Five years ago The
Guardian published an email from a retired Royal Navy officer, Nick Crews,
to his son and two daughters. It quickly became a viral sensation. Listen to
the final paragraph:
I can now tell you that I for
one, and I sense Mum feels the same, have had enough of being forced to live
through the never-ending bad dream of our children's underachievement and
domestic ineptitudes. I want to hear no more from any of you until, if you feel
inclined, you have a success or an achievement or a REALISTIC plan for the
support and happiness of your children to tell me about. I don't want to see
your mother burdened any more with your miserable woes — it's not as if any of
the advice she strives to give you has ever been listened to with good grace — far
less acted upon. So I ask you to spare her further unhappiness. If you think I
have been unfair in what I have said, by all means try to persuade me to change
my mind. But you won't do it by simply whining and saying you don't like it.
You'll have to come up with meaty reasons to demolish my points and build a
case for yourself. If that isn't possible, or you simply can't be bothered,
then I rest my case.
I am
bitterly, bitterly disappointed.
Dad
Now if you’re a parent you can relate to Admiral Crews’ frustration.
And many of us can probably relate to his children and the disapproval they
must have felt. It doesn’t sound like Crews is making things up. He and his
wife apparently have every reason to be bitterly disappointed and angry. Like
the law itself, the content of his missive may be well founded, and their
standards may be perfectly reasonable (righteous). But expectations, as they say, are planned
resentments; law and bitterness are frequent bedfellows. We expect people not
to be self-centered sinners, and when they turn out to be just that, we get
angry and blame them.
Do you think that letter had the effect that Admiral Crews
intended? Absolutely not! I don’t care who you are, no one responds to a letter
like that with a thank you note. Guilt and fear can be powerful motivators in
the short turn, but they never can change a heart from self-seeking to
self-sacrifice. Instead of bringing his children closer, his email pushed them
further away. This is why Paul says in Romans 5: “The law was brought in to
increase the trespass.” There’s only one thing that can change a human heart
and that is love – pure, unadulterated, unconditional love. And that’s exactly
what Paul is saying in Sunday’s text – Galatians 5:1-6.
Someone says, “I just don’t see how telling people that God
accepts them no matter what they do can be any incentive to live a righteous
life.” Another says, “If I’m already accepted by God in Jesus Christ, why
should I work hard to please God?”
What Paul explains in Chapter 5 is that the Gospel of
salvation through free grace is a greater incentive to live a life of honesty,
love, sacrifice, and holiness than anything else. In fact, in spiritual terms,
it’s the only incentive that ever works.
Look at Galatians 5:6: “For in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working
through love.” This is the heart of his argument; an argument that’s 180° from Admiral Crews’.
In preparation for Sunday’s message, “Freedom to Hope”, you
may wish to consider the following:
- Why is true Gospel preaching always susceptible to the charge of antinomianism (lawlessness)?
- How is Christian obedience the opposite of self-help methodology?
- Why does C.S. Lewis say that a world of nice people is harder to save than wicked people?
- How had the Galatians been under the same yoke of slavery to the law before they had come to know Christ? (see verse 1 and Romans 1)
- How is the elder brother in the story of the Prodigal (Luke 15) a perfect example of what the false teachers were encouraging the Galatians to be like?
- What does Paul mean in Titus 2:11,12? How does it relate to Galatians 5:1-6?
- “Until you know that you’re saved by grace everything you do is for yourself and not for God.” Do you believe that?
- What does the word “hope” mean in verse 5?
- How does the Gospel fill you with certainty that you belong to Jesus no matter what and therefore change your heart?
- How does verse 6 signal that the key to obedience is the condition of the heart and not the will?
See you Sunday!
