Galatians 4:8-11 - Grow Up! / Who do you serve? / Take a Look at Yourself / Grow up!: How to Mature in Your Faith Pt 2

Galatians 4:8-11

8 “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.

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!

11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.”

Introduction:

Story of prodigal son

The son tells his father he wants nothing to do with him, he asks for his share of the inheritance and goes away.

He squanders his money recklessly on whatever it was he wanted

Found himself dead broke so he hires himself to feed pigs

And as he is starving, longing to eat what the pigs were eating.. he realizes his sin and goes back home.

He goes back home with the mindset that he will work off his debt to his father.

He knows he sinned so gravely against his father, and he knows he doesn’t deserved to be called son.

But what happens?

Luke 15:22–24 ESV

But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

The Father celebrates!

Puts the robe, ring, shoes… sign that he honors him as his son again.

Celebrates and has a feast with the fattened calf

Says his son was dead, but is no alive

All of this is showing that he has been restored to the place and standing of a son, not a slave which is what he had in mind when he came home.

* Everything I’ve said to now is how the Bible tells the story. This next part isn’t in the bible but just for the sake of illustration purposes. Hypothetical.

But now imagine the next day...

the son goes out into the fields of his fathers house and starts working hard out of fear that if he doesn’t do this, his Father would disown him

he goes into the kitchen, helps the other servants prepare the meal because he’s anxious that if he let’s up in doing work around the house, maybe his Father would change his mind

at dinner time, he doesn’t go into the family dining room, but goes into the servants quarters to eat… because he is unsure if he can show his face in front of his father

That would be absurd! Why would he do this?

the father already clothed him, had a celebration, and embrace him as his son.

Why would he does this??

The sons insecure about the father’s love for him.

Insecure if he’s really forgiven, accepted, and truly a son again

This resulted in him living as a slave trying to earn his father’s love and acceptance.

This is what was happening to the gentiles in the Galatian church.

the Judiazers were teaching that you need the gospel + law to be accepted by God

This false gospel brings insecurity because now God’s love for you is dependent not solely on what God has done (the gospel), but now it’s also dependent on us and our performance (law).

which is terrifying and insecurity because none of us, not even for a single day of our lives, have been able to fully keep God’s laws.

Today’s passage we’re going to look at two things.

(1) Insecurity in the gospel, and what results from it

(2) Security in the gospel, and what results from that

Insecurity in the Gospel

Results: we become slaves to idols

Past two weeks, Paul has been showing the Galatian church and us who we are:

For those who put their faith and trust in Jesus, we are..

Children of promise, Abraham’s offspring

Adopted sons. Heir to the full inheritance of God

Completely loved and accepted by God

Today, Paul steps back and is telling the church to look back on who they once were, which also shows us who we are without the gospel

Let’s read

8 “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 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!

What we need to know about the gentiles is this:

In their previous life before knowing the gospel, they were idol-worshiping pagans:

Back then, they had gods for almost everything,: earth god, wind, water, fire, air, fertility, money, etc.. there were gods who controlled these things in our reality.

these false gods would be able to impact peoples livelihood and destinies by controlling these elements.

So the gentiles would worship the gods that would be able to give them what their heart desired.

I want kids, worship the fertility god. I need crops to grow, worship the rain god.

Their worship to these gods, Paul describes as enslavement.

Make sacrifices, give money, perform rituals to appease/satisfy that god

And then maybe you’ll get what you want

But Paul is not worried that they would go back to these completely false gods, but he’s worried because of their insecurity of the gospel, their pursuit of God would enslave them like they were enslaved to the false gods.

What do you mean??

10 You observe days and months and seasons and years!

It’s an obscure statement without knowing the religious and cultural background

Paul is referring to the Jewish religious calendar.

Judiazers were saying to the gentiles that you had to get circumcised, follow dietary laws, but you also had to follow all the holy days, new moons, festivals, sabbatical years to earn God’s love and acceptance.

Do this, and you may appease/satisfy God, and you’ll get salvation.

This what Paul refers to as “weak and worthless elementary principles of the world”

For the Jew: Work hard for your righteousness

For the Pagan: Work hard for success

What Paul is saying, your legalism and religiosity is the same enslavement to idols as paganism and worship of all their gods.

They are one and the same because in both situations, we are the ones working as slaves to try to get what only God can give us.

What idols are you enslaved to?

“[An idol is] anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, and anything that you seek to give you what only God can give.” - Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods

Whether it’s legalism and religiosity: Sunday attendance, your ability to seem like to got it all together, your Bible-reading plan

Illustration:

(1) We might not worship sun gods,

Paul is perplexed that they would go back to

If we’re honest with ourselves, we struggle with this as well.

Idol worship isn’t necessarily the worship of a budha statue, or krishna, or sun god

Romans 1:25 tells us this about what an idol is.

Romans 1:25 “because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”

An idol is simply a lie in our hearts that we exchange the truth of God for.

For example:

Security in the Gospel

Results: we are free to live for God

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. - St. Augustine

eTrue contentment; true satisfaction; true worth; true joy; true fulfillment—these are only to be found in Christ.

Application:

Calvin, idol factory

“[An idol is] anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, and anything that you seek to give you what only God can give.”

Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods

Before we knew Christ, we were all living according to the elementary principles of the world.

Without Christ, our hearts will cling to idols, things that are not gods to try to be saved.

Even after we are saved we, there is a tug of war going on.

are we going to live according to elementary principle, or are we going to live gospel

We all lived by these elementary principles of this world. We all served something that we thought would give us salvation.

Remember your old self

Who were you before you met Christ and truly understood the gospel?

What was it that drove you? What did you live for? What was your savior?

Education. Relationships. Money. Career.

We might not have been worshipping a sun god for crops, or fertility god to get children like the gentiles

But we had an idol in our heart and drove our desires and our will

We served education, materialism, career because we thought it would free us

We thought we would find purpose, hope, acceptance, love, security if we worked hard for these idols.

We were slaves to them!

But then Christ came along, he showed us the foolishness of our ways, the wickedness of our sin and idolatry, he shows us grace and forgives us, and tells us that we have purpose, we are accepted, loved, secure in him now.

We may still struggle with these idols after coming to Christ, but the hope is now that we are saved we are growing more in Christ, than in these idols. Slowly stripped away from our hearts.

Slave to the world / Former self (Past) / Old You / Remember your old self

Slave to religion / Foolish self (Current) Struggling You / Examine your current self

10 You observe days and months and seasons and years!

Judaism had its own special calendar of holy days, new moons, sabbatical years and so forth. Paul is saying that by returning to a ceremonial, calendrical religion, the Galatians return to pagan bondage under these spirits in the heavens

Evidently the Jewish calendar had been instituted in the Galatian churches. They were planning to observe the regulations for weekly sabbath days, monthly new moon festivals, annual festivals like Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, and the sabbatical years.

Slave to God’s love / Freed self (True) True You / Know your true self

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?

The great and central basis of Christian assurance is not how much our hearts are set on God, but how unshakably His heart is set on us. And if we begin to grasp that we are “known by God”, we won’t seek to bolster our self-image or standing before Him through our works. We won’t worship any idol-we will love Him, the one who knows us.

Remember who you were

Recognize the idols in your life

Know that you are fully known

Idolatry

Legalism - earning your acceptance, salvation through religion is the same as pagan worship

Freedom

How to Mature in Faith, Part 2.

Prodigal Son:

Immature Faith: Insecurity breeds idols

Mature Faith: To knowing that God knows you.

Recognize your Idols

Intro:

Teacher trains, kids doesn’t get it.

This is what Paul must’ve felt like.

Maybe this is what you feel like in your walk with God.

Don’t feel like there’s growth.

Moving back and forth

Today we’re going to try to diagnose

Diagnose our hearts with the first two points: what enslaves us, and find out what frees us in the last.

To refresh our memories about what was going on in the Galatian church:

Judaizers, false teachers coming into the church teaching gospel + law

The gentile Christians were at risk of losing their freedom in Christ, and falling into legalism: trying to earn their standing, acceptance with God by their actions.