DON’T GO BREAKING MY HEART, PART 1 (GAL 4:8-11)

SERIES: FREE AT LAST, PART 14

GCEFC: FEBRUARY 7, 2010

INTRODUCTION

1. Paul has spent three chapters and part of a fourth giving a sound, logical, and convincing theological argument.

2. He’s shown that salvation is through the grace of God alone. Not a result of our good works, not a reward for our righteousness, not by keeping the law of Moses.

3. Salvation is a free gift that God confers on us who trust in Jesus Christ and in his death and resurrection on our behalf.

4. More recently Paul has said that before we came to faith in Christ, we were spiritual slaves. Slaves to the beliefs, philosophies, and religious systems of the world.

5. But through the gospel, through our faith in Christ, we’ve gone from the status of condemned slave, to redeemed slave, to adopted son, to heir of the promises of God.

6. Not because of what we’ve done—we’ve done nothing. But because of what God’s done—he’s done it all.

7. But remember why Paul is writing this letter. He’d been to Galatia and preached the gospel there. And the Galatians believed it, and became followers of Christ.

8. Everything was cool…for a while. But then Galatia was invaded by false teachers. People who taught that even though Christ was necessary for salvation—he was not enough.

9. To be really saved, a person had to trust Christ as Savior AND keep the law of Moses.

10. As we’ve said: Gentiles had to become Jews before they could become Christians. Paul is writing this letter to refute that claim. He’s refuting it because it’s not the gospel.

11. Now in chapter 4 Paul’s tone begins to change. He’s stated the theological argument and spiritual truth—now he begins to express his personal concern for the Galatians.

12. He’s been writing as a theologian missionary evangelist. Now he begins to write as a concerned pastor. Concerned for what has happened to his flock.

13. Concerned for the congregation he loves and the people with whom he’s invested so much. So let’s begin in 4:8.

A. ENSLAVEMENT TO FALSE GODS

1. 4:8: Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.

2. Earlier we looked at how essentially the Galatians and all people—before they come to faith in Christ—are in a kind of slavery.

3. Not slavery to a cruel human taskmaster—slavery to the world’s basic religious systems.

4. There are many of these systems. But the most common system is one in which human actions are rewarded by some perceived god—whether personal or impersonal.

5. A quid-pro-quo system. Do this and you get that. Don’t do this and you don’t get that.

a. Whether it’s keeping a set of regulations and requirements. Or making sure that your good karma outweighs your bad karma.

b. Or following the golden rule. Or carefully managing your yin and yang.

c. Trying to do what pleases the gods and doesn’t upset them enough to bring calamity into your life.

d. There are varieties of these approaches, but they’re more the same than different.

6. Paul says that when we did not know God—we were slaves to such systems. Whether a sophisticated high-brow philosophical thinking person’s system.

7. Or a rough-cut unrefined dim-witted system. All systems apart from God’s revelation are just forms of slavery to those who by nature are not gods.

8. They may be idols, they may be ideas, they may be philosophical systems, they may be demons, they may be an elaborate complexity of false mythological deities.

9. But what they all have in common is that they only bring spiritual enslavement—and none of them are initiated nor empowered by the one true living God.

B. THE GREAT REVERSAL

1. BUT NOW—V9: But now that you know God—or rather are known by God. This is important distinction and I’m glad he makes it.

2. Even though we’ve come to know God, it’s not because of our successful search for God. There’s only one reason we ever came to know God.

3. It’s because God found us. ROM 3:10 reminds us of this: As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.’

4. God is the diligent seeker of lost souls. If God had not sought us and found us we would not know him. We’d still be hopelessly and eternally lost.

5. So this is clear enough. What is entirely unclear is what’s next in the same verse: But now that you know God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved again?

6. Paul could understand how someone who was ignorant of God’s grace might choose to be enslaved by the legalistic demands of the law.

7. He could also understand how someone like himself could leave such an enslavement in order to embrace the grace of God.

8. But why would anyone abandon the freedom won by the grace of God to become enslaved all over again? This just made no sense.

9. SHOW AND TELL.

10. Now—if I have one of these, why would I go back to this?

11. I wouldn’t. It would make no sense at all. Paul is saying that to leave the life of spiritual freedom. To abandon the grace of God.

12. To put oneself back under a system of spiritual bondage. Back under a spiritual guardian. A spiritual tutor. A spiritual paidagogos. A law taskmaster that can never be pleased.

13. This makes no sense. Why would anyone do this? It’s bad enough to be enslaved when you have no choice. But to put yourself under slavery when you’ve been freed from it?

14. And the Galatians were Gentiles! It might be understandable if Jewish Christians went back under the law. It was all they had known. It was their tradition.

15. But what could possibly possess a Gentile to go under the law?

16. So how does Paul know the Galatians are moving this way? V10: You are observing special days and months and seasons and years!

17. The Galatians were starting to keep the special religious days under the Mosaic system.

a. Days refers to weekly Sabbaths.

b. Months refers to the celebrations tied to the lunar calendar.

c. Seasons is a reference to the feasts lasting more than one day.

d. Years refers to the periodic annual focus like the Year of Jubilee.

18. Now, this is not to say that there’s something wrong with festivals, or special days, or celebrations—even with a spiritual theme. We do this at Christmas, and Easter, and Thanksgiving, and Advent.

19. The problem is that the Jewish festivals were tied to the law and were seen as a means of commendation to God for keeping them. A means by which to earn God’s favor.

20. Like obeying the law of God in order to win God’s favor or secure God’s justification, or earn God’s forgiveness. This is a form of legalism.

21. Our relationship to God is not about the law—it’s about grace. There’s nothing wrong with keeping God’s law—we should keep it. But we don’t keep it to earn God’s favor.

22. We don’t earn God’s favor by what we do. We don’t earn God’s favor by what we don’t do. God’s favor cannot be earned—it can only be received by grace through faith.

C. PAUL’S CONCERN

1. But Paul wasn’t just confused by the Galatians. He wasn’t just bewildered by their decision to enter spiritual slavery again—he was troubled by it.

2. V11: I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you. Paul is afraid that his preaching of the gospel to the Galatians may have been in vain.

3. He’s afraid that his efforts to help them understand grace and how to live the Christian life of grace may have been wasted.

4. We begin to see how emotionally distraught Paul is over what he saw happening to the congregations of Galatia. It was breaking his heart.

5. Now before we leave the passage today, I do want to answer to some degree what may have seemed like a rhetorical question. That question being: Why would anyone choose to leave a life of grace and enter a life of spiritual bondage under the law?

6. I have a couple of reasons to suggest. You don’t have to agree with them. But you may want to at least hear them out.

7. I think one reason a person would return to legalistic law keeping is that some people are just uncomfortable with grace.

8. We talked about this a couple weeks ago. Some people just cannot accept that something as wonderful as salvation could be free. There must be a catch. There must be some fine print that you can barely read.

9. It just sounds too good to be true. And you know what they say…if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.

10. Many things that sound too good to be true are too good to be true—but not everything. There are things in your life right now that sound too good to be true, but they’re true.

11. For example…

12. Some people reject the grace of God and God’s offer of spiritual freedom because they just can’t believe it’s a free offer. They can’t believe it’s true.

13. But I think there’s another reason people exchange or reject true spiritual freedom for a life of spiritual bondage.

14. It’s because some people must have credit for what they do.

a. Now getting the credit for some things is good and right. When I make a deposit into my checking account, I want to make sure I get credit for it.

b. I served on jury duty in December. And when my service was over, I marched myself down to the Commissioner of Jurors to make sure that I received credit for my time.

c. Most of you have your W-2 Forms by now. And you’ve checked to make sure you got credit for the money that was withheld during 2009.

d. We all want to receive credit where credit is due. The Bible teaches this principle in ROM 13:7: Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

e. There’s nothing wrong for wanting and getting credit where credit is due.

15. But no one deserves any credit for their salvation. Salvation is an act of grace for which none of us deserves even a microscopic portion of the credit.

16. EPH 2 says our salvation is the gift of God and not by works—so that no one can boast.

17. Not only can we not rightly claim any credit for our salvation—it was given as a gift of God and not by works so that no one can claim credit for it. So that no one can boast.

18. God will not share credit with anyone for what he’s done by his grace alone. God wants the credit for what he’s done. And he will have the credit—or there will be no salvation.

19. We can either have salvation by grace alone through faith. Or we can have the credit. We cannot have both. We must choose.

20. So have you received God’s free gift of salvation by grace through faith? And if you have, are you living your life as a disciple by God’s grace?

21. Or are you on the legalistic treadmill? Thinking that even though God may have saved you by grace, that you certainly can’t stay saved by grace.

22. So you’re keeping the rules. Thinking this will put you in good standing with God. And in your spare time you do a little monitoring—making sure others are keeping the rules.

23. You might even have an approved list of rules that others should be keeping. If so, could you please stop?

24. The grace of God is a marvelous thing. Condemned slave to adopted son to heir of God’s promises.

25. None of us ever earned God’s grace. We didn’t earn it before we were saved. Nor will we earn it after we’ve been saved.

26. God doesn’t love us because we’ve been good. God doesn’t love us because we’re going to be good. God doesn’t love us because we want to be good.

27. God loves us simply because he chose to. Not because of who we are. But in spite of who we aren’t. And never will be. That’s what makes grace so wonderful.