Thinking back about 20 years I had a friend who was a slave to alcohol. It controlled his life. After a heavy night of drinking he would wake up the next day and need a drink. However, after he made a profession of faith in Jesus his life began to change before my eyes. He never stopped alcohol completely but his priorities began to change and he began to take on the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He still had rough edges, but the Lord was working on him, and I have no doubt that he genuinely desired to follow Jesus and to be a disciple of Jesus. Sadly, when I last met him, he had become a slave to drugs, and he also seemed to be drinking heavily again. As for now, I have no idea where he lives and I have no idea what his relationship with Jesus is like. You are possibly thinking about people that you know who have been saved by Jesus; saved from being slaves to all sorts of things; yet who now have become slaves to something else, and have stopped following.
As I’ve been thinking about my friend (Richard), and as I’ve been praying for him, I’ve been asking the Lord that Richard would remember that he is a son of God. If Richard were standing here now I would want to throw my arms around him and plead with him to allow Jesus to rule and reign in him all the days of his life. Perhaps we could spend a moment now, praying for people that we know who have turned back and once again become slaves to sin.
(4:8) Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. (NIV)
There was a time when the Galatian Christians worshipped various ‘gods’. They were slaves to those ‘gods’. In other words their lives revolved around them, and their actions were controlled by them. However, Paul reminds the Church that they were not even real. They were inventions; and in their former ways of living they were slaves to invented gods!
Before coming to faith in Jesus, they had tried to keep favour with those pagan ‘gods’ by indulging in pagan practices; and it’s not necessarily helpful to talk about what those practices were. So I’m not going to talk about them! What’s important is that they were slaves of false gods. Before coming to faith in Jesus they were slaves to sin and they were dead in their sins.
Brothers and sisters this is the real situation of several thousand people living in our community right now. Those who do not know God are slaves to practices, and ‘things’ other than the one true God (Yahweh, that Father of Jesus Christ). Just as some of us were, many in our community now are slaves to money, possessions, houses; the decorations within houses, fitness training programmes, sun tans, alcohol, drugs, sex, adultery, fast cars, and that anti-Christian pass-time ‘retail-therapy’. Buying things will never be a solution to loneliness, or discontentment, or boredom, or any of our other problems!
The only long term solution to loneliness, or discontentment, or boredom, or any of our other problems is through faith in Jesus (3:26).
(4:9) 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 principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? (NIV)
The Galatian Christians have come to know God. They have been baptised into Christ and have been clothed with Christ (3:27), but Paul corrects himself. Our faith in Jesus, our relationship with Jesus does not begin with ourselves, and it does not begin with our decision to follow him. Our relationship begins with God. He knows us. He made us. He searched for us and we have been found by him.
So why, asks Paul; why are you turning back? Why are you turning away from the gospel of grace?
Why are you forgetting that God has reached down to us? Why are you turning back to trying to reach God, or be acceptable to God by trying to please him? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?
They left behind pagan ways, a life of slavery to false gods and came to faith in Jesus; but now they are once again succumbing to rules and regulations – weak and miserable principles.
Friends, I believe St. Paul would challenge us to be careful not to add rules and regulations to the gospel of grace. As we and others are freed from the slavery of sin and the slavery of addiction to sin, we must be careful not to draw up a long list of ‘Do’s and Don’ts’.
(4:10-11) You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you. (NIV)
Paul the evangelist, with a burning desire to reach people with the Good News of Jesus, is also Paul the pastor, desperate for Christians to remain in the truth. The Galatian Church has been influenced by Jewish Christians preaching a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all (1:6-7). Having come to believe in a gospel of grace, having become free in Christ (5:1) they are adding rules and regulations. It’s as if they were saying, “We now realise that in order to be right with God, we need to celebrate these holy days, we need to keep this feast, we need to attend this ‘service’, we need think this way, we need to observe this ritual; we need to do all of this in order to be right with God.
In much of the UK (and in some parts of the Church) we have replaced the gospel of grace with this: So long as we try to lead a good life, so long as we do our best to be good people, we’ll be OK.
Evangelical churches can sometimes fall into the trap of constructing a set of laws, a set of principles; a set of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour which becomes a blueprint for life. In other words, we must attend Church twice on a Sunday, we must be involved in certain church activities on a weekly basis, we must not watch certain programmes on the TV or listen to certain types of music, we must not wear those clothes, and we must not go to that club or be a member of that group. Our focus then switches to keeping in step with these rules; we lose the joy of relationship with Jesus, we lose the joy of being put right with God through faith, & we lose mission focus!
(4:12) I plead with you brothers, become like me, for I became like you. You have done me no wrong. (NIV)
Of course the phrase ‘become like me’ sticks out! I am hardly likely to stand here and say, “OK guys, become like me!”
God knows all of my faults and failings, and I would not want you to have to carry them! No, I don’t want you to become like me, and yet Paul pleads with his brothers in Christ to become like him, because he became like them!
Paul was once a zealous Jew (1:13-14). We read in Galatians chapter one how Paul was zealous for the traditions of his fathers. He was well advanced in Judaism, but then God met him and revealed his Son Jesus. At that point, it can be said that Paul became like the first Galatian Christians, because he came to know that he was not justified by keeping the law, but was justified by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ; and now Paul pleads with the Church to become like him! Paul clings to the truth of being put right with God through faith in Jesus, and asks the Church to become like him. In other words, stop adding all sorts of nonsense to the gospel.
Friends, do you want people to become like you? You might be thinking, “No way!” Friends, do you want people to come to know Jesus personally as you do? Do you want your friends and neighbours to know the freedom that comes from a relationship with Jesus Christ?
We want those who don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus to become like us, because we want them, like us, to have a saving relationship with Jesus. We want them to become like us, like Jesus, now and for all eternity!
(4:13-14) As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. (NIV)
Paul first preached good news to this group when he was ill. David Snuggs reminded me this week that we are called to preach the truth of the Gospel of Jesus in all circumstances, come what may! Paul actually had the opportunity to preach to this group literally as a result of his illness.
When Norah Price was in hospital a few months ago we were praying for her to be healed by Jesus; and yet whilst she was in hospital Norah and her husband Dawson had many opportunities for the gospel. Good News was shared and prayer was happening on that ward. As a result of Norah’s illness, she and Dawson were able to share the Good News of Jesus with other patients in the hospital.
Sometimes we get ill or friends get ill and we get cross with God; or we get impatient if healing does not come quickly. Of course, it could just be that God will use it as an opportunity to preach Good News.
So, whatever Paul’s problem was, it caused him to be in Galatia. It caused difficulties for the church, but the welcome they originally gave to Paul was and is the model ‘Church Welcome’!
Paul, formerly Saul, a zealous Jew now converted to Christianity, looking a wreck because of his illness, was originally welcomed by the church in Galatia as if he were an angel, or as if he were Christ Jesus himself; but not just Paul the person. It was also very much the message brought by Paul which was welcomed. It was the message of Jesus himself.
Our ministry of welcome is an evangelistic ministry. As we offer a warm, sincere welcome to the visitor, the stranger, the newcomer; as we invite them to our homes for a meal, as we get to know them as people and begin to share our lives with them, we will get to share Jesus with them.
In his weakness and in his illness, Paul originally received a Jesus-welcome; but Paul now writes:
(4:15) What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me.
When Paul was first with them there was great joy in the church. New people were coming to faith. The ministry of welcome was centred upon Jesus Christ. The gospel of grace was being proclaimed and received and there was a buzz of love and joy and peace, and there are times in Church life when we also get that buzz and that real sense of Holy Spirit joy! Being free in Christ is very Good News indeed!
The Galatian Church has responded to non-gospel teaching: additional observances, extra requirements, hoops to jump through, obligations to be met have removed their joy.
Trying to keep to a heavy load of man-made rules and regulations will lead to a dearth of joy. Some Churches have killed themselves, and some churches are killing themselves, by trying to keep to a man-made code:
Thou shalt not mix with unbelievers because though might get infected, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. Thou shalt not listen to any chart music because it’s all from the devil. Thou shalt not be friendly with the church down the road because it’s probably not really a church anyway; and Paul asks, “What has happened to your joy?”
Brothers and sisters have you lost your joy? How do we react when we are confronted with our errors? In verse 16 Paul asks:
(4:16): Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?
Back in Galatians 1:10 Paul said, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Paul is trying to turn the church around, turn the church back to its first love, trying to restore its joy! He’s being ‘frank’. He is speaking the truth in love. He is not telling the church that everything is Ok! He is not flattering the church. He is telling them the truth in love and they don’t like it. They have ‘got the hump’: “Ain’t goin’ to that Church no more!”
Oh man! It can be so hard confronting sin in others. Confronting bad attitude or unhelpful practice can be so hard. It can be really painful, especially when it’s not received; but when sin and error is confronted in love, and when it is received in love it is pure joy! Perhaps you have been confronted with truth at some point and reacted badly?
Did you fall out with the one who confronted you in love? Or did you confront a brother or sister, in love, only for them to fall out with you? It can be so painful, and there are times that we need to repent of our sinfulness in this area. Church will not always be a fun feel-good place, but thank God it often is! Sometimes it is very painful.
(4:17-18): 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 be zealous for them. It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always and not just when I am with you.
Not only were the false teachers bringing false teaching – as they do! They were also displaying a method or an approach which was not Christ-like then and is not Christ-like now! The thing is, it is so easy and so tempting to adopt this approach in our evangelism and in particular in our ‘welcoming’.
If we shower someone with attention for a few weeks perhaps because they are ‘new’ at church; if we go out of our way to speak to someone ‘because they’re new’ and ‘because the Vicar says I should do’ there is a very real danger that our motives are wrong. Jesus spent time getting to know people as people. The temptation for us is to either think, “Oh, someone else will do it”, or to think, “There’s a potential new church member”.
Paul says, “It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good.” Paul, when he was Saul, was zealous, in other words massively enthusiastic about what he believed in, but it resulted in him murdering Christians. Hitler was zealous but the purpose was not good.
The warning to us is this: People who are not-yet-Christians are not simply potential Church members, or people to be targeted with lavish attention.
All people are made in the image of God and exist because God gave them life, and if we truly desire for people to come to know Jesus for themselves, and if we bless them and continue to bless them and pray for them then our motives and our purpose will be good. The Galatians, on the other hand, were on the receiving end of lavish attention which was shallow, insincere and deceitful.
(4:19-20): 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!
Paul’s rebukes are all within the framework of family. He calls the wayward church his ‘Dear Children’! This is not an angry appraisal by a boss who’s about to fire his insubordinate staff! This is a loving, passionate appeal, as from a loving Father to his little ones.
When our brother and sister Christians go off the rails, are we heavy handed with them? Or do we spiritually seek to put a loving arm around them, and appeal to them as family to come back to the truth?
Paul is confused, perplexed, mystified with the Galatians. They have previously experienced rebirth but it’s as if they’ve gone back into the womb and Paul needs to start again with them.
Paul wants Jesus to be fully formed in them, and there’s a sense of Christ needing to be formed in us, as the human Jesus was formed in Mary.
Questions! Is Jesus being formed in you? Is your life ruled by the grace of Jesus, or have you placed yourself under man-made rules? When you’re ill, do you look for gospel opportunities? In our welcoming of new people are our motives and our purposes good? How do you give and receive rebuke? Let’s pray.
