WWUTT 1773 Until Christ is Formed in You, Part 2 (Galatians 4:8-11)

Paul’s Correction in Galatians 4:8-20

In Galatians 4 .9, Paul says that you have known God, or rather, you have been known by God. Because see, what's more important than knowing God is that he knows you when we understand the text.

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Hey, once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in the book of Galatians, chapter four. This is part two of the sermon that was yesterday. I'm gonna go ahead and begin by reading our text in Galatians 4 .8 through 20, and then we'll pick up where we left off yesterday.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the churches in Galatia. At that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. But now, having known God, or rather having been known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things to which you want to be enslaved all over again?

You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you that perhaps I have labored over you for nothing. I beg of you, brothers, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You have done me no wrong, but you know that it was because of a bodily illness that I proclaimed the gospel to you the first time, and that which was a trial to you in my bodily condition, you did not despise or loathe, but you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus himself.

Where then is that sense of blessing you had? For I testify to you that if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? They zealously seek you, not commendably, but they wish to shut you out so that you will zealously seek them.

But it is good always to be zealously sought in a commendable manner, and not only when I am present with you. My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you, but I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone because I am perplexed about you.

Known by God and Foreknown in Love

We continue now with part two of the sermon that is entitled, Until Christ is Formed in You. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those who were by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, that's very interesting the way that Paul puts that.

It's almost like he corrects himself in the middle of the statement as he's giving it to the Galatians. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, because see what's more important for us than to know God is to be known by Him, that He knows us.

And when we say know, when we're saying known by God, we're talking about an intimate knowing. Does God know about every person on earth? Of course He does. It's not like there are people that He's turning around going, oh, hey, didn't even know you were there.

God knows where every single person is. He knows what every single person is doing at all times. He knows the heart of every man. It is He who searches mind and heart according to the scriptures. But when we talk about being known by God, we're talking about an intimate affection and relationship that we have with God.

When we read about foreknowledge, the foreknowledge of God, according to the foreknowledge of God, in Romans 8, verse 29, we read that we are being shaped into the image of the sun according to the foreknowledge of God.

It's Romans 8, 28 that you surely know. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose. And in verse 29 tells us the good that He is working out in each and every one of us.

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His son in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. Now, when it says here that He foreknew us, it does not mean that God looked down the tunnel of time to see a decision that we were gonna make one of these days, and He sees that we made the right decision, and He goes, okay, I'm gonna love that person.

For God to foreknow us means that He placed His love and His affection on us before the world was even created. Foreknowledge is not about being privy to some sort of knowledge that the rest of us don't know.

Foreknowledge means that God did know us from a time past and had placed His affection on us before we had been born and had made any decision good or bad. As Charles Spurgeon has said, I'm sure glad that God placed His love and His affection on me before I was born because He surely wouldn't have after I was born.

Foreknowledge is God knowing us before we were born, God loving us before we were born. And as we read in Romans 3 in His divine forbearance, looking past our sins, He placed His love and His affection on us.

Every single person is known about by God, absolutely, but only those who are followers of Christ are known by Him affectionately. And that's contrary to a philosophy that you will hear in this world.

Even Oprah has said that we're all God's children. Everybody is a child of God. Doesn't the Bible say that we're created in the image of God? Of course it does. But Romans 3 .10 says that we have become worthless because in our sinfulness, we desecrated the image of God.

And what we deserve for that is judgment. But God, in His divine forbearance, had looked past our sinful nature to give us instead a new nature. And that was the nature of His Son, whom He is shaping us in the image of.

And this is our sanctification. It was not just in justification, but also in sanctification, growing in holiness and righteousness. And this is the work of God. It is not by our works that we accomplish these things.

It is not a checklist of things of, you have to do this and you have to do this and you have to do this in order to have right standing with God. We already have that because God has placed His affection on us because of what He has done, not because of what we have done.

And the reason why you have come to know God is because you were first known by God. In 1 John 4, this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

In this is love. Not that we have loved God, but because He first loved us. Because God first loved you, you now love God. Because He first knew you, now you know God. And knowing God in an intimate and in a friendly and in an affectionate way, you have come to know God or rather to be known by God.

If this is your condition now before the Lord, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world whose slaves you want to become again once more? And the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world is works.

Believing that by your works, you can be saved. Believing that by your works, you can be justified. Believing that by your works, you can be sanctified. Paul has been laying out emphatically a doctrine of justification by faith alone.

And my friends, there is no other way that we come to salvation. There is no other way that we come to sanctification except by faith in Jesus Christ. And beware, because this doctrine continues to be under attack every day.

And every generation or so, we will have somebody try to introduce some new heresy, probably the way that the world works anymore, how fast information travels around the globe today. It happens even more quickly than every generation now.

It's about every six or seven years. We've got some new false teaching that'll come about trying to pervert the gospel of justification by faith. One of those perversions came about in the 1960s and 70s and is referred to as the New Perspectives on Paul.

Anybody ever heard of the New Perspectives on Paul? Basically, the New Perspectives on Paul is this idea that justification by faith alone is a medieval concept. It came out of the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s.

But it's not justification the way that Paul understood it in a Jewish context. Paul was more concerned with covenant community than he was with individual guilt and conviction and salvation. So when we're reading about justification by faith alone, according to those who adopt this perspective that's called the New Perspectives on Paul, what Paul is really concerned with is that you just, you be a part of the covenant community.

You do the stuff that covenant community people are supposed to do. You be liturgical. You come to the Lord's table. You partake in the body and the blood. That's the kind of stuff that you need to be concerned with, not individual guilt, not individual faith in Christ.

That's seriously what these people are preaching. There's a book that was written on it in 1977. It gained new traction and ground in the 90s. And one of the foremost purveyors of this concept of the New Perspectives on Paul is a man by the name of N .T. Wright, one of the most influential theologians in the world today.

And he believes that when we're reading about justification by faith alone in Galatians, it's not really justification by faith alone. It's really a difference between the Jewish works or those things that identified Jews and the things that identified Gentiles.

It's really a difference between Jew and Gentile. N .T. Wright argues that justification is not about being declared righteous in God's sight. Rather, it's about who is part of the covenant community known as the church.

Righteousness is not about doing justly as God declares that you should walk in righteousness. Rather, righteousness is just about covenant faithfulness. And honestly, when I hear that description, according to N .T. Wright, of what he believes justification to be, I look at that and I go, what's the difference?

You can't be a part of the church unless you have been justified. So you can't even concern yourself with those things that pertain to the church and covenant faithfulness until you have first come to faith in Jesus Christ.

You're not even part of the church until you've been justified. Those who are justified, God makes a part of his church. And yet we have this heresy that is going around now from even prominent theologians that sound teachers will cling to, who are saying that justification is something else other than by faith alone.

They deny justification by faith alone. Those who are part of the new perspectives on Paul. And you will encounter this someday if you go to another church other than this one, you may run into somebody who believes that the point of the letter of Galatians is not justification by faith alone, but the point of the letter of Galatians is that you just be part of the covenant community.

Denying that we have any individual responsibility to conviction of sin and obedience to our Lord God by faith in Jesus Christ alone. Quoting from Spurgeon again, there's no such thing as new theology.

There's simply old heresies with new titles on them. And what we're reading about and coming to understand about justification in Galatians is not something that the Protestant reformers came up with.

It's something the Protestant reformers returned to because the church had become so corrupted and fallen away from these things. They started teaching that justification was by your works. Same problem that Paul is addressing here in Galatia.

Justification by works instead of justification by faith. If you've been justified by God, how can you turn back to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world whose slaves you want to become once more?

In Romans, Paul says that the law was powerless to save anybody. Yet the Galatians are turning back to the law for their salvation. Paul says you observe days and months and seasons and years. I'm afraid I have labored in vain over you.

What does he mean by days and months and seasons and years? Well, it's that checklist once again. It's going down that list of believing that if I do all of this and I do it exactly as I'm supposed to do it, then God can't help but show his favor upon me.

But Romans chapter 11 tells us who has given unto the Lord that he must be repaid. God doesn't owe us anything, but he has given to us by his grace. Regarding days and seasons and years, the apostle Paul said the following to the Colossians.

Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

In other words, days and seasons and years, these things were pointing to somebody who was going to fulfill all of this, which were just types and shadows of the salvation that was to come. And that person who fulfills those things is Christ.

So you don't gain greater holiness by observing Jewish holidays. In fact, Jesus even took one of those Jewish holidays and recommissioned it into something else. He took Passover and made it the Lord's table so that those who could participate in it are not just the Jews, but Jews and Gentiles alike who come to partake in the bread that was broken and the blood that was spilled for the forgiveness of sins.

It's no longer about holidays that mark a particular ethnic people, but we're talking about something that we can enjoy in remembrance of the body that was given for the forgiveness of sins, for all who believe in Him.

And it is only by that belief that we become part of that family, not by who we were born to or the color of our skin or the language that we speak, but by the body that was broken for us. And by faith in that sacrifice, our sins forgiven, and we have fellowship with God at His table.

So it's not about observing days and months and seasons and weeks and years. And Paul says, if that's what you think, then I'm afraid that I've labored over you in vain. Paul, in other words, saying, I've just done this for myself.

I've just been speaking for my own good since your good has not come about as a result of the preaching that I first gave to you. The gospel that was first declared. You're still continuing to behave in certain ways, thinking that it is your behavior that is gonna make you right before God.

I tell you, it is God who makes you right before Him. He does demand righteousness, but He gives the righteousness that He demands and clothes us in it that we may stand before Him justified. And this is the work of God from beginning to end, from the moment of your conversion to the moment that you go to heaven to be with Him.

God is the one who works out your salvation. It's to the Philippians that the apostle Paul said, I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it on the day of Christ.

But then in chapter two, he says that in the fear of God, you should work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. So it is God who works this in us, but then when we are working it out, we are displaying that God has done the work in us.

Not that we are doing something that will merit our salvation, but we are displaying in our lives that salvation has indeed been given to us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are.

You did me no wrong. Become as I am. As Paul said to the Corinthians, imitate me for I am of Christ. God has given us examples to follow. How do we know what it means to be like Jesus? We look to the apostles.

You realize when you're reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we tend to think that those words are Christ because they're written in red. It was the apostles that wrote those down. They wrote those words down just like an apostle wrote this letter that we're reading, Galatians.

So when it comes to understanding who Christ is and how we imitate Christ, we must do what the apostles did. We must live as they did. And then even mature Christian people have been put into your life to imitate that you may be more like them, walking in godliness and holiness.

One of those that the apostles said that you are to imitate, Peter, in 1 Peter 5, you're to imitate your pastor. Now, I know that sounds somewhat self-serving for me to say that to you, that you might hear that coming from me, but it is nevertheless a responsibility that is placed upon me that I walk in holiness.

So I give my congregation an example that they are to follow. And Peter says this is the instruction of every pastor, that they do this with joy and not reluctantly. Having compassion for the sheep as our Lord Christ had compassion for his sheep.

And so what I desire to teach you is not the philosophy and the words and the greatness of Gabe Hughes. I've got nothing great to give you. God blessed me with a great radio voice. That's about the best I've got.

My responsibility is to give you the word of Christ so that you may be shaped according to this. I don't wanna make you in my image. I know my image. I don't want anybody to be like that image. I want anyone to be shaped in the image of Christ, that you may become more like your Lord.

And so I would say to you, imitate me only in the sense that I am attempting to imitate Christ. Brothers, I entreat you become as I am, for I also have become as you are. Paul making himself a Gentile to Gentiles if he needed to be for their benefit so that they may hear the gospel and live.

He says, you did me no wrong. You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first. In other words, Paul saying that it was because of a sickness that I came to you and I delivered the gospel, that God can even work through our failures to deliver his truth to those who would believe and live.

The Gospel of Grace Against Works-Based Religion

I have much more to say about this and had planned on covering this entire section today, but for the sake of continuing to understand the gospel of peace and the salvation that we receive by faith in no other way.

I'm gonna pause for here this morning and we'll come back to this passage again next week. But may we continue to know that coming into the holiness of God is not about our works, ladies and gentlemen.

It wasn't by our works that we came into justification. It's not by our works that we come into sanctification. It's not by our works that we were declared innocent before God. It's not by our works that we continue to walk in innocence.

This has been the work of God over and over. So may we continue to rely upon him and put our faith and our trust in him. And maybe today you have come to the end of a long week of a lot of hustle and bustle and you have forgotten the Lord your God in the midst of your daily grind and the things, the tasks, the responsibilities that are laid out before you.

Then I would encourage you to do, as Peter instructed in 1 Peter 5, that you cast your anxieties upon him because he cares for you. In fact, it's in that very place that the apostle Peter says that we are to humble ourselves before God.

And the very fact that you would not take your concerns to God is because you have not humbled yourself. 1 Peter 5, 6, and this happens to be right after Peter had given instruction to shepherds to be examples to their flock.

In 1 Peter 5, 6, he says, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. Once again, my brothers and sisters, you were foreknown by God before the foundation of the world.

He placed his love and his affection on you. And that is evident in the fact that you worship Christ. You are not inherently worthy of the love of God. In fact, what you are by your nature worthy of is the wrath of God.

But he has shown his love through his son that you may come to believe and live. And so continue to place yourselves in the hands of almighty God. May you also be filled with a passion for this gospel that you may share it with another, that they may hear, believe, and live.

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on a Old Testament study When We Understand the Text.