Keep on Keeping on | Galatians 4:8-20

Galatians chapter 4, starting at verse 8.

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

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 are 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've 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, I was becoming of illness.

It was because of 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 I were an angel of God.

And if I were Christ Jesus himself,

where then is your blessing of me now?

I can testify that if you can have done so,

you would have not turned 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.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Indeed, we just sang,

You Are the One Who Has Words of Eternal Life.

And let's come to the one now in prayer

before we turn to the text that we have before us this morning

and ask for his help.

Would you do that with me now?

Father God, we desperately need you.

And we ask this morning that as we turn to these words

of eternal life, that you would help us to understand

what's being said, that your Holy Spirit would give us ears

to hear, hearts to believe, that we would walk in faith,

and that you would transform and conform us

to be more like your Son.

We ask for this, that you would help us

for this, for your glory, and for the sake of Christ.

Amen.

Church, we're currently in the book of Galatians

where our apostle has been explaining to us

the role of the law and faith in regards to salvation.

As we've seen over the months, it was revealed to Paul

that Jesus gave himself for the sin of his people

and thus releases all those that have faith in him

from the curse of the law.

And because of that perfect sacrifice given,

all those that have faith in Jesus are reconciled to God

and given the Holy Spirit for all eternity.

To put it simply, Paul has been clearly showing us

that because of Jesus Christ and faith in his work

on our behalf, we are made sons and daughters

of the living God.

And none of this, none of this has come by our own efforts

to keep the law.

Paul has clearly told us that back in chapter 2, verse 16,

by saying, we know that a person is not justified

by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.

And over the past few weeks, particularly since chapter 3,

we've been looking at the question of what was going on

before this faith came, before the Son of God in the flesh

was manifested and revealed to the world,

were people saved in the same way kind of thing.

Well, this is where Paul has shown us that, yes,

this has always been the case.

In fact, Abraham was saved by faith in the Gospel also

and not the law, because as Paul made the case,

it wasn't even given.

Going on to say, the just shall live by faith

because all those that try to live under the law

live under the curse of the law,

to which Paul pointed out for us

that the law was never given to save,

but to be like a guardian that would teach and lead

and guide God's people until the promised Saviour

of the nations would come.

Thus, now that Jesus has come, the age of guardianship is over

and the time of maturity by being led by the Spirit of God has begun.

That's where our heads have been in this book so far

for the past few weeks.

Paul has been showing us the role of faith

in the life of the Christian in contrast to how the Judaizers,

the legalists had been trying to get the Christians

to live there in Galatia.

We know that their doctrine was saying,

yes, Jesus is important, faith in him is important,

but you still have to follow the Jewish customs

and the work of the Mosaic law in order for Jesus

to be of any real benefit to you.

In other words, they were teaching a Jesus

plus something else kind of doctrine

and as we've seen, the Galatians were in danger of falling for it.

This morning, we're still looking at Paul's great concern

for his brothers and sisters there in Galatia.

And by implication, all Christians who have heard the Gospel,

who have put their faith in Jesus,

but are now turning to something else

so that they might feel that they are really justified.

And Paul is going to talk about this in sobering terms of backsliding.

That's what we're going to see here this morning

and Paul is going to show us this sobering truth in three ways.

First, he's going to show us what lies at the heart of backsliding there

in verses 8 through to 11, the tragedy of backsliding in verses 12 through to 16

and then the perpetrators of this backsliding that we will see in verses 17 through to 20.

But don't worry, it's not going to be all bad news this morning.

We're also going to look at the cure for this disease of the heart

there in verses 12 and 20 which we'll come back to at the very end.

So first, let's have a look at what lies at the heart of backsliding.

Paul says in verses 8 and 9 formally,

when you didn't know God, you were slaves to those by nature that are not gods.

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

how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces?

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

Church, the first thing that we need to see here, that we need to understand,

is that the Galatians came from a pagan culture.

Now that doesn't mean that they were atheists.

No, it meant that they followed their own religious practices

which combined local myths and legends and was,

as Paul said to the Corinthians, demonically inspired.

Now I mentioned that to you this morning because we need to see

that these Galatians weren't totally without some sort of

religious law and order in their lives.

No, they actually had cultic systems and rituals in place

that they saw as laws given from the gods in which they were to keep

so that their gods would bless them and keep them safe.

Now whatever was going on with the Galatians at the time

and how these religious laws were applied,

Paul tells us that they were in bondage and living as slaves

to these so-called gods and their demonic rule.

But had at some point heard the gospel and turned to Christ.

Which is to say they were now gods' people because of faith in Christ.

Meaning when they heard about Jesus and they put their faith in him,

when they received the Holy Spirit of God,

they left their heathen ways and lived in the freedom that came with that.

As Paul puts it here, they came to know God,

but he has even more intimate language that we're meant to see there.

They were known of God.

And that's what every single one of us experiences when we come to Christ.

No matter who you are, where you've come from, whatever you've done,

when God opens your ears to the gospel,

when he gives you the faith to trust in all that Christ has done on your behalf,

when all your sin has been washed away and the Holy Spirit comes to reside in you

and you now call from the depth of your hearts on God your Father.

That is a freedom, that's a privilege of not just knowing things about God,

but by being intimately known by God.

We are his and we belong to him.

What amazing grace.

And that's what astounded Paul with these Galatians.

Because after all they'd experienced, after all they'd been through,

after all that they suffered, as the King James puts it,

they were now willing and ready to turn back to what they had been rescued from.

In fact, you might remember it, that's how Paul started his whole letter to the Galatians, Chapter 1, Verse 6.

Galatians 1:6

I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ

and are turning to a different gospel.

Now this imagery church of being on a journey and turning back from the way forward

where we get this imagery of backsliding and deserting God isn't unique to Paul.

It's actually a picture that we see all throughout Scripture.

Think about our Lord's Sermon on the Mount and how he described the Christian life

like a journey to his disciples saying,

broad is the road that leads to destruction, narrow the road that leads to life.

And we're warned in Scripture over and over again that there are many things

that are out to get us to turn from the road that we are to continue on,

like enemies that are out to tempt our own faithlessness and Satan and the demonic realm, just to name a few.

That's why the Bible warns that we must know the Word of God, that it must be a lamp unto our feet.

God said to Joshua that we're not to turn to the left or the right.

As turning back to slavery like Israel wanted to do has dire consequences for those that do so.

That's exactly what Paul is worried about with his brothers and sisters here.

They come to know God. They were walking with him, but now because of these false teachers

and their doctrine, they were turning to something else than Jesus alone and as a result,

deserting the one who called them to live in the grace of Christ.

What was this something else?

Paul gets specific here in verse 10.

He says you're observing special days, months, seasons and years.

Now straight off the bat, you might be a bit like, what? That's their problem.

Out of all their cultic practices with all their blood sacrifices and all that temple prostitution,

Paul is in fear of their very souls because of calendar appointments.

Church, this is where we have to slow down.

This is where we have to really think about the text that is before us this morning

because this backsliding is subtle and deadly serious.

Paul says it here in verse 11, I fear for you that somehow I've wasted my efforts on you.

Now we know in context the Galatians had been infiltrated by the Judaizers.

They wanted these people to embrace Jesus, but come under all the Mosaic customs at the same time

for their assurance.

Thus these days and seasons that Paul has in mind here, they have to do with the Jewish calendar.

But what undergirds this whole thing, what makes it all so dangerous,

was a desire on the Galatians part to again be under the yoke of something

that they had actually been rescued from.

And that was a pattern in the created order, if you will, that they could again point to

and say, look, I followed this set course, I've kept this day, I've done this thing,

now God will really be pleased with me.

Now he really will accept me.

We might say silly ancient people, but really Paul is touching on something here

that can tempt every single one of us in this room this morning.

And that's the temptation to use religion as a way to look for our justification.

You see, the Galatians were starting to look to something other,

something more than the final and finished work of Jesus Christ

so that they might feel more acceptable to God and be more pleasing to him.

So that, like they thought with their own gods, he would have to bless them.

To say that another way, they were turning back to these very things that they were rescued from

in regards to their pagan practices, though with a different mask this time.

That's what Paul's identifying for us here.

These people had been rescued from a life of being enslaved to observing certain times

and seasons for favour and luck, only to return themselves to similar practices

just with a different face to it.

And I say that we're all in danger of this because each and every single one of us

in this room is tempted to succumb to something other than looking to Christ alone for our assurance.

That's what Paul calls back-siding.

I have to admit, it's so much easier to think of back-siding in regards to our friends

who may have once been so dedicated at church, at Bible studies, at church camps,

but then turned back to their old slavish masters and then seemed to just disappear overnight.

But is it possible, brothers and sisters, that why we think of those people

and identify only that as back-siding, that we ourselves have been doing a very similar thing

but with just a different mask to it.

Like using our dedication to church, our commitment to Bible studies,

our self-discipline with being nice to strangers, our serving in various ministries

as something to hold up to God and say, see, I am good and worthy.

I deserve God's salvation.

Well, in a way, that's exactly what Paul is addressing here.

That mindset, that's what he calls back-siding.

He's saying to the Galatians, in fact, all of us that look to something other than Christ alone for assurance.

If you're looking to certain religious practices as a means to show God how good you can be

so that he has to accept and keep you, you're going back.

You're coming off the straight and narrow.

You're sliding back into slavery with that mindset.

You're turning back just with a different mask to it.

Church, when any of us point to something other than Christ

in order to feel like God will have to accept and bless and keep you,

no matter how religious it might seem, no matter how pious it might be,

well, in looking to that thing, while holding to that thing,

you're actually putting yourself in slavery all over again.

That's at the heart of the matter.

Back-siding, in this context, it's looking to something other or more than Jesus for justification.

And as we've seen this morning, it is so much more subtle and insidious than we often realise.

The prodigal son can go both ways in that case.

We can back-slide into religion as well as away from it.

And Paul calls it for what it is.

Next, he addresses the tragedy of back-siding there in verses 12 through to 16.

He says, 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 didn't treat me with contempt or scorn.

Instead, you welcomed me as if I was an angel of God, as if I were Christ himself.

Where then is your blessing of me now?

I can testify that 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?

We are meant to feel how personal Paul is getting here.

We are meant to feel the heart of the pastor pleading with the congregations there.

He remembers these people with such fondness in regards to the first time he met them,

and he thinks of them as family.

He was sick, but they loved him.

They accepted him despite him being a burden to them.

That's what Paul reflects on here.

God led him to them.

He was ill, and even though he was a trial to them, they did all they could to help.

And more than that, they accepted what he had to tell them, like a message from God himself.

Notice that verse 14, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself.

Something interesting to reflect on here about the context.

Weakness and sickness was a sign that the gods weren't happy with a person.

And so Paul is saying that these people, somehow they saw through all of that cultural paganism,

and they accepted and loved him for coming to them.

They loved this man for bringing the gospel to them,

and they did everything to make sure that their brother was taken care of.

It's a beautiful picture of what a missionary or a pastor might have with the people that he's brought the gospel to.

They're his children in that sense.

But now he wonders in verse 15.

Now he wonders where then is your blessing of me now?

To put that another way, Paul is pleading.

He said, you accepted, you loved me because of what I came to tell you.

There's a love, a bond that's God given because you knew that I was sent with the message that open your eyes to set you free.

But now, but now have I become your enemy by telling you the truth.

That is the heart breaking, wrenching question there in verse 16.

This is a heartbroken man.

And that's what's meant to happen to the hearts of God's people when we see our brothers and sisters slipping back and falling away.

It should break our hearts.

Because among other tragic things, it ruptures the bonds of that wonderful Christian fellowship that's been a gift of God.

Think again of those precious people that you once fellowshiped with, that you had that deep intimacy with, that great Christian friendship.

But then for whatever reason, something other captured their heart and they left.

How does that make you feel?

Backsliding, it rips the very fabric of Christian community.

That's because God has designed us, you and me, this church, the church wider, the church of Armidale, the church of Perth, the church universal to be family.

And so when even one of us goes astray, when one of us slips back into slavery, never to be seen again, it's grievous.

No wonder Jesus says, I'll leave the 99 to look for the 1.

That's what's happening here.

Our apostle, he had heard through the grapevine that his precious people, these precious people have gone off the beaten track.

They're turning to a life of slavery.

It's killing him.

But notice it.

This is why he's reaching out to them, speaking the words of life, holding the gospel to them.

And notice he's not writing this letter to tell them that he's utterly disgusted and that they all deserve hell.

No, he's calling them back by holding the hope of the gospel out to them.

We've seen that week after week after week after week.

But this is the tragic thing because of the slippery slope that they found themselves on,

because of their swallowing of these legalists doctrine, the very same truth that set them free,

that made them fall in love with Jesus was now making them possibly turn on their own apostle like an enemy.

This tells us something of the tragedy of backsliding.

It does something to the very heart so that the same truth that once made us repent and rejoice and leap

and bound in the freedom that we knew we had, well, that same truth to the backslidden

can make the heart angry and bitter and absolutely resent those who bring the gospel to them.

It's a classic mark of a guilty conscience that's trapped in sin.

When it's challenged, it usually retaliates by disregarding the messenger.

It can look for ways to discredit and attack a person's character all the while ignoring what is being really held out to them.

The messenger is very much shot in that sense.

So that's the heart, that's the tragedy of backsliding. Third Paul turns his attention to these perpetrators in verses 17 to 20.

Those people are zealous to win you over but not for good.

What they want to do is isolate you from us so that you may have zeal for them.

It's fine to be zealous provided the purpose is good and to be so always, not just when I'm with you.

My dear children, for whom I'm 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'm perplexed about you.

We're not going to spend as much time here but basically Paul is saying that after these people had come to know the Lord,

these false teachers had moved in and they saw that these people were God-fearing and zealous,

that they wanted to serve God with all that they were.

And so these false teachers, they actually played on that.

They played on it. They played on the fact that they wanted to be obedient to God

and thus made them zealous not for the things of the Lord and the Holy Spirit to be led of him

but for their own traditions and their application of the law

so that they would be fans of them and reject Paul's gracious doctrine of Christ alone in faith alone.

I don't know if this has been your experience but what's so tragic with door-knockers is

when they come to tell you their version of the gospel, which is really no gospel at all,

what's so heartbreaking is that these people, though they seem so zealous,

they're actually out there because they've been told by their teachers that they need to do this

in a way to either earn or keep their place in the kingdom of heaven.

And then when you speak to them about the truth of the gospel, about who Jesus Christ is

and what he's come to do for his people, they usually double down and ignore you until it's their time to speak,

then reply that they need to get their leaders or their so-called prophets or apostles to come back and speak with you.

They've become zealous but not for the right thing.

They're trapped, trapped in a system that they've been sold on by false teachers with demonic doctrine.

And that's what Paul is looking at here.

He's saying to the Christians there in Galatia, these guys have come to you,

they've won you over with what looks like piety and dedication, but it's not for the sake of Christ.

It's for their own edification and you're falling for it.

You're in danger, dear ones, of being zealous for this workspace righteousness.

And I'm afraid it's going to deafen you to hear from us.

Paul will later say in chapter five, verse one, for freedom, Christ has set us free.

Stand firm then and don't submit again to a yoke of slavery.

And that's the very thing. Because of Christ, because of his work on behalf of his people,

he has set us free from slavery.

He has set us free from the weak and miserable forces of this world.

And because of him, we are on this journey, a narrow path, if you will,

and sliding back into that slavery of which we once all so gladly served can come so subtly,

either from without or within.

We can slide either into worldliness and rebellion or into a trust in religious performance and self-righteousness.

And it's here that Paul gives us the crucial advice to stay on the straight and narrow.

And brothers and sisters, let me just say, if you have found yourself in either one of these camps,

while there is breath in your lungs, while there is eyes in your head,

whatever ditch you keep finding yourself in, there is still a way to be on track.

And as I said before, we'll revisit that in verses 12 and 20.

First verse 12. Notice our apostle, he sets the standard.

He sets the standard and it's himself. Straight away you might be,

wow, that's pretty big-headed of you, Paul.

Think about what he's told us about himself in this book over the months.

He's told us that he was one of the biggest zealot religious people out there

that looked to his own works as his righteousness before the Lord.

But what else has he told us?

That by no effort of his own, by the grace of God alone, Jesus was revealed in him,

and thus he gave it all up in light of the gospel.

That's who Paul was. He was a man who was zealous for the works of the law.

And in light of the gospel, he saw that the mosaic system could never save him.

It was impossible. And now that Christ had come,

faith in him was the only way to be made right with God,

which meant there was no longer any need for circumcision,

for animal sacrifice or the complex liturgical seasons of the Jewish calendar.

All of that had been fulfilled in the light of the gospel.

And Paul knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only way that we can be accepted as righteous in the sight of God,

the only way is by the perfect obedience and righteousness of Jesus Christ credited to us.

And that, Paul has preached over and over and over, comes by faith alone.

Not by going back, not by trying to keep days and months and seasons.

That's what Paul is talking about here in verse 12.

In regards to the law, in regards to your own religious efforts, in regards to your own works, become like me.

Reform back to the simplicity of the thing that saved you in the first place,

to the freedom of the gospel in which you first believed.

And I love that that's the essence of verse 20.

That second, the legalists wanted to make them zealous for their traditions and enslave them to their doctrine.

Yet Paul agonises like a mum who's giving birth to little ones to see that his precious brothers and sisters are zealous for Christ as presented in the gospel.

That's what our dear apostle travails over here.

He wants these precious people to be zealous for the truth of the gospel.

That's how we're set free.

That's how we're cured of our backsliding.

It's by the Spirit of God calling us back to the truth of the gospel and showing us the freedom that has been won for us in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Brother, sister, if you're here this morning and you have found yourself drifting away,

if you've found yourself once again off the beaten track and hindered by the gutters of this life that you keep falling into,

the gospel has been held out to you this morning.

It's calling.

Now straight off the mark you might be like, well, what do I need to do?

What do I need to do? I'll try harder by reading my Bible. I'll come to church more often.

I'll be one of those people that sing louder in the pews. I'll help out more. I'll join a Bible study. I'll even join some sort of committee.

Great things.

But don't think for a moment that you're putting things right.

As we've seen this morning, all you'll be doing is swapping one form of backsliding for another.

There's one thing, dear one.

You need to call out to the Lord.

Turn from trusting in your own religious works, from indulging in the things of the flesh

and in the power of the Spirit that has been given to you by our loving Father.

Call upon the name of the Lord.

Confess where you see things going wrong and call out to Him.

Every single one of us in this room, myself included, is tempted by this thing.

We think that when we have made a mess of things, when we've stuffed up for even a prolonged season of doing things our own way,

when we've walked in the way of high-handed rebellion, that somehow we need to go and make ourselves clean

and do a whole bunch of things before God will finally accept our repentance.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The holy word of God says to all of us this morning, like sheep, we have all gone astray.

Each and every single one of us has gone our own way.

But what else are we told?

God clearly says that He laid on Him the Lord Jesus Christ, the iniquity, the sin, the blasphemy, the rebellion of us all.

To put it as simply as we can this morning, Jesus died to restore backsliders like you and me by and through the cross.

So the Gospel calls us to quit looking at our own works.

Quit relying on your own promises and look to Christ this morning.

The Gospel calls us to call out to Jesus and repent and believe because it is He.

It is the inspired word of God that says if we confess our sin, He is faithful and He is righteous to forgive us of our sin

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Would you pray with me?

Father God, we thank you for the words of eternal life.

We thank you that the word is a lamp unto our feet and we're not clamouring around in the darkness wondering what you're like.

That we can call out to you this morning and ask you like David did all those years ago,

Lord, create in me a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

And that in the Lord Jesus these prayers are answered with yes and amen.

Lord, we ask that where we see our rebellious ways, where we see our backslidings,

where we see the gutters and maybe don't slip into them but run into them Lord,

that you would please show us the grievousness of it all.

And that we would have a heart that would be repelled by that.

That we would trust you and follow you all the days of our life.

And Lord God, we think of our precious friends that have left.

That were once with us that are no longer.

We ask Lord that they too would be surrounded with people that love you.

That don't encourage them to just get back to church but encourage them to come back to you.

And to know that you will in no way cast anyone out that comes to you no matter what they've done.

Lord, we ask that we would be a church used for your glory here in the city of Armidale.

That the gospel would be held high.

We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.