Old Habits Die Hard

Introduction

Watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaZhG0Pi6Vo

Does anyone know what this movie is? This was one of my favourite movies when I was younger and it’s called the ‘Emperor’s new groove’.

This is a movie about an Aztec king named Kuzco, and he’s this really arrogant, young, self-obsessed king, who treats everyone around him really badly. And he fires one of his advisors named Yizma, and she tries to get revenge by trying to trick Kuzco and getting him to drink poison. But Yizma’s assistant is really dumb, and he accidently uses a Llama potion instead of poison, and the king is turned into a llama. So they try to finish the job and kill him off, but he manages to escape as a llama and survives with the help of a kind but poor peasant family. But even after being turned into a llama, and receiving help from this peasant family, he still treats everyone around him really badly, and the movie is about him trying to turn back into a human and into a king, and along the way, he learns to be humble and nice to those around him.

Now this movie shows us, it’s really hard to let go of old habits. You know the saying ‘old habits die hard’? And it’s the same with our Christian lives - God rescues us and saves us from sin, and our old sinful lives, but we still live in this sinful world and it is so tempting to go back to our older ways. And that is what the passage today talks about.

Read Galatians 4:1-10.

1. What are we saved from?

So in order to show us what we going to back when we go back to our old ways, Paul tells us what we are saved from. Read Galatians 4:1–3 “1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.”

Last week, we talked about the law being like our teacher or supervisor. In today’s, Paul uses a similar metaphor. In verse 1-2, it talks about how before Jesus came, we were pretty much a slave. Without Jesus, we could not be children of God, and if we are not children of God, we cannot gain the inheritance of the father. And if we are not children, but slaves, what are we slaves to? Verse 3 tells us we were slaves to ‘the elementary principles of the world’.

Before Jesus, we were enslaved to the ‘elementals’. What Paul means here, is not earth, water, wind, and fire, like Avatar, but this is referring to all the material world. And by extension, what Paul is referring to is the old creation that was all under sin and curse as a result of Adam and Eve’s rebellion in the garden. Everything that is sinful falls under this ‘elemental principles of the world’: like being evil and hateful towards one another, selfishness, divisions and wars in the world, socioeconomic injustice, injustices in gender, social media addiction, being mean to your friends, disrespecting your parents, trying to use the law to earn our own salvation (like we saw last week), our worldly and earthly ways of living.

We need to remember that we were enslaved to all these things without Jesus. Everything that is wrong with the world; everything that is wrong with us; we had no hope in escaping without Jesus.

2. What does it mean to be saved?

But then what happens next? Read Galatians 4:4 “4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,”

God did not leave us in this state of slavery, in this helpless state. Even though history started off on the wrong foot with Adam and Eve sinning in the garden, God had already - from eternity - planned to rescue us from the problem of sin, by sending his son, Jesus Christ, into the world.

And what does sending the son achieve? Read Galatians 4:5–7 “5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

The last few weeks, we have been talking about justification - how because of Jesus dying on the cross for us, when we stand before God as the judge, we are no longer deemed guilty in court, but we are now innocent; and not only innocent, but God considers us as righteous as Jesus who perfectly obeyed the law.

But what Jesus does for us doesn’t just stop at justification. Although justification is an important blessing of the cross, it is not the only blessing. What Jesus achieves on the cross is not just changing our legal status in court from guilty to innocent. Jesus does something more than just something legal - and that is, Jesus gives us something relational. Through Jesus, we are adopted as children of God. What the gospel of the cross of Jesus gives us is more than something that is cold and factual, like a court ruling - the cross gives us something intensely personal because we can now call our God, Father. God takes us up into his family, he makes us his personal children, so that we can experience the closeness, affection, love, generosity that we can have with our earthly parents, but even more, because he is a heavenly Father.

To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is even greater. Read Galatians 4:7 “7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” -> God rescues us from the old sinful creation by sending his Son into the world, and changes us from slaves, to sons. Never forget this crazy, miraculous, wonderful new status that you have in this life.

3. Old habits die hard

So no wonder Paul is frustrated! Read Galatians 4:8 “8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.” Paul realises this crazy and wonderful loving new status these Galatian believers have as sons of God. So of course Paul is extremely frustrated when the Galatian believers go back to living lives that make them slaves again! Before they became Christians, the Galatian believers would have worshipped pagan gods of the Greeks and Romans, like Zeus, Hermes, Jupiter. But they came to know the truth, and abandoned those false gods and came to know the true God.

But even after coming to know the one and only true God, what do they do? Read Galatians 4:9–10 “9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years!”

They go back to their old habits. This time, not worshipping pagan Greek/Roman gods, but this time, trying to earn their salvation and right to be children of God by following the Jewish law. Paul is saying, trying to be saved by following the law, trying to earn your right to stand before God as innocent and as a child of God, is just as bad as worshipping false gods - both are part of the ‘elementary principles’, that ‘old sinful creation’.

They both represent a life separated from, and not knowing, the one true God. They both represent a life of me trying to save myself, even though I am enslaved and powerless by sin. They both represent a life not depending on Christ who is my only source of hope, because there is nothing in me that can save me. One makes an idol of false gods; the other makes an idol of myself - I become my own god.

So Paul is saying, ‘DON’T GO BACK TO THAT MISERABLE HOPELESS LIFE’. You have come to know this wonderful truth that can dramatically save you. So why would you even think about going back to your old ways? Live in the new way that matches the new status God has given you - a child of God. You no longer need to earn your right to be God’s child; God has already given it to you.

Conclusion

It’s so easy to go back to our old ways. Our baseline programming as humans is we need to do things ourselves, we need to get the job done ourselves to get the results we want. It’s hard to rely on someone else. But Paul reminds us that for our salvation, for our status of being a child of God, we can’t control it, we can’t do anything to earn it. It’s beyond our strength and power and intelligence because remember, we were enslaved to sin. So because it is beyond our power, God dramatically and miraculously changes our state from unsaved to saved; from innocent to righteous; from slave to free, even though we don’t deserve it, and even though we are utterly unable to do it ourselves.

And even though we have experienced this crazy radical transformation, it is so easy to go back to our old selves: we might think God will love me more, or I will be a child of God even more, if I did more nice things. We might once again try to find meaning and happiness in life and in things that are not God, like money, power or success. We try to pursue goals in our lives that don’t include God at all. We treat each other in whatever way we want to treat each other, rather than the way sons of God should treat each other.

Paul says, don’t do that. Don’t go back to your old ways. Remember the wonderful salvation God has given you, which is not just a court ruling, but now you have the right to personally call God your Abba, Father. When you truly realise and drink in that reality, your desire to live according to your old ways will go down over time, and your desire to live the way He designed you to live, will increase.

Discussion Questions:

When you think about God, what kind of God is he? Is he far away or distant? Does he seem involved in your life, or is he uninvolved? Is he loving, or does he seem uncaring? Is he your Father?

What are some old sinful habits that I keep going back to? These are things that pull us back to being slaves, rather than children of God. How can I break these old habits?