Sermon Tone Analysis

Bookmarks & Needs:

B: Galatians 4:8-11

Housekeeping Stuff & Announcements:

Welcome guests to the family gathering, introduce yourself.

Thank the band and Olha (special music).

Invite guests to parlor after service.

Next Sunday night, October 13, following our evening service, our Adults on Mission group will meet, and one of our members will be sharing about his overseas mission work this past summer.

Miller Hall at 6:30 pm.

Keith Buchanan’s memorial service will be held on Saturday, October 19, at 10 am here.

I would like to say a special thanks to all of the folks on our Safety & Security Ministry for all that they do week in and week out, and specifically for how hard the team worked over the past couple of weekends with the Aspire and REAL Women’s Conferences.

I want to mention something that our Children’s Ministry is starting that is very exciting.

On Wednesday nights this school year, from 6:30 to 7:30, our “Father’s GYM” program for boys will be themed “Mimicking Dad,” and will be a combined father/son Bible study and activity time.

The focus will be on fathers guiding their sons by example on a journey toward becoming godly young men.

There will be 6 lesson topics: Embarking, Clean Hearts, Standing Strong, Leading Lessons, Working Well, and Manhood Myths.

Each topic will be a six-week study.

Dads with boys, please prayerfully consider coming and being a part of this great focus.

We know it’s a school night, and that’s hard, but we believe it will be well worth it… not only for your sons, but also for our young men whose fathers cannot be there or for sons of single moms.

We want these boys to come as well.

There will be men who are willing and excited to step in on those Wednesday nights for those boys.

6:30 to 7:30, meet in the FLC.

Mission New Mexico State Mission Offering thru September and October.

Goal is $8,000.

Received so far: $6,885.

Just to let everyone know, we do have online giving available through our website (ehbc.org).

It’s quick and easy, and you can even set up recurring giving if you’d like.

Opening

In our study last week in our series Dear Church, we looked at the doctrine of divine adoption in Galatians: that in the Gospel, God doesn’t only justify those who have faith in Christ, He also enters into a new kind of relationship with them: He adopts them into His family, calling them “sons,” which also makes them coheirs of the incredible inheritance of His Son, Jesus Christ.

This is true for all those who have faith in Christ, regardless of race, social status, or gender, according to .

I open with this recap because it is vital for us to keep this in mind as we go forward today into the next few verses of this letter to the churches of Galatia.

Let’s stand for a moment as we read today’s focal passage:

Pray

In this passage and in what follows, we see the beginnings of the heart of Paul toward his spiritual children in Galatia.

To this point, Paul has been fairly harsh toward them, referring to them as “foolish,” calling them out for their willingness to follow a “different gospel,” which is truly not the Gospel at all.

There is a time for being direct.

Here, and in what follows through the rest of the letter, however, he shows the depth of his pastoral care for these confused believers.

Paul looks back at where the Galatians have come from to make an application of what he has been saying.

He reminds them of who they once were, and what their lives were like apart from Christ.

Paul looks back at where the Galatians have come from to make an application of what he has been saying.

He reminds them of who they once were, and what their lives were like apart from Christ.

In verse 8, Paul looks back at where the Galatians have come from to make an application of what he has been saying.

He reminds them of who they once were, and what their lives were like apart from Christ.

He opens with essentially the words, “But then...”

We have a little insight into life in the province of Galatia before Paul and Barnabas arrived on the scene during their first missionary journey.

In our study, “The Foolishness of the Flesh,” we saw from and 14 that there had been a Jewish synagogue in both Pisidian Antioch and Iconium.

This means that each town had at least 10 Hebrew male adults, as this was the required number before a synagogue would be built.

But most of the Galatians were Gentiles.

They worshipped pagan idols, which included even the old Greek gods.

Once the Jews in Antioch rejected the Gospel, Paul and Barnabas turned their attention to the Gentiles, and some were saved.

Then again, they went to Iconium and preached, and God enabled them to do miraculous signs, and many Jews and Greeks believed.

Then a group tried to lynch Paul and Barnabas there, so they went to Lystra.

This is where we get most of our understanding from Scripture of the pagan culture of the Galatians.

Let’s look at what happened in Lystra:

acts 14:8

There is no mention of a synagogue in Lystra, so Paul just starts in public, probably in the marketplace, which would have been a prime place for someone to beg.

This man had never walked because he had been lame since birth.

But he’s there, and listening, and Paul sees that “he had faith to be healed.”

I’d surmise that this man was sitting there somehow affirming the Gospel that Paul was preaching, perhaps even declaring his faith at that moment.

And Paul tells him to stand, and he does so, but even more than that: this man who had never stood, never walked, never jumped immediately does so.

acts 14:11-

Obviously, this sort of thing is going to attract attention, and it certainly does in Lystra.

However, the people’s interpretation of what has just occurred is inaccurate.

They believe that the healing of the man had taken place because Paul and Barnabas are gods, specifically the Greek gods Zeus and Hermes.

Zeus was conceived as essentially the chief of the Greek pantheon, and Hermes was the herald or messenger.

A temple to Zeus was located just outside of Lystra, so certainly, if it is believed that Zeus was on location in person, his priest should be involved.

So he comes, ready to offer sacrifices to Barnabas and Paul as faithful worshipers of Zeus.

Luke (who wrote Acts) had noted in verse 11 that they shouted their belief about Paul and Barnabas in their own cultural language, and it would seem that at first, Paul and Barnabas don’t know what’s going on, exactly.

But once they realize it, they spring into action to prevent this false worship.

Luke here (who wrote Acts) notes that they said these things in their own cultural language, and it would seem that at first, Paul and Barnabas don’t know what’s going on, exactly.

acts 14:14-

These two missionaries go running into the crowd, passionately crying out for them to stop what they are doing, and calling them to turn to God in faith, starting at the beginning of the Gospel: that God made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them.

Not Zeus, not Hermes: the one and only living God.

Ultimately, their argument works, but just barely:

These people were zealous to worship Barnabas and Paul as Zeus and Hermes.

Even though the men themselves tell them to stop, they “barely” succeed in getting them to stop worshiping them.

Just to finish up this part of the history with the Galatians:

The Jews who had caused so much trouble for Paul and Barnabas in Antioch and Iconium follow them to Lystra, and now they turn the tide of the crowd, who rapidly go from believing Paul to be a god and killing an animal FOR him, to deciding that they would rather just kill him.

But he doesn’t die, and the disciples take him back into town, and then they leave for Derbe the next day.

This will be important next week.

So these particular Galatians, those in Lystra, had a temple to Zeus just outside the town, and they actively practiced pagan worship, even willing to worship Barnabas and Paul because of the work that God had done through them.

What had Paul written to them in verse 8?

They worshipped pagan gods.

Paul says, “But then, because you didn’t know God, you were slaves in worshiping things that aren’t gods.”

Even so far as to worship mere men, like themselves.

And so dedicated to doing so that even the objects of their worship—in this case Barnabas and Paul—could barely keep them from sacrificing to them.

They were enslaved to these practices.

They

Remember that a few things about the churches of Galatia, to whom Paul is writing this letter:

First, they were (at least in Antioch and Iconium for certain) a racially mixed group.

Paul had come with the message of the Gospel to the synagogues in both towns, and Jewish believed the Gospel.

After rejection by the Jews in each town, Paul and Barnabas preached the Gospel to the Gentiles there, and many believed.

Apparently there was no synagogue in either Lystra or Derbe, so Paul started where the people were.

In both cases, he was preaching to at least primarily Gentiles.

And many of them believed.

Second, this letter is the only letter that we have from Paul that was written to churches in a wider geographic area, instead of a single city or an individual.

We have to keep in mind that, while the entire letter is to the entire church of Christ in Galatia, certainly each location didn’t have exactly the same situation, issues, or set of results.

As an example, Paul and Barnabas are “expelled” from Antioch, fled from the possibility of being lynched in Iconium, Paul was actually stoned and left for dead in Lystra, and there is no record of anything bad at all happening in Derbe.

Paul would necessarily have to address both Jewish thinking and Gentile thinking.

So it makes sense that Paul would speak to

Third, Paul is writing this letter to correct what had been happening in Galatia probably since just after Paul left: that people were saying that just believing in Christ was not enough for salvation: that you had to follow the Jewish law as well.

Paul is refuting that fact here in Galatians, and telling them that believing in Christ really is enough both to save us and to keep us saved.