He's drawing out some of the

Greek concepts of friendship that were very common in the

culture. In fact, he's reaching into the

culture and saying I've been a friend to you and you've been a

friend to me. And so he he says, looking in

our friendship, we actually adjusted to each other.

We have a history of making adjustments.

He says, you did me no wrong. Isn't that a great friend?

You, you keep a friend around because they do you no wrong.

You keep a friend around because you deal with when things do go

wrong. And you enter into forgiveness

and you enter into that process. We'll talk about that a little

bit. But he's saying in general, I

move towards each other as we do each other.

No wrong. We've had welcome and

acceptance. There's been some hospitality

here. He says that look, there's been

honor. Now this is where he moves not

from the he moves a bit away from the Greek sense to say

honor in relationships. But here he says, look, you

honored me as if I was an Angel, a messenger.

In fact, you honored me as if I was Christ Jesus himself.

And this reaches back into that gospel tradition that was

already there in the presence of Jesus, who said, if you welcome,

if people welcome you in the future as if they're welcoming

me. And so he says, look, we've had

that. We've had that kind of honor

with each other. Maybe you're at this point

going, my friendships are nothing like this.

Maybe you're already going. I'm going to pray for deeper

friendships in 2026. I'm going to pray that I'm a

deeper kind of friend to other people in 2026.

Instead of trying to make everybody adjust to me, I'm

going to adjust to them. Instead of waiting for someone

to welcome me, I'm going to welcome them.

Instead of waiting to holding out on somebody saying, you

know, can I trust you? Can I trust you?

I'm actually going to start to trust you that you'll do me no

wrong. This is how you make friends.

You take this posture with people and you say I'm going to

honor you in Philippians 2, Paul says it this way.

Take interest in the interest of others, not only about your own

interests. Treat them as if they're of

great or worse than you than you are yourself.

This is how we make friends. Now he goes on.

And he says, look, you've been a blessing to me.

You blessed me. You didn't curse me, he said.

And and this is really important even for the Gentiles there,

because this was the Abrahamic move to say that while you

blessed me, you didn't curse me. And they actually seek to be a

blessing to others. And then he says, look, there's

sacrificial service. He says I was sick.

We don't know what the sickness was, something he was just

sickly. Some, some think it was his

eyes, 'cause he goes on to talk about eyes, that he was sort of

having some kind of blindness and infection and problem with

his eyes. Some say he was actually beaten

up, that he showed up there suffering because he had been

beaten up, having shared the gospel with others who stoned

him and threw him out. But nonetheless, Paul says I was

a burden on you and you served me.

There was sacrificial service. This is how we build friends and

keep friends. But here's the final thing.

And this is where he's having to really press in on them.

He says, look, am I now an enemy?

Because I'm telling you the truth.

And this becomes a test in friendship.

Sometimes our friends are not willing and ready to hear the

truth that we know. You know, there's always a part

of me that I don't know about myself, and that's always a

dangerous part. But it's my friendships and

relationships with others that helps me see it.

And that's a good thing. There's real danger when there's

something about me that I don't know and that they don't know.

That's a a shadow lurking in the dark, ready to consume me.

And so it's in our friendships that we actually do need truth

telling. And truth telling has to be done

really carefully. And Paul has been working this

with a sense of argument in his letters to get to this point of

truth telling. He's been doing it really

careful. But there has to be a movement

in friendships if they're truly going to go deeper where truth

telling is possible. In fact, you will find that it's

a small circle of people that you allow the the right to tell

you the truth. I know some of you are going if

you're married, if she asks, is my hair OK?

What's the right answer? Does this dress look good on me?

What's the right answer if if the guy says, hey, did you do

you think I did a good job? Was this a good meal that I

cooked? And you're like, wow, you

haven't ever cooked. What do I say?

And so you're wondering about that level of truth telling, but

there's another level of truth telling that's really, really

important to have relationships. And sometimes it takes you

learning how to do it. And sometimes you may say, hey,

that didn't go well. I didn't, I didn't do that very

well. Can I have a do over?

I could have said that better. I think Paul is really pressing

in on reminding them of their elements of friendship that

they've had because he's headed towards telling them the truth

and the truth that's going to require an action that's

difficult. Moving on.

I just want to touch how he revealed some things about

himself in his relationship with them and his conflict.

He's he reveals his sense of urgency.

He's look, I know I'm pleading with you.

I'm begging with you, he, he's just said it out loud and then

he says become like me and his his meaning here for become like

me is be be like. I am Jewish in relation to

Christ. It's not the biggest thing in my

life. In fact, I've lowered the level

of Jewishness in my life at the foot of the cross, he says.

I'm crucified with Christ now. He would also identify the

tension they're feeling. He has some empathy for them, he

says. Those people want to alienate

you from us. In fact, what they were

experiencing is that this group of people had arrived such that

the false teachers had influenced the Jewish Christians

in this to begin to exclude the Gentiles who were not

circumcised yet. And so in that sense of

exclusion and pushing them out, they were creating a kind of

social anxiety that says, well, I want to fit in.

Sure, give me the cut so that I can fit in.

You know, if you had a group of friends who all got a tattoo of

the Maple Leaf on the back of their knee and, and they said,

you know, we're, we're, we're the group who has the Maple Leaf

on the back of our knee. And if you're going to be in

this group, you got to get it. Well, would you sign up for

that? Depends on how badly you wanted

to be in the group. And so this sense of alienation

and social exclusion and you got to cut off these people in your

life. So you can have this group of

people in your life was tied to this whole sense of, and in that

way, you can be whole with God. You can be a complete person in

front of God. But he also revealed his

vulnerability. He says, I wish I could be with

you now and change my tone. So he recognizes the danger of

texting. He recognizes the danger of

e-mail. He recognizes the danger of

sending a letter with another reader is that this is a

vulnerable position. I wish I could be with you so I

could change my tone because I'm perplexed about you.

He's saying I don't get you. I'm not understanding you.

I don't understand why you've turned your back on the greatest

treasure of your life of knowing Jesus and the fullness of the

power of the Spirit. And so you know the love of God.

He says, I don't understand it. I'm perplexed about you.

So note in his care and conflict, he reveals his

urgency. He identifies with their

tension, but he also reveals his own vulnerability.

This is Paul's giving a master class at the same time on how to

do conflict in his letter. And then let's really look at

the stake. What's at stake?

This is what he's been working on all the way through the

letter of Galatians, that what's at stake is their status as

heirs of Abraham's family. It's been cast in doubt.

Maybe you're not really heirs to Abraham and part of the family

of God. The second thing that's at stake

is their freedom in Christ has been been put at stake because

if the men sign up to go get circumcised, they're actually

going to put themselves under the authority of this synagogue.

They're going to have to come in and be under the discipline of

the synagogue. They're after going to come in

and be taught by the synagogue on how to be Jewish.

And so he's recognizing that there's a loss of freedom in

this. And then third, he recognizes

that their confession, Jesus is Lord would be compromised

because in Galatia, the Jewish people had taken shelter under

Rome with the Roman exception that, you know, sure, Caesar

says Lord, but we don't really have to say that because, you

know, we get Jewish exception. And what he's saying now that if

you follow that route, you're going to have to put yourself

under this legal status with Rome where Caesar is Lord.

And he wanted them to think very careful about the political

implications of that move and their allegiance to Christ.

See, being Christian does have social and political

implications and he wants them to be very careful about it.

That's why he's going to make such a big ask.

So this is what at stake that that he even sees the gospel of

Jesus at stake here. No wonder he was emotional.

Now he's really concerned. He says ultimately that Christ

is formed with them. He says I'm in the pains of

childbirth. Notice what he says.

He says, my dear children, for whom I'm again in the pains of

childbirth until Christ is formed with you, how I wish I

could be with you. He says that he was like a

pregnant woman giving birth to a child.

You know, it's really interesting.

He moves from calling them brothers and sisters now to

calling them my dear children. He says, I'm going to show you

my parent heart. I'm going to show you my father

heart for you. I'm in the pains and the agony

of childbirth. Have you been there and have you

been there at childbirth? Have you seen or observed

someone else? Do you know?

In university, I signed up for a class on early child development

from conception to age 2. I was the only guy in the class.

It was a little embarrassing, but wow, it was amazing.

The development of a child in the womb is incredible.

Childbirth was shocking. I had to learn how to deliver a

baby. Theoretically I could do it, but

on the 1st occasion of having to be there, I almost passed out.

And Paul says I'm in this kind of agony until Christ is formed

in you. This is the parent heart.

This is the heart to which every one of us is called to through

the Great Commission. That in the Great Commission

you're called to have this longing for the formation of

Christ in other people, in yourself, in your children, in

the people you coach or mentor or lead, in your friends, in

your coworkers, in your neighbors, that the presence and

person of Christ would be formed in their heart and life.

This is to be the agony into which you enter.

This is the agony into which the church is called to enter.

That we would agonize and labor that each of us would become

more like Jesus. And so we say this about our

mission as a church. This is so good to remind us as

we come into 2026, one more, one more, that we are joyfully

investing relationships to spark a life journey with Jesus.

What happens in a life journey with Jesus?

We get to know Jesus, we become like Jesus, and we join Jesus in

his mission. This is our simple understanding

as a church about our labor, our agony, and being in the pains of

childbirth is that we would help each other become more like

Jesus. Some of us do it in official

roles. We have a hat that we have to

put on. Others of us do it simply

because we're under the Commission of Jesus.

And so we always try to find at least one friend in our life

that we're praying for, talking with, studying the Bible with,

inviting into our lives to talk about our life with Jesus

together. Do you have a friend like that?

Are you a friend like that? My prayer for you in 2026 is

that you would be that kind of friend, that this confession of

Paul would be yours that you'd like.

I'm in agony because I'm watching my friend and they're

just not getting it. I'm perplexed about how this

part of the life of Jesus could be worked out in their life.

And do you have a friend like that who's concerned for you?

We call them life groups, Bible studies, mentor groups.

Whatever you want to do, you need to find some kind of group

and community that cares for you like that.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, We have so much

in this little text today. And for some of us, we begin to

see that we want to go deeper with Jesus this year.

For some of us, maybe we see we want to be a better friend.

And for some of us, we need to take that next step of

intentional interest in the Christian development of another

person. So I pray that you would guide

us as your church as we move forward into this year.

I pray that as we come to the table of Jesus that we would

understand the agony of Jesus for his creation and for people

that to enter into this intentionality is to sometimes

enter into messy, honest conversations that we enter into

a kind of suffering, but we also enter into a greater joy as we

see other people thrive in their life with Christ.

Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are seated and sometimes

standing at the right hand of the Father looking at us and

longing for us. So you've given us your Spirit

and you give fully without restraint.

And so we say, come Holy Spirit, come help us envision our future

selves, a future self with you. Help us recognize when we come

to a crossroads and need to make a very careful and different

decision. Let's stand together.