Guardian

Uh I want to say a special welcome to all the the fathers, everybody watching online, and uh so glad to be able to share these moments.

It's an honor to share with my dad.

My dad's uh right down here on the front row and grateful.

Um my dad's given me a lot of life lessons.

There's three in particular I want to just honor him for today.

One is unconditional love.

I talk to people all the time who say, you know, I was never told I was loved.

And I think sometimes people uh maybe aren't the best communicators of verbally, but a lot of times if we look closely, we see that they were showing love.

Uh maybe even if they didn't express it.

But I'm one of the fortunate ones who uh had a father that both told me he loved me and showed me that he loved me.

And I've never wondered that.

I'm so grateful.

It set me up for success uh throughout life.

And uh I have full confidence if I totally made a mess of my life and everybody abandoned me, I know I'd look up and there'd be one there, it'd be my dad.

He would not leave me.

And it kind of really set me up for success, even uh in my view of God, because by the time I got around to being able to cognitively understand a God that will never leave us or forsake us and that loves us unconditionally, uh, I was like, yeah, I I that's kind of like my dad.

And so I'm thankful for that.

Uh the second thing is my dad is sincere.

Uh whatever he does, he does with his whole heart, and whoever's in front of him is the most important person in the world.

And I saw him do that day upon day, year upon year, and uh it made a huge impact on me and how I think.

And I'm thankful for the the nurture that came from that and learning uh that and his sincerity.

Anybody who's ever come in contact with my dad knows he he's he's really about what he's about, and I'm thankful for that.

The third thing is uh his support, and he's supported me in a million ways throughout my life, but uh probably the most significant was just being present, showing up, you know, and he he came to every game he could come to.

If he could, he would be there.

And I knew he was there because I could hear him yelling at the refs.

I remember I would tell my mom, like, mom, can you ask dad to, you know, pipe down a little bit?

She's like, Greg, you're out there running on the court or the field or whatever, and you've got all this, you're expending all this energy.

Your dad's feeling all the same feelings you're feeling.

He's just sitting in a seat.

So I'm not gonna tell him to pipe down.

You just buck up and go play, you know.

And uh, but I'm just so thankful for that support.

And uh, Dad, I love you, man.

Happy Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day.

Uh if you have your Bibles, let's go to uh Galatians 3.

We're gonna take a few minutes here to uh look at Galatians.

We're in a series of messages where we're spending uh a few weeks here, I think seven or seven weeks in the book of Galatians, and um uh we're gonna be in Galatians 3.

We're gonna start in verse 23.

Let me give a little bit of background before we start reading, is uh it's always good to get some context.

You know, we use a framework around here that we've really this year when we started the cover to cover, we talked about three elements of the Bible.

The Bible is literature, the Bible is history, and the Bible as theology.

And that's important to know because I've heard people say from time to time, you know, and I think they mean well, but they just say, yeah, you know, you don't need to study it too deeply.

You just read the Bible and do what it says.

And uh, yeah, there may be some times that there's something that's written in the Bible that's that's self-evident in terms of the answer, but uh think about how you would want someone to handle something you say.

If you said something and you had uh you were using exaggeration for the point of emphasis, you were using hyperbole or you were using a colloquialism or you were using some figure of speech, you wouldn't want someone to say, but you said, you're like, come on now, you knew the point I was making.

So I would I don't want to be misinterpreted, misunderstood any more than you do, any more than the biblical authors do.

And so this is where we do our best to go understand those literary elements to understand what's happening in the culture historically, and I think that's the best way that we honor the one of the best ways we honor the Bible is to do that work so that then now the point sometimes shifts and changes when we know these things.

Uh, but often it comes to light in a powerful way.

So that's what we're wanting to do.

So we're doing that with Galatians.

Today we're gonna do that uh um in one particular word, but as a little bit of background, so the book of Galatians is uh one of the churches that Paul wrote uh or that he planted in the book of Acts.

He uh planted churches all over the Mediterranean rim.

And when you think about a church, don't necessarily think of this context where you have somebody on a stage and a crowd that gathers.

They had smaller gatherings, and it was a when you when he wrote to the Galatians, he's writing to the believers of that region.

And these are people that Paul was really, really familiar with.

He had he had had not only a quantity of time with these people, but he had had some quality time with these people.

And because of that, uh Paul is able to sort of talk to them in a way that's familiar.

Uh, we know what's happening uh again historically.

This book is written in the 50s, first century, uh around the 50s, sometime in the 50s.

And um, when it was written, what you have is Christianity is really considered a sect of Judaism.

So this is before the destruction of the temple.

This is before the intense persecution from the Roman government.

Um, but you have now the the biggest conflict that they're having is they now have a group of people coming together as we'll call it a religious community, what Jesus calls the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God.

And now the gospel or the good news is going throughout the world.

And the gospel, as we know, we talk about all the time, was more than just an announcement or was more than just uh something you're supposed to know or believe.

It's something that's actually supposed to come to life in the body of Christ or in community.

And so uh what we have here is now a collision of cultures because you have people who are now sharing space, sharing life, and even worshiping together, who have very different culture, cultural beliefs, and cultural backgrounds.

And that can be quite confusing because here's what we know if you've been around a variety of cultures, you know sometimes there are people in different cultures that share values, but the cultural expression of that is confusing to one another.

Something you do uh as an act of honor in your culture could be perceived as an act of dishonor to in another culture.

And the irony is we might actually share a value, but it just expresses differently in cultures and subcultures.

So this is the collision that's taking place in the 50s in Galatia, and Paul is writing, trying to help them to be careful to not draw the wrong line in the wrong sand, and to cost themselves unity and harmony, and to see now their differences as actually an advantage, but to be able to find a way to do that in a way where people can work through their own consciences.

And so he's helping them reframe the law, which again would be the Torah, not only the Ten Commandments, but the uh Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, 613 laws of the Old Testament.

He's trying to help them think properly about that.

So here's what he says: Galatians 3, 23.

He says, before the way of faith in Christ was available to us, we were placed under guard by the law.

So in these three verses, he's gonna give two metaphors of how you should, how they he wanted them to rethink the law.

So the first one is he uses sort of a negative one, and then he's gonna use a positive one, but he says, yeah, it's like being under guard.

It's like being in protective custody.

He says, we were kept in protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed.

Now here's where we're gonna really focus ourselves.

Verse 24.

He says, let me put it another way.

The law was our guardian until Christ came.

It protected us until we could be made right with God through faith.

And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian.

All right, this is one, if you do just read it in English, you see guardian twice.

You see it in 24 and 25.

He says guardian, and that doesn't mean anything to us.

Well, guardian, okay, that's not a significant thing in our world.

But in their world, okay, guardian, okay, was the word pedagogue.

And a pedagogue was a role that a person would play in a family.

So, especially in wealthy families or elite families, the father of the home would hire a male pedagogue.

And the pedagogue, it was their job to essentially help him raise his sons.

So when we hear, if you are in the educational space, if you're an educator, you've heard of pedagogy, we would think of, um, you would think of essentially how you educate someone.

And you think not only of the information, but understanding each person's learning style so that we can not only get this in their head, we can get in their heart, and we and drive the learning deeper.

In their context, it wasn't just a tutor or someone that would teach you.

This was an employee of the family that the father would hire, and and here's what they would do.

One, they would help the uh boys get to and from school.

Two, they were to keep them safe in public.

So if the father, the father's traveling on business and the father is out doing what he's doing in his career, his job, okay, uh, he's not home.

And so he wanted a male in there to be there to protect them.

But then the third was to make them behave.

And so the pedagogue was it was expected that you would be strict.

It was expected that you would be stern.

And the father would essentially train the pedagogue, would say, here's our family rules.

All right, so here are the rules, and this is how I want my sons trained.

And listen, look at me.

Don't take any bull off these dudes.

If these young guys try to act up, you drop the hammer on them.

And he would give parameters of consequences and punishments that they were allowed to give.

And he would tell his sons, this is the guy that's going to be with you.

I'll be with you some, but I need I need a male presence here when I'm not here, and so I've hired this guy to be the pedagogue.

And so it was it was very much understood that the pedagogue was expected to be strict.

And this this was a temporary structure that was set up.

It was between when a boy turned from about six years old to about 17 years old, they would have a pedagogue.

All right?

And so uh this is uh again part of that culture.

So when they say guardian, it comes from the word pedagogue, and this this is the imagery that's gonna come to their mind.

Let's bring this to life for us.

Let's say it was this was still a thing, and and and you have you you got uh we'll say three sons, and you hire me to work for you, and I'm your pedagogue uh for your kids, and and we work it out, and so this is what I say to your sons.

I say, okay, listen, I'm in charge uh uh for 11 years, and so you're gonna do what I say, and I am gonna be strict, and I'm not gonna give you choice, but I'm gonna talk you through the daily schedule, and I want you to pay close attention to two things.

One, what we do, and two, even more important, why we do it.

We're gonna constantly connect those two dots, not just what we do, but why we do it, because someday my time's gonna be done and I and and I'm gonna be gone.

And you're gonna need to be able to figure out what to do, more importantly, why you're doing what you do.

Because some of the what might change in your life, but the why will not change.

So I'm gonna drive the why deep into your heart.

And so for 11 years, you're not gonna have choice.

You're gonna do what I tell you to do.

So here we go.

This is what we're doing.

Everybody get out your pen and paper and and and write this down.

And don't worry if you don't get it the first day, because we're gonna do it for 11 years.

All right, so you're gonna get it, trust me.

All right, at 6 a.m., you're gonna wake up.

I'm gonna wake you up at 6 a.m.

And before you open your eyes, I want you to lay there with your eyes closed, and I want you, when you come into consciousness, I want you to thank God for another day.

I just woke up into another day, thank you, God.

And then I want you to dedicate the day to Him, because we don't know everything that's gonna happen today, but good, bad, win, lose, or draw, Lord, this is your day.

I give this to you.

And then ask him for the strength to be able to work through and the wisdom to be able to decide of your decisions and your actions for the day.

Then I want you to open up your eyes and you have five minutes to brush your teeth and get your clothes on and meet me down in the workout facility.

And at 6.05, we are going to do a 35-minute workout and you're going to stretch and do weight training.

And when you stretch, you're gonna stretch your body, but we're gonna be reminded that we're not just stretching our muscles, we're being prepared to be flexible emotionally, mentally, relationally, because life sometimes changes directions on you, and I don't want you pulling an emotional hammy.

All right, so we're gonna stretch the hammies today, we're gonna stretch the quads, we're gonna stretch it all out, we're gonna become physically flexible, but we're also gonna think about being emotionally flexible, mentally flexible.

And we're gonna build strength because a lot of times in life, weight gets heaped on you, and you're gonna have to be able to carry it.

So we're gonna be able to physically carry it, and in every way, we're gonna build flexibility and strength for 35 minutes.

After that, uh, you take a shower and get ready, groom and get dressed at 6:40.

7.15, you meet me at the breakfast table.

7.15 sharp.

Don't be late.

You got 30 minutes to eat breakfast.

I'm gonna give you 15 minutes that you eat while I talk.

And while you eat, I'm gonna talk to you about our family values.

And I'm gonna give you the information.

15 minutes after 15 minutes, I'm gonna take a seat at the table.

And if you want to, you can sit there in 15 minutes of silence and eat and think about everything I just said.

But if you have any questions and you want to process verbally and externally, I'll be here and we can dialogue, but you don't have to, it's up to you.

After that, I'm gonna walk you to school.

It'll take 15 minutes to get there, and now at 8 o'clock, you're gonna begin school.

Now, here's three things you need to think about at school.

Number one, you're gonna come up on some subjects you're terrible at.

You're gonna hate them.

And you're gonna have a sense internally that this is stupid that I'm doing this subject, because there's no way I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life.

It's gonna feel like a huge waste of time, but it's not a waste of time.

It's an opportunity for you to get a rep at being mentally tough and emotionally resilient because you're gonna be asked to deal with a lot of things in life you're not any good at.

And so you're you're gonna not ask for it, but you're asked to deal with it.

So all throughout life, we're gonna find ourselves in situations that we don't want to be in, and you have to be able to fight your way out.

And so you're gonna start doing that now at six years old when you go to school and you hate this subject, and it's really hard for you, and it's not a waste.

Whether you use it the rest of your life or not, resilience, you're gonna start building that now.

Now, the other thing is you'll have areas that you're really talented and gifted.

It comes to you naturally, easily.

Yeah, that's where you got to really focus because those areas are where you're gonna make your contribution to the world.

You're gonna serve God and serve the world.

And by the way, the reason you're good at those things is because God gave you gifts.

And the way we give our gifts back to God is by taking talents and turning them into skills and then being able to serve with them.

So that's what you're gonna work on.

The third area of school is the community.

And you're gonna be a citizen of a community all your life, so you're gonna now get some reps of learning how to be in the community.

When you're in the community, a couple things are gonna happen.

Sometimes you just need to fit in.

You need to blend in and just be a citizen in the community.

Other times you're gonna need to stand out.

How do we know the difference between when we blend in, when we fit in, and when we stand out?

Our family values will tell us when it's time to just be a citizen and when it's time to stand out and be an outlier to be a leader.

We'll know when is the right time to do that.

So make sure you listen at breakfast.

When you get off of school at 3 o'clock, everybody's gonna be pumped because the bell rang and the day's over.

But for you, what you're about to do is lock in and finish all your projects and assignments and homework right now because we're not gonna develop the habit of procrastination.

We're gonna knock it down.

We're already into it.

Let's just do it while we're here because I'm not gonna want to do it tonight at 8 p.m.

We're not gonna put it off, we're gonna do it right now.

So from three to four, you're gonna finish your assignments and projects.

And at four is recreation.

Recreation.

Which means guess what you're gonna do?

Whatever the heck you want to do.

If you want to go for a walk, go for a walk.

You want to climb a tree, climb a tree.

You want to go swimming, cool.

You want to rock in a rocking chair, you want to write a song, you want to sing a song, you want to learn an instrument, you wanna play a video game.

I don't care.

You play a sport, all right?

Do whatever you want to do.

Read a book, write a book, write a poem, pick your nose, tick toe through the tulips.

I don't care.

You do whatever you want to do.

That's your hour to recreate and just to do something creative.

And and and okay, so that's from four to five.

At five, we're gonna do chores.

And at five, all of us are gonna start in our own rooms so that we don't forget that before we go clean up all the messes out there, I gotta clean up the messes in here.

So you're gonna start in your room and you're gonna clean it up.

It shouldn't be too dirty because you cleaned it yesterday.

And so we're gonna start in our own rooms, and once we've done that now, as a family, we're gonna start serving together.

And some of us will clean up inside, and some of us will clean up outside, and some of us will start making dinner, but we're all going to serve, we're starting our own space, and then we're gonna serve as a family with our brothers and sisters and our parents.

And then at six o'clock, we're gonna sit down for dinner, and for an hour and a half, we're gonna be a family.

We're going to bond, we're gonna laugh, we're gonna tell stories, we're gonna tell jokes, we're gonna appreciate each other's personalities, we're just gonna have family time.

Everything else is blocked out, nothing is happening out in the world other than what's happening at this table.

We're just gonna be present and connect with each other till 7:30.

At 7:30, you're gonna go do a cleaning ritual because you got some stuff on you today.

You worked out, you worked, you you you were outside, you were okay, you got bacteria and dirt on you, you're gonna go clean up.

And when you're physically cleaning up at 7:30, I want you to clean your heart too.

So if you need to repent of anything, let's not put it off till tomorrow.

Just repent right here.

Just get your heart right with God.

Receive his grace.

And as your body's physically being clean, let your heart be clean too.

And after that, it's eight o'clock, we're gonna prepare for the next day.

So we're gonna lay out our clothes so that we're we're already ready for the day.

We're going to um uh look at our schedule so that we're not caught off guard by the things we already know are coming tomorrow.

And then at 8:30, you're gonna lay in your bed and pray and meditate.

So here's what it looks like.

I'm gonna start the same way.

I'm gonna close my eyes, I'm gonna thank God for another day.

And then I'm gonna start thinking about what Genesis 1 teaches us, which is that the day begins at night.

So there was night and there is morning.

Evening and morning, which means my first act, not my last act, but my first act of every day is to go to sleep.

And in a catatonic state, I start my day.

That means I don't start my day with productivity.

I don't start my day with work.

I'm actually starting my day when I go to sleep.

And it's in that state where I'm not even productive, but then I'm loved unconditionally by God.

So I want you to feel that peace when you go to sleep, and then I'll see you at 6 a.m.

That's Monday through Friday for 11 years.

I'm not giving you a choice.

This is what we're doing.

Oh, Saturday?

What are we doing with that?

Good question.

We serve the community.

Why?

Because it's not all about us.

We'll do some things in our home, but we're gonna go out and serve the community.

On Sunday, we do three things we worship, we play, and we rest.

And it's not a perfect pie chart.

One, one, and one.

Sometimes we'll play more than we rest, sometimes we'll rest more than we play, but we'll always worship.

So we worship, we rest, and we play.

But also throughout the year, we're gonna have uh holidays.

And the holidays are designed to help us remember things we don't ever want to forget, things that happened long before we got here.

And so we're going to look back at history and we're gonna celebrate those holidays with very specific rituals.

I'll explain those as they come.

Last thing is, twice a year, we're gonna take vacation.

We're gonna go for two weeks at a time, and we're gonna look in awe at God's creation.

We're gonna see the mountains, we're gonna see the waters and the ocean, we're gonna see the sand and the desert, and we're just gonna be blown away at the greatness of what God has done in this world.

And we're gonna go visit other cultures, and we're gonna see the beautiful variety of what God has created in this earth, and so we're gonna build memories as a family, and it's gonna build hope.

It's gonna build hope and anticipation because sometimes that Monday through Friday rigorous schedule will be a grind, and you'll go, you know what, in a few weeks we're gonna be going on a trip to see something and to be have our souls restored.

Okay, now from six to seventeen, the pedagogue gives you the law, it gives you the rules given by the father, the authority of the father, to implement punishment if anybody doesn't want to abide by the rules.

What happens at 17?

At 17, there is a ceremony, a ritual called dias virilis.

Which is Latin for the day of manhood.

The day of manhood.

This is a coming of age, it's a rite of passage.

And what happens?

Happens in the ceremony at the Diaz Verillis, and by the way, the Diaz Virillis in terms of scheduling is up to the father.

So the father might have a 15-year-old son.

So it's usually between 14 and 17.

You might have a 15-year-old son who he's like, he's got it.

He's got it.

He's picking it up.

He understands what he's doing.

He's getting the what and the why all at the same time.

I see his character being shaped, his attitude, he's wise beyond his years.

I'm gonna have the dias virillus when he's 15, or it could be as late as 17.

At 17, at the dias virillus, there are there are very specific rituals.

So the first is that the young man gives up his childish toga.

So he gives up his garb and he exchanges that for what's called a toga virillus.

In other words, the garment of a man.

So all when he was going through town or going through the forum or going through the community, he was dressed as a child.

When he puts on at the dias Virillus, he puts on the toga of a man.

And so now this again is even visibly, this is how I'm presenting myself in the world.

The next is his father takes him and he goes and has uh uh registers for the census.

In other words, I'm I'm an adult now, and so now he's counted as an individual citizen.

His father, uh, depending on his position, would introduce him in the forum.

The young man now is able to speak in the forum for himself.

He's able to make arguments in court for himself, not hiding behind his father.

But then the fourth thing that's huge is that now the guardian or the pedagogue, the authority of the pedagogue is removed.

And so now this person that my father had given temporary authority to make me behave has been removed.

Now, this is very important.

You say, okay, the guy's free now.

Free to do what?

Whatever, whatever you want to do.

The removal of the pedagogue was not now uh introducing a season of lawlessness.

The removal of the pedagogue was an upgrade of the relationship between the father and son.

As you were maturing, most of your maturity is not counterintuitive.

You we have to take the wisdom of all creation and the wisdom that God has given us and to train us to do things I wouldn't necessarily do.

Some of you had nobody train you to do anything, and you've had to learn from the school of hard knocks, and you find yourself learning things in your 30s, you're like, you know, that would have been nice at 12.

You know, I had to figure it out the hard way.

I wish I would have had a pedagogue.

So he's saying that the law of God was designed to give us order to help us understand both the what and the why, but when you get to the place of maturity, now the pedagogue is removed.

And when the pedagogue is removed, I don't just become lawless.

You wouldn't go, you know, that was awful for 11 years that I learned discipline and I learned uh good habits and I learned how to uh be healthy in every way, and I learned uh what to do with my weaknesses, and I learned how to respond to my strengths, and I learned how to be a good citizen.

I bonded with my family and I learned recreation, you know.

Now I'm just gonna go completely throw that out the window.

No, of course you wouldn't.

But what you would have now would be the freedom to be able to take the law and the lessons that you learned and to now be able to adapt them to a new context.

And now that the pedagogue has been removed, you now have direct connection to your father.

We are now entering into a new season.

In fact, if you'd have been like a 10-year-old boy, you know, this pedagogue, as much as you know what he's teaching you is good for you, you long for the day of the Dius Virilis, where he's out of the way and I can work right next to my father.

So what Paul is saying here in Galatians is he's saying, look, guys, the law had its place.

The law was good, it taught us some good things.

But do you understand?

Don't freak out because now that um you've been holding to the letter of the law, and we're talking about now the way of Christ has come.

Christ didn't take the law and abolish it, he fulfilled it, and he's actually giving you direct access to the Father.

You have an upgraded relationship with your heavenly father.

You getting this?

Let's go back and reread what we already read, and then we'll take it a step further.

So Galatians 3.23, uh let's go 24.

Galatians 3.24, let's reread this.

He says, let me put it another way.

The law was our guardian, was our pedagogue until Christ came.

What is Christ?

When Christ came, it was like the dius virilis.

It was like now this rite of passage, and now it's a new season.

He says, it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith.

And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian.

Look at verse 26.

He says, For we are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, and all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ.

Look at this, like putting on new clothes.

It's like the toga virillis.

It's like he says, these new adult clothes we put on, it's like putting on Christ.

And now stepping into this new season where we don't neglect the rules that we learned, we don't throw all of that by the wayside.

He says, but now we have direct access to God.

He says, there's no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female.

In other words, a lot of what they would have thought was, okay, this applies to you know boys of elite families.

He's saying, no, actually the barrier's been removed, whether or not you're Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female.

He said, for you're all one in Christ Jesus.

We're all part of the same family.

And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham.

You are his heirs, and God's promise to Abraham now belongs to you.

So here's how, this is again what the law teaches us, and how we need to think about it in the new covenant.

Again, on the on the back end of Jesus coming, ushering in a new covenant, and now being uh having access to God through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Three things I want you to think through.

The first thing is this with the law, we internalize the lesson.

Internalize the lesson.

Again, when I was kind of giving you that example of what this might look like in our context, I went not only to what we do, here's why we wake up like this, here's why we do this before we open our eyes, here's why we stretch and and train.

It's not only what we do, but why we do it.

And so this is important.

And by the way, as we start, as we're thinking about application, some of us in this room, you may look and say, Greg, you know, that whole pedagogue thing you put up there, man.

I really I didn't have anything like that.

I really kind of was on my own.

In fact, this is embarrassing to admit, but here I am in my 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, really trying to learn and establish some things I probably should have established long ago.

Maybe as a child, maybe as a teen.

And yet when I was a teen, I I didn't have this sort of the proper pedagogue.

I didn't have the proper boundary that I didn't have the strict enforcer to help me to get this stuff.

And so it's just a good, honest take to have the courage to, without shame, just admit where you are.

And to go, you know, I probably honestly need to go back and learn how to do relationships.

I need to learn how to think about and manage my money.

I need to learn how to have intimacy in a marriage.

I I need to learn how to do conflict.

I I tend to kind of mess it up.

I tend to blow it up.

Uh I I need to figure out how I'm supposed to think about authority on both sides.

I've I've got to figure this.

There's a lot of foundational stuff that I don't know about even my own self-worth.

I uh even though I'm 40, I find myself acting like a 13-year-old sometimes.

It's embarrassing.

But but I feel out of control sometimes.

I my my my discipline isn't so good.

I my I find myself insecure, even questioning my identity.

I'm if I'm being honest, I don't really know who I am.

I'm trying to figure out who I am right now.

I'm it's embarrassing.

I don't want to admit it, but today I'm going to admit it.

I'm going to look internally and without shame.

I'm going to be honest about the fact I need to establish, need to establish some things, some internalized learning.

Like what am I supposed to do and and why?

By the way, this is not anything you need to feel bad about.

I think this is often confusing.

You see it in Matthew 15 when the Pharisees, these people who were really highly educated, highly accomplished, they would have seen as the been seen as the most pious, most mature.

They come to Jesus and they're getting all up in his face about a hand washing ritual.

It's like going back to the pedagogue, you know, and saying, hey, you guys don't brush your teeth at exactly 6.05.

They come to Jesus about a specific hand washing ritual, and Jesus is like, you think God is that rigid?

You have the what down and you've missed the why.

And he undoes, I mean, he really put puts them through it.

If you go read it in Matthew 15, he goes and puts it right in their face of about, look, you guys, you guys think that you're gonna please God by just getting all the what right.

And he's like, you don't understand, you've made your whole life about the what, the whole time miss the why.

So look, the reality is life isn't perfect.

Some of our families were functional, some were dysfunctional, somewhere we're on the spectrum.

Wherever you're at, go back and go look at the what and the why.

Really get the why.

Because the what will change sometimes.

The schedule will move around sometimes, the context will be different sometimes.

Let's get the why.

Internalize the lesson.

The second are habits and disciplines.

Habits and disciplines.

If you did 11 years with the pedagogue, you would have some serious habits and disciplines.

And frankly, friend, I just want to say it with all respect.

Nobody graduates the fundamentals.

Nobody.

It doesn't matter if you're 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 130.

I don't care how old you are.

Nobody, habits and disciplines don't say, oh, oh, oh, you graduated.

Oh, you're you're old enough, you don't have to do that anymore.

If you don't get the habit right and the discipline right, you pay the price.

Often we come into church and sometimes there'll be something that's said or something the Holy Spirit shows us that we've never seen before.

And we walk out and go, man, I've never seen that, I've never thought of it like that.

And then often we walk out and it's like, you know, I've known that, but I lost sight of it.

Sometimes we learn new information and sometimes it's about recalibration.

I already knew that.

I already had that lesson, but I lost sight of it.

And when I start having the habit slip and the discipline slip, now I pay the price.

So for some of you, you may go back and say, man, I've internalized the lessons.

Maybe at one point I had the habit and disciplines in order.

I've taken my eye off of that and I've started to lose it.

Now I'm starting to pay the price.

Today might not even be about new information.

It might be about recalibration.

It might be you coming back and going, man, I got to kick a few habits now.

Now I got some things I've picked up that the pedagogue wouldn't have been down with.

And now that I'm connected to the Father, there's not condemnation.

The relationship's not on the line.

But come on, you tell me that when the pedagogue's removed, that the father wouldn't say to the son, What are you doing, man?

You know better than this.

You learned this when you were 13.

The pedagogue, we talked about it all the time.

He was telling me you were having a hard time with it, and then you got it, and now you're back to that 30.

Come on, man, go back, go back to the fundamentals.

Come on, go back to the basics.

Come on, go reinstitute your disciplines.

Right?

That will ultimately lead to your freedom.

Paul talks about this in Romans 6.

He says, if you do whatever you feel like doing, it will not lead to freedom.

In fact, some people get defensive and they say, I'm free to do whatever I want.

He said, Yeah, those that do that will be the first to tell you that when I did whatever I felt like doing, I ended up in bondage.

So he's like, I'm not trying to, he goes, You don't want to do that.

Come on.

We we learn that at age six through 17.

You know better.

Now let's do better.

Let's get back in.

So it starts with internalizing the lesson, and then it is habits and disciplines.

And then the third is to contextualize application.

Once I've internalized the lessons, I keep those in front of me.

I have the right habits and disciplines.

Now I have the freedom, Paul says, the pedagogue has been removed.

I don't throw out the lessons.

I upgrade the relationship to the Father.

We now have a foundation to build on.

And now in my current context, I'm able to figure out the application of what this does.

The schedule can move around.

I have freedom to do this.

And this ultimately is what Paul is saying to this group of people.

He's saying, guys, come on, let's get back to the fundamentals.

Let's not lose track.

Let's not lose track of what we already know, but let's not live in such a state of legalism, right, that we are feeling bad because at 6.02, okay, we're doing something different than what the pedagogue said.

Have enough freedom, all right, to be able to move these things out around in a way that still honors the spirit of the law without being chained to the letter of the law.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, it's Father's Day, so I'm just gonna shut up and pray and be done.

All right.

Give you your time back.

Lord, we thank you for this day.

I thank you for this uh opportunity to peer into your word and the way your word peers into our soul, into our hearts.

Lord, help us to uh work our way through this application, Lord, to for some maybe uh begin to internalize some lessons, some fundamentals.

For some to be reminded of the fundamentals, that we're never too smart or too old or too good to live by fundamentally sound things, Lord.

These are things that we've learned about how to do relationships right, how to stay free, how to manage our appetites, how to live in peace, how to live in security.

So help us, Lord, to internalize the lessons.

Help us, God, to manage our habits and disciplines.

Lord, if there are habits we've picked up we need to drop back off, or maybe there are some things that uh we've stopped doing that we need to reboot and restart, help us to do so.

And and then Lord, help us to operate, Lord, in freedom.

I pray, God, that uh for those, maybe there are some today, Lord, who are uh living in the bondage of legalism.

They're living in a constant stress that the Father is disappointed or is disengaged from them, Lord.

I pray uh God that you would uh even in this moment draw near to them.

Give them a sense, Lord, that you not left them or forsaken them.

And Lord, help us to walk in the freedom, upgrading our relationship to the Father.

We thank you in Jesus' name.

Everybody said amen.