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THE GOOD NEWS OF GOD'S GRACE PLEADS WITH US TO REMAIN FREEGalatians 4:8-20INTRODUCTION Many years ago Jane and I received a phone call from a good friend informing us that she had just discovered that her husband was having an affair. They had been married for about 10 years and she had just given birth to their third child. We had led them to Christ about six years before this. We loved both of them and considered both dear friends. The next day I drove three hours to the town they lived in and walked into his office unannounced. I spent the next 2 hours pleading with him to repent of his sin and to return to the Lord and to his wife. I used every argument I could think of and expressed a wide range of emotions as I sought to help him turn around. I communicated anger, sorrow, compassion, shock and dismay to name a few. He was completely unmoved by my appeals. He was unwilling to give up the relationship or to do anything that would be necessary to restore his marriage and his walk with Christ. After about a year of labor on the part of many to restore him and reconcile them, they were divorced because he refused to repent and believe. I thought of my experience when I studied this passage this week. Two things struck me. My emotion and passion were similar to Paul’s passion for these Christians and his aim to bring them to repentance. However, it also struck me that he was as upset about these people not working on Saturdays in an effort to obey the OT law as I was about my friend committing adultery. Those two acts don’t strike me as equally grievous. Yet he describes his anguish and labor over them to be as great as a woman delivering a baby. Paul wants good for these people and he views the movement of the Galatians away from his gospel and their embracing of the false teacher’s “gospel” as highly destructive to them and dishonoring to God. We have witnessed Paul’s passion bubble up throughout the first three chapters of this letter but in today’s passage his emotional turmoil that is motivated by his love for them and for Christ comes flaring out. However, this is not merely an expression of Paul’s emotional condition and zeal for the Galatians but a portrait of God’s pursuit of his people. We believe that this letter is God’s word to us, his people. We know, as Peter says, “that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, the emotions that Paul expresses, the fervor with which he addresses these people is an expression of God’s emotions and fervor towards these people and towards us. As Paul says in another of his letters, “Therefore, we are Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” As we listen to Paul’s urgent pleading we are hearing the voice of God pleading with us. Now, you might say to me that you don’t need to have God or anyone plead with you as Paul does with these “foolish Galatians” because you are not in any danger of “wanting to be enslaved by the weak and miserable principles of the world” like these people were. Most likely you feel no danger that you might be believing “another gospel.” You are complacent and secure. Let me encourage you not to be so foolish as to think that you are in no danger such as faced these people. If they, who were instructed by the apostle Paul himself, are turning away from the true gospel within a year or two of having Paul teach them, then none of us should be so arrogant as to assume that we are immune from this kind of deception or this kind of betrayal. Just this last week I had three different people tell me that the sins they had committed were too big or they were too unfaithful as Christians to be forgiven. Each of these individuals communicated to me in different ways that the life, death and resurrection of Christ was not sufficient ground for God to love them. Each one told me that their performance was what mattered, not Christ’s death and resurrection. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not an easy thing for proud humans to accept. I have no question that every person sitting in this room believes at some level that God loves you because of what you have done or because of who you are, which is exactly what the false teachers were communicating to the churches of Galatia. You have never done anything to draw the love of God towards you. All you have done is sin and provoke God’s anger. If God loves you it is not because of you but because of Christ. The point I’m trying to make is that all of us need to hear this morning the impassioned voice of God pleading with us to not return to a life lived in dependence upon ourselves. God is speaking to us this morning with warnings and pleadings and criticisms and tenderness so that we will trust in Christ alone and nothing else. MAIN POINT God, in his love, through his spokespersons, pleads with you to trust in Christ alone because…I. He wants you to live like a son, not a slave (vv. 8-11) We need to remember what Paul has just said in order to understand what he is saying in vv. 8-11. If you will remember, in vv. 1-7 Paul described how God, by sending forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law has set every person who trusts in Christ free from their slavery to Satan and his deceptive rule over us. Christ paid off the debt we incurred by our false worship and our sin and he made us into mature sons of God with all the rights and privileges of adult sons who are the heirs of their great Father. Also he sent his Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we would know, by experience that the only true and living God, the creator of the heavens and the earth is our Daddy. God did all this by grace, freely, while we were sinners, not because we were or are trying hard to do the right thing. Now, Paul addresses specifically the non-Jewish or Gentile Christians in the churches of Galatia. It is these he is most concerned about because they have no reason to obey any of the OT laws and yet that is what they are being told they must do if they are going to be loved and accepted by God. He tells them to remember what their lives were like before he came and preached the gospel to them. They were slaves to gods who are not gods. They worshipped idols made of stone and wood and silver that are nothing but the figment of human imagination. They did not know the living and the true God but they prayed to and sang songs of praise to and wrote poetry about and offered sacrifices to and sought the blessing of gods who did not exist. Paul calls this idolatry slavery. How is the worship of false gods slavery? Slaves get nothing for their labor. They obey their masters and work but they receive nothing in return for their obedience. They are not justly compensated for their labor. So it is with idolatry. You obey the rules of the false gods and you serve them and invest your time and resources in doing what they say but you get nothing in return. If you were to talk with the adherents of false religions they will say that they receive all sorts of compensation from their deity. However, Paul says all such claims are false claims. The reason is that there is only one true and living God. There is nobody listening to their prayers. Thus, all the worship and work of those in false religions accomplishes nothing but merely increases guilt because they are ignoring the true God and serving imaginary gods. Whatever claims that the adherents of Islam or Hinduism or Taoism or Buddhism, or Judaism, or Shamanism, or Scientology or Cabala make, they are empty and false claims because their slavery to these false gods gains them nothing because there is no one paying any attention to them. In v. 9 Paul says about these Galatians that as a result of his preaching the gospel to them and their being united to Christ by faith, they came to know God, the true and living God. They are sons of God through their faith in Christ. They are no longer slaves, laboring in the vineyard of a false god who can give them nothing. Notice how Paul clarifies himself. After saying they know God, which is true, he immediately says, “rather you are known by God.” Why does he make this clarification? Let me use this illustration so you can marvel at the greatness of your salvation. Can I decide to become the friend of President Bush? Can I do anything that would make President Bush enter into a relationship of friendship and affection with me? I’m talking about a real relationship. One where we talk on the phone every week and go golfing and where we can stop by each other’s homes unannounced and we spend our holidays together. Is it within my power to establish a friendship like that with the President of the U.S.? The answer is no, it is not within my power to know the President of in that way. However, I can enter into that kind of relationship if the President chooses to be my friend. If the President decides to know me, then I can know him. If the President pursues me, then I can pursue him. What Paul wants us to know is that the God who rules over supernovas and black holes and hurricanes and tsunamis and flu viruses and nations and Presidents has chosen to know you. He sent his son into the world, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem you from the curse of that law and to make you into his adult sons. He sent the Spirit of his son into your heart so you can cry out Abba, Father. He has made you his heir. This is what you have been given in Christ in contrast to the great slavery you were engaged in when you worshipped those gods who were not gods. Make no mistake about it, all who are outside of Christ are engaged in slavery to gods who are no gods. So he asks, how is it that you returning to those weak and miserable principles that governed your life when you were slaves? They are powerless to give you anything and they have nothing to give. This is in contrast to this amazing fact that the true and living God has chosen to love you and to be your father through Christ and make you his heir. He has exercised his mighty power on your behalf to remove all obstacles between you and he. What Paul says next is absolutely shocking. I hope I can help you see and feel how scandalous is Paul’s language. In v. 10 we are given a glimpse of what the Christians in Galatia are being told by the false teachers and how they are beginning to believe and act. The false teachers have told them that God will only accept them into heaven if they keep the OT laws. This includes all the laws regarding Jewish religious festivals. They must keep all the Sabbath laws and not work on Saturday. They must observe the Day of Atonement. They must observe the monthly, New Moon festivals. They must go to Jerusalem three times each year and offer the prescribed sacrifices at each of the seasonal festivals. They must observe the year of Jubilee every seven years. Do you see what is so shocking? Paul says that obedience to the OT laws, specifically, the laws concerning holy days and festivals and years, which God commanded Israel to obey, is no different than worshipping idols. God hates idol worshippers. You cannot read the Bible without seeing how completely God abhors idol worship. However, God also hates those who obey his laws in order to make themselves acceptable to him. Those who believe that he is obligated to reward with eternal life those who keep the Sabbath, who observe the religious festivals, are no different to him than those who sacrifice their children to false gods. You can see God’s attitude in v. 11. Paul says that the fact that they are keeping the Sabbath, the New Moon festival, the three feasts and the year of Jubilee makes his labor at preaching the gospel to them a complete waste of time. He preached so they would be set free and become sons. They, by obeying these laws, by becoming religious Jews, are returning to the slavery of idolatry from which God delivered them through the gospel. How does this apply to us? Few, if any of us are tempted to believe that God loves us and forgives us because we are keeping the Sabbath or observing the other Jewish religious festivals. However, many of us are walking down this same dangerous road. Why does God forgive you, love you and promise you eternal life? Many of you would say, because I prayed and asked Jesus into my life. Some might say because I was baptized or I joined the church. Others might say because I repented of all my sins or because I confess my sins. Others might correctly say they are forgiven because Christ died for their sins and obeyed God’s law perfectly in their place. However, then they feel perpetually guilty for not reading their Bible or praying as they ought. They feel close to God and accepted by God when they are not committing big sins and are maintaining some form of regular communication with God or when they go on a mission’s trip. The gospel completely shatters human pride. God loves you for no reason in you. God does not love you more if you spend the day in fasting and prayer than if you spend the day watching TV. God is not impressed with anything that you do because everything you do is tainted with sin. You and I will never do a perfectly righteous act as long as we live on earth. Therefore, God will never love you because of what you do. We are always and only loved by God because of Christ. God wants you to live as his sons. He doesn’t want you to work hard to make it to heaven because you will discover that all your labor accomplished nothing. You, like a slave, will receive no compensation for all your work because God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble. Does it matter how we live? Absolutely, but not in the way that most of us think. (When we get to chapter 5 Paul is going to explain the relationship between our behavior and the righteousness that is given to us through Christ.) Most of us think that our behavior increases or decreases God’s love and willingness to accept us. This is a lie and is returning to the slavery from which we have been delivered. God, in his love, through his spokespersons, pleads with Christians to trust in Christ alone because…
II. He wants to be your friend, not your enemy (vv. 12-16) In v. 12, Paul is down on his knees in front of the congregation and he says, “I beg you, brothers, become like me because you saw how I became like you.” Again, this is God down on his knees in front of our congregation pleading with us to abandon our self-righteousness, to stop believing that our performance is the key to being loved by him. How did Paul become like them? There are two things here. First, he is reminding him that when he was with them, even though he is Jewish, he did not live like a Jew. He ate the food they gave him and didn’t ask any questions about what kind of meat it was or if it had been purchased in the local pagan temple. He didn’t care if it was kosher or not. He didn’t go through ritual washing after he gave the customary hug and kisses on the cheek to the Gentiles because he had become unclean. He didn’t observe the Sabbath or Jewish fast days or feast days. He didn’t tell them they had to be circumcised if they were going to be accepted by God. He says, “I want you to live like a free son of God, like me, not like some slave of false gods.” The second thing he is saying is that he did what he did out of love for them and so he wants them to love him back. As he says in dozens of other places in his letters, he suffered all that he suffered for the sake of the elect. He wants them to remember his beatings and being stoned and left for dead. He wants them to remember how much he loved them by becoming like them and so motivate them to love him and thus his message. Then in vv. 12b-16 he reminds them of how they used to love him. He is seeking to contrast their former affection for him with their present disdain for him. He begins by saying that in the past, they did him no wrong. The implication is that now they are treating him wrong. Under the influence of these false teachers they are acting as if Paul is their enemy, not their friend. They are questioning his motives. They are accusing him of misleading them, of being two faced and telling them one thing while telling others something different. They are gossiping about him and spreading slander. They are treating him wrong. However, when he first visited them, their attitude and treatment was entirely different. The first time Paul visited them and preached the gospel to them, he was afflicted with a very obvious illness or wound. The language would fit either a disease or the physical bruises and scars that were the result of a recent beating. We have no idea what it was, only that it was a “trial/temptation to them.” How would his being ill or wounded be a trial or temptation? There are several possibilities. If he’s referring to an illness, then his sickness was of such a kind that normally it would provoke disgust and revulsion in those who observed it. It was the kind of disease that would cause people to leave his presence. In addition, an illness would have called into question the power and goodness of the God whom he represented. He is telling them of the God who made everything and of a Savior who healed all manner of diseases and cast out demons and who rose from the dead, and yet he, Paul, is afflicted with this terrible disease. What kind of evidence is this to the power of the gospel? If he is referring to the wounds of persecution, they would be a trial because of the fear that to listen to or follow what he said could lead them into similar persecution. The point he makes is this, “even though I preached the gospel to you while afflicted with this illness or these wounds, rather than rejecting me or fearing me or laughing in my face, you believed what I said. In fact you welcomed me as if I were an angel, even as if I were Christ Jesus himself.” They trusted his message as being the very word of God, not the word of men. It’s not only that they respected him but also that they loved him. That’s the point of that amazing phrase, “if it were possible, you would have torn out your eyes for me.” Their affection for Paul was genuine and wholehearted. The point here is this: they treated him as their friend because he told them the truth, not because of who he was. There was no human reason for them to be impressed with Paul or to so warmly welcome him other than they, by the grace of God, believed that he was telling them the truth. He has not stopped telling them the truth but they have stopped treating him as a friend. They, because he is telling them the truth, are now treating him as if he is their enemy. Paul’s language here is based upon the numerous places in the gospels where Jesus said that the way that people treated his spokespersons was how they treated him and his Father. Luke 10:16 says, “he who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” The threat that stands behind Paul’s assertion in v. 16 is that they, by becoming Paul’s enemy, have become God’s enemy. To reject those who preach the gospel to you because you don’t like what they are saying is a very dangerous thing. God wants you to be his friend, not his enemy. Therefore, you should respect and love those who preach the gospel to you. You do not give your respect and affection to me, to your parents, to your small group leader, to a favorite radio preacher because you like our personality or our style of preaching and teaching or you agree with our politics or like the ministry style and philosophy of this church or that church, or in the case of parents, because they feed and cloth you, but because we tell you the truth about sin and judgment and righteousness and God and Christ. The respect and affection you have for those who share the gospel with you is the respect and affection you have for the Lord himself. This is what stands behind those frequent commands in the letters of Paul to respect your teachers. Like in 1 Thess. 5:13-14, “We ask you brothers to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.” This requires that you know what the gospel is so that you can tell whether I or your small group leader or your parents are telling you the truth. God, in his love, through his spokespersons, pleads with Christians to trust in Christ alone because…
III. He wants you to be impressed with Christ (vv. 17-20) This final outburst from Paul aims to show the Galatians the final outcome of listening to the false teachers as opposed to listening to him. He is dealing with the difficulty that every human has as they seek to evaluate the messages and messengers that are speaking in our world. Paul acknowledges something that is true about every religious teacher in the world, whether true or false. Everyone who is out to persuade others of the truthfulness of their message is zealous for those whom they are seeking to convert. You will not find any religion or religious teacher who seeks to win converts by telling people “the only reason I’m here is to get your money or your possession or your bodies. I am here to use you to satisfy my ego, my lusts, my greed, my desire to be admired and to live comfortably.” You will not find any religion or religious teacher who will not act interested in you and be friendly and offer you assistance with the troubles you face in life. In short all religions and all religious teachers, whether true or false, will be zealous towards you. All will take interest in you and seek to convince you that they are trying to look out for your best interests. Both Paul and the false teachers were zealous for the Galatians. However, he tells the Galatians that while the false teachers are showing a great interest in them, they do not have good motives. Their motives are to exclude or alienate them from the true and living God by alienating them from Paul and his message. And their goal is to bring them to the place where their loyalty is towards them alone, where the Galatians are zealous for the reputation and image and instruction of the false teachers. Paul says, “The only reason they are taking such a great interest in you is because they want you to be loyal to them, not because they want you to know God and experience the joy of being his sons.” They want you to affirm them, not God. In v. 18 Paul tells them that he wants the Galatians to be zealous, to be loyal. However, he wants them to be zealous for God, for Christ, not for him. This is what Paul says over and over again in his letters. “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.” “We proclaim him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor…” Paul cared about what people thought about him only because he cared about what people thought about Christ. His goal was not to have lots of people following him but to have lots of people following Christ. He labored like a woman delivering a baby for one purpose, that Jesus Christ might live in all of his fullness in redeemed sinners. What that means is that sinners trust in Christ alone and not their own performance. He wants people to be taken up with Christ, not him and not themselves. This is what God wants as well. I don’t care if you think I’m a friendly person or not. I don’t care if you like my style of preaching or the kinds of cloths I wear or my ministry philosophy or the kind of music I like. I don’t care how many people come to this church. I don’t care whether or not you like my politics or my schooling choice or my parenting style or my jokes. You shouldn’t care about those things either. You should not be in this church because we are friendly or because we don’t have age segregated worship or because we play your kind of music. You should be in a church because you are hearing the gospel of Christ preached and taught clearly week in and week out. What I care about and what you should care about is that those whom God sends to this church are trusting in Jesus Christ. I want Christ to be formed in you. I don’t want people talking about me or about our church. I want people talking about Christ. I don’t want people to be impressed with me because I am a nothing and nobody. I am the worst of sinners. I want people to be impressed with Christ. This is what God wants for you and this is what we ought to want for one another. This last Friday night at Pizza with the pastor I was so encouraged and happy because about 17 of us spent about an hour and half talking together about the greatness of Jesus. We spent our time reflecting on his humanity and his suffering and his temptations and his holiness and his love for poor miserable sinners like us. This is what I want happening on Sunday mornings and in our small groups and in our homes and in our personal conversations. I want us to be taken up with Jesus Christ. Being a pastor, being a Christian and being a church is not complicated when we remember that God wants us to be zealous for the good, which is his salvation given in Jesus Christ. The purpose and goal of life is to be taken up with Jesus Christ. God, in his love, through his spokespersons, pleads with Christians to trust in Christ alone because…
© Copyright
2005 John Swanson.
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