02-05-12 Remembering Our Roots

For a number of weeks now

we have been studying Paul’s letter to the Galatians,

a letter in which he unleashes on his readers

a series of arguments designed to stop the Galatians’ return to religion.

In the passage we will study together during the next few minutes

there is one verse that perfectly captures

what’s going on in the mind and heart of Paul as he writes,

one verse that expresses perfectly

what it was that drove him to send this letter.

It’s found in the 11^th verse of chapter four where Paul says,

I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.

I fear for you...

There is so much power,

so much intensity,

so much honesty and transparency in that phrase.

If you have ever had a child who has wrapped themselves around your heart,

or if you’ve ever allowed another person into your life,

really let them in

in a way that created within you

a longing for the very best for them,

if you’ve ever loved deeply

you understand what was going on within Paul as he wrote this letter.

To say I fear for you

is all different than saying, “I’m concerned for you.”

We fear for those we love,

we fear because we long for them to know freedom,

and solid footing,

and joy,

and hope,

and victory

and we see them being attacked by lies

that could strip them of all of those things.

I have intense memories of that kind of fear.

I remember all too well

the first year our daughter, Joni, left home.

I remember that time of tremendous turmoil in her life,

a time when she and we lived in intense pain,

a time when I feared for her

as she searched for the foundation in her own understanding of her God.

And there have been other times in my life as well,

times when I’ve seen someone I love

in danger of missing the truth they so desperately need,

the truth that has the power to make them free.

The kind of fear Paul was expressing in this passage

is the kind of fear that love produces

when those we love are in danger of great loss or great pain

and we do not yet know the end of the story.

And Paul feared for his Galatian brothers and sisters.

I think I understand a little

why these Galatians touched Paul so deeply.

We saw when we began our study of this letter

that Paul’s outreach to the Galatians

was the most significant turning point in his presentation of the Gospel

that he would ever know.

It was during his outreach to the Galatians,

when Paul encountered such intense hostility from his fellow Jews

and their open rejection of their promised Messiah,

that he turned to the non-Jewish world,

to the Gentiles,

and extended to them the free gift of the love and salvation of God through Jesus Christ.

And when their uncluttered, religion-free spirits

heard what Paul was saying

they responded by the hundreds,

freely receiving what God was freely offering - peace with God through their Lord Jesus,

offering Him nothing more than simple faith

and hearts overflowing with gratitude.

But I think very likely

these enthusiastic Galatian converts

became more than just Paul’s brothers and sisters.

In a very real sense

they also became Paul’s great test case

for the redeeming power of the Gospel of God in the non-Jewish world.

These were the ones Paul bragged about.

These were the ones he pointed to

when people questioned his determination

to literally fling open the gates of heaven to the entire world.

I can hear him saying, “Haven’t you heard what God is doing among the Galatians? Haven’t you heard how they turned from their idols to serve the living and true God? Haven’t you heard what their simple faith in the living God has done?”

It’s no wonder that Satan targeted these Galatians

in an attempt to bring them once again into bondage,

using his most effective slight-of-hand.

After their having broken free from their slavery to immorality and pagan worship,

he skillfully pulled them into the equally hideous bondage to religion,

substituting their freedom in Christ

for a system of religious duties

that they were promised would lead them into God’s approval and acceptance.

When Paul wrote this letter to the Galatians

there was far more at stake

than just the work of God among the Galatian Christians.

In a very real sense

these believers truly were the test case

for the success of the Gospel in the entire non-Jewish world.

And it is certainly not surprising

to find Paul writing, I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.

And before we move into this passage

I do have to say, too,

that I would wish for you and hope for you

someone in your own life who matters enough

for you to find yourself saying, I fear for you.

I wish that for you

because without it

I think it is very likely that your life doesn’t seem to make much sense.

Without it

I think perhaps you may be filling your days

with things that you desperately hope will give you a sense of purpose,

and end each day feeling empty inside.

There is a whole world full of people around us

desperately in need of someone who will show them love.

Try it! You’ll like it!

And it will make you desperately dependant on your God

as you’ve never been before.

But then living with a desperate dependance upon the Creator

is exactly the way every created being is designed to live.

Now let’s move into our meal for the day.

In the first 11 verses of Galatians chapter 4

Paul offers the Galatians their 7^th reason

in his call for them to return to a walk with God based on faith and grace

rather than religious performance.

But the truth he presents

actually keys off of the last verse of chapter 3.

If you were with us when we were looking at that section of the letter

you will remember that Paul took us back to the life of Abraham

and through Abraham showed us that, from the very beginning,

our freedom from our sin

and entrance into a personal friendship with God

has always been through our believing God’s promise to us,

not upon our performance or our works.

He quoted a statement from the Old Testament

in which we are told that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Because Abraham believed God’s promise to him

God responded to that belief by removing his sin from his account and declaring him righteous.

Paul went on to explain

that what happened in the life of Abraham

was a perfect pattern for what God now offers us through Christ.

When we simply choose to believe what our God has told us about Christ

He responds to our belief

by declaring us righteous as well.

Paul then ends that passage with the following statement.

Gal 3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise.

He is telling the Galatians

that their union with God through faith in Christ

brought them directly into the true bloodline of Abraham

because just as Abraham became a son of God through his faith in God’s promise

so we too become sons and daughters off God

through our faith.

But the key phrase in that final statement

is when Paul calls them heirs according to promise.

We know what an heir is -

it’s a person who receives an inheritance upon the death of another person.

And Paul tells the Galatians

that, when they became the sons and daughters of God

through their faith in His promise to them,

they also became heirs of Jesus Christ

with the right to share in the great wealth that resulted because of His death.

OK, Paul then takes this truth of our becoming heirs of Jesus Christ

and uses it as the basis

for his 7^th reason why the Galatians

are crazy to go back under a law-based relationship with God.

He does this by comparing their relationship to their inheritance through Christ

with a child’s relationship to his own inheritance

prior to his coming of age.

Listen to what he says.

Gal 4:1 Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything,

Gal 4:2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father.

Gal 4:3 So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.

The picture, of course,

is of a boy who is the legal heir of a great fortune.

But as a boy

he has no access to it

because, before his death, his father structured the inheritance

in such a way as to keep the child under the strict supervision of his guardians

until he reaches his adult years.

And Paul says that, even though he is the legal owner of great wealth,

in practical reality he is no different than a slave,

being told when to get up,

when to go to bed,

what to do and not do during the day,

with strict restrictions on his entire life.

And then he brings it home to the Galatians

telling them that this is exactly the way our lives were

prior to our union with Christ.

We were under the unyielding demands of the moral law of God,

telling us exactly what we can and cannot do,

demanding from us a performance we could never achieve.

We, too, were slaves of a terrible master we could not escape.

And that truly is the way the moral law of God affects our lives,

whether we acknowledge its authority in our lives or not.

Because God has etched His moral law into each of our spirits

in the form of the conscience,

even if we develop our own personal life philosophy

that rejects the written moral law of God,

still we cannot escape the voice within,

the voice that forever calls us to moral accountability,

the voice that tells us there is moral right and wrong,

and the voice that forever confronts us with the nagging terror

that there will be some sort of accountability for the wrong.

And apart from the intervention of God’s redemption in our life,

we either try to submit to the demands of that law

or we invest massive amounts of our energy

into trying to justify and defend our violations

both to ourselves and to those around us.

Paul’s comparison of the child under the guardians

and us under the law is all too accurate.

But then he goes on to describe what happens

with Christ’s entrance first of all into history

and then into our own lives.

And the contrast is glorious.

He says,

Gal 4:4-7 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.

He tells the Galatians

that when they came to Christ they were granted the adoption as sons -

no longer children under the guardian

but adult heirs of the King

with all of the wealth and privileges that comes with their new identity.

And then in verse 6

he plays what I believe is his trump card in this whole section.

He says, Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"

And with that statement

he takes them back to something they experienced in their spirits

when they first entered the family of God through faith in Christ.

He takes them back to that amazing work of the Spirit of God within us

as He reveals to us the Father heart of God for us,

that discovery deep within us

that our God is really there,

that He really loves us,

that He has His almighty arms wrapped tight around us in love.

It is a work within the Christian

that only the Spirit of God can accomplish,

one that He must accomplish before any further progress can be made in our walk with Him.

And Paul reminds the Galatians

of there initial encounter with the love of God for them

because he wants them to see clearly

what they have thrown away with their retreat back into the bondage

of a law-based walk with God.

This is Paul saying,

“Don’t you remember what it was like when you first met your God?

Don’t you remember what it was like

to wake up each morning knowing that something good, something wonderful had changed,

and then discovering once again

that He was right there with you,

still loving you,

still holding your heart and your life in His hands,

still well-pleased to walk with you through another day.

Don’t you remember how uncomplicated everything was back then,

when all that mattered

was trusting His promise to live His life out through you that day,

and growing in your ability to hear and follow His voice?

Don’t you remember how good it was?

Don’t you remember the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ?

And now you have thrown all of that away for what...

a complicated and burdensome religious system

filled with demands you cannot fulfill

and duties you hate to perform?

Why would you do such a thing?

He says, “Sure, there was a (Gal 4:8) ... time, when you did not know God, and you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods.

But then he goes on to raise the question for which there can be no good answer.

Gal 4:9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?

Why would you take all of that richness,

all of the freedom of spirit,

all of that delight in the reality of your God

and the joy that came from your daily discover of His love

and throw it all away

for a guilt-filled, fear-driven attempt

to please God on the basis of your performance?

Oh foolish Galatians,

who has bewitched you...?

And I have to say I really do love what Paul does

when he points them back

to their first encounters with their Lord Jesus Christ.

I love it because at this point in my own life I understand it.

Those of you who have listened to me teach for any length of time

know that I became a Christian in the fall of 1966

when I was 19 years old.

And my own entrance into the King’s family

came as a result of reading the first three Gospels.

I’d been a church kid all my life,

attending nearly every Sunday with my family,

and I certainly considered myself a Christian.

But the events that took place in my life during those few weeks in the fall of 1966

redefined my God, my life, and my future forever.

And the amazing thing about the whole series of events

was that at the very core of what happened

it was all so very simple and uncomplicated.

In fact, it was the simplicity of the whole thing

that gave it such power.

Like most church-goers I’d read the Bible some on my own at times.

Even made several stabs at establishing some sort of “daily devotional life”,

but it was all boring religious duty that soon went by the way.

But that fall I found myself drawn to the gospels

as I’d never been drawn to anything before in my life.

And as I read through those opening books of the New Testament

there was only one message that really screamed at me -

Jesus would take anyone who came to Him,

but He never compromised or negotiated on the terms.

He didn’t want their promises of faithfulness,

He didn’t want their devotion, or their reverence, or their gifts.

What He wanted was their life...He wanted them to place their life, and their future into His hands,

giving Him the absolute right to do with it whatever He chose to do.

And then, once that message was etched into my brain

He asked me if I’d be willing

to dump my life into His hands.

It was a Friday night, I think.

I was in my dorm room all by myself.

I knew exactly what He was asking from me,

and I told Him, “Yes.”

And He got me,

and I got Him...and I got the best part of the deal by far.

But it was all so simple,

and so uncluttered,

and so utterly unreligious.

There was no system I was promising to fulfill,

no religious program I had to accept,

no pre-defined structure He was plugging me into.

It was just me and Him beginning our life together.

I share this with you once again in the context of Paul’s comments here in Galatians

because I really do understand

the tremendous power of pointing us back to the roots of our entrance into the Kingdom of God,

especially at those times when we’ve gotten confused or side-tracked.

Just this past week I was down here getting some things ready for Sunday morning

and I suddenly realized that, here I am, 45 years later

and nothing has changed...nothing that really matters.

It’s still just me and Him living life together,

with me daily learning to hear His voice,

and trust it and follow it.

That’s all there is,

and that’s all He was ever offering or asking.

In this 7^th part of his battle strategy with the lies the Galatians had believed

most of all Paul is pointing them back to their roots,

to that point at which their spirits cried out to their God, “Abba, Father”.

And then he asks them, “Why would you ever exchange what you had then

for what you’ve been pulled into now?

Why would you ever want to exchange the almighty arms of your living, loving God

for any religious system?

He hasn’t changed. He hasn’t left you. Why have you turned your heart away from Him?”