Everyone knows someone with a story. What’s your story? I can tell you your story. Though I might not know the details, I can tell you your story. I can tell you your story because I know the one story that touches every story. I know the story of Jesus. His is a story that has no beginning. His story of loving us begins before the foundation of the world. Since he loves us, created us, and has sought us, knowing his story means knowing our story.
You cannot escape from this reality - Jesus has come. Even for the skeptic, a question rings through the ages - what will you do with Jesus? As CS Lewis so aptly put it, either Jesus is a liar, a lunatic, or he is Lord. I can confidently assert that I know the nuts and bolts of your story because I know his story, and his story is so encompassing it impacts everyone.
Where do you find your story? The psychic industry in America is a $2 Billion industry. During the pandemic, just in 2020, the industry grew faster than in 5 years. Five years of growth in one year alone! This tells us that people are looking for hope, looking for an anchor. The Bible provides the only suitable anchor.
To make the point that Christ has come and changed everything, especially for those who believe, Paul, writing to the Galatians, divides the timeline of our lives as before Christ and after we believed. This is your story, and you don’t know it yet because you have yet to believe it.
Here’s your story.
There Was A Time When
You Didn’t Know God
It is not that you were not aware of God. You did not know God. The only way to know God is through Jesus Christ.
You Were Enslaved
Enslaved to false hopes. Enslaved to false dreams. Never being good enough, never making it as far as you’d hoped.
There was a time when,
You Were Used
Throughout his letter to the Galatians, Paul is confronting false teaching. The false teachers have a message. Their message is not Jesus paid it all, but Jesus plus all these things. The false teachers have no confidence in the cross of Christ. When you lose confidence in the cross you substitute confidence in something else. Anything else is worthless.
There was a time when,
But now,
You Are Known By God
You are in a relationship with God.
You Are Loved by Others
The church, the Spirit-filled body of Christ, is the place we find belonging.
You Have Clear Vision
Paul says, My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! (Galatians 4:19, ESV). It isn’t enough for Christ to be in them or them to be in Christ. Christ must be formed in them. Meaning until we are so consumed we are conformed to the image of Christ.
There was a time when, but now,
You Are Free
Become as I am, Paul writes, I have become as you are. Don’t submit to the yoke of slavery. Don’t turn back!
The Galatians faced a real problem - a problem of turning back, or as the old preachers used to say, backsliding. Do you know those who are turning back? So many have bought into the narrative of our times from false gods who offer satisfaction but, in reality, only enslave.
Is this your story? Have you met Jesus? There was a time, but now…