"The Old Has Gone, the New Must Come! (Gal 4:8-19)", Will DuVal | 10/5/25
Galatians 4:8-19 | 10/5/25 | Will DuVal
Curtis James Jackson was born in Queens in 1975 to a mother who dealt drugs and a father he never knew. By elementary school, Curtis was selling crack on the streets. In middle school, he got busted for carrying a gun to school. In 1994, Jackson was sentenced to 3 to 9 years in prison for possession of heroin and an illegal firearm. Shortly thereafter, Jackson took up rapping. His first underground single was entitled “How to ROB”. In 2000, he was shot 9 times at close range and barely survived, spending weeks in the hospital.
He later considered this his wake up call. He adopted the nickname “50 Cent” as a metaphor for CHANGE (wikipedia.com), and tattooed “Southside” and “Cold World” on his back, saying, “I'm a product of that environment. It's on my back, though, cuz it's all behind me".” In 2002 he was discovered and signed by rap superstar Eminem, and in 2003, 50 Cent’s debut studio album - Get Rich or Die Tryin’ - sold over a million copies in its first 5 days. His single “In Da Club” became the most listened-to song in radio history in just one WEEK. By 2007, “Forbes… ranked Jackson’s wealth second behind only Jay-Z in the rap industry,” with an estimated net worth of 500 million dollars” by 2010 (wikipedia.com).
But just 5 years later, 50 Cent filed for bankruptcy with debt of more than 32 MILLION dollars. He was arrested in 2013 for domestic violence and vandalism, investigated in 2011 on allegations of insider trading and then again in 2020 for his involvement in a financial scamming plot.
And the moral of the STORY is: You can take the boy out of the Southside, but taking the Southside out of the BOY is a different story. Sometimes leaving your past behind is much easier said than done.
Every born-again Christian knows this to be true SPIRITUALLY as well. In 2 Corinthians 5, the apostle Paul rejoices that “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come!” (v17) And that is true of every follower of Jesus Christ - the “old has gone; the new has come”... at least ONTOLOGICALLY, in our BEING. Spiritually, deep down, at the core of who we are, we’ve been made NEW; we are new creations in Christ. Praise GOD!
But you can have $500 million dollars in the bank and still LIVE like a thug from the hood. And it is possible, and sadly, not just possible but all too OFTEN it is the reality, that as CHRISTIANS, as “sons of GOD”, who’ve been adopted into his heavenly family - Paul reminded us last week in Galatians 4 - we are “owners of EVERYTHING” (v1), co-HEIRS with Christ of our Father’s infinite inheritance; He has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph 1:3). And we can have… and BE!... ALL of that (“sons”, “heirs”, “owners” of it all)... and yet go on LIVING like orphaned thugs from the hood, spiritually speaking.
This tension - between who we now ARE and how we still ACT - is a familiar one to EVERY believer, even the BEST of us. Even the apostle PAUL himself, the single greatest follower of Jesus in Church history, confessed this in Romans 7: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh… For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” (15-23)
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Do you hear the tension? Do you EXPERIENCE the tension, in your OWN life? I hope so, cuz if you don’t, it either means you’re not really SAVED - cuz unbelievers DON’T “delight in the law of God” in their “inner beings”; they DON’T feel the tension - OR it means you’re DEAD, because as believers we are being freed from the power of sin in our lives (the Bible calls this “sanctification”), but we will not be FINALLY freed from the very presence of sin until we LEAVE this fallen world and these “bodies of death” behind, on the OTHER side of eternity, in HEAVEN (what the Bible calls “glorification”). Til THEN, we live with the TENSION.
Yet even SO, Paul exhorts us this morning, just as he urged the GALATIAN believers to whom he wrote this letter, to LIVE like the “sons” and “heirs”... the “new creations” we now ARE in Christ! He’s essentially gonna TELL them here in ch4, vv8 to 19: “The old has gone; the new MUST come!” It’s the same message we saw him deliver to the Christians in EPHESUS last fall: “put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (4:22-24)
Take off the OLD; put on the NEW. Paul employed the same imagery last week at the end of ch3: “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (v27). The metaphor is one of CLOTHING. The prophet Isaiah described even our “righteous deeds”, done for the wrong REASON - to try and earn God’s approval apart from humble faith - as “filthy RAGS” (64:6). INSTEAD, Isaiah says, God wants to “clothe [us] with the garments of salvation”, to “cover [us] with the robe of righteousness” - and that robe is CHRIST! HIS salvation, HIS righteousness.
Take off your SIN; put on CHRIST.
And in Galatians 4 this morning, Paul wants to help us identify the difference between the two, between old and new. And thereby help us LIVE like the adopted sons and daughters of God that we now are.
(SCRIPTURE:) Let’s read it together now; Would you STAND with me as you’re able… Galatians 4:8-19. [Bibles… Info Bar…] …
“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.
12 Brothers [and sisters] I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. 13 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, 14 and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. 15 What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. 18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, 19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!”
This is the word of God… Seated…
Paul offers us 4 contrasting characteristics here of a life that has been transformed by the power of the gospel, from old to new; what kind of CHANGE is our conversion, our new life in Christ, supposed to bring about?
First of all, #1- the old way of life that’s supposed to be gone was filled with: IDOLATRY; while the new way of life we now embrace is marked by: INTIMACY (vv8-11)
We move from IDOLATRY - avoiding God through replacement - to INTIMACY - pursuing God in relationship.
This first contrast is the most clear-cut; Paul frames up both sides of the juxtaposition for us explicitly, with the words “FORMERLY” in v8 and “BUT NOW” in v9. FORMERLY, when you didn’t know GOD, you were ENSLAVED to IDOLATRY. Serving, worshiping, trusting in ANYTHING that “by nature” is NOT God - that is IDOLATRY. When something OTHER than God takes God’s rightful place in your life.
Now, in the case of these 1st c. formerly PAGAN Galatians, that almost certainly meant what WE might think of as “literal IDOLS” - statues of so-called “gods” that aren’t really GODS at all. The Greeks had a whole PANTHEON: the historian Plutarch writes that ARTEMIS - the goddess of nature and hunting and childbirth - was “the god whom the Galatians revered the most” (https://u.osu.edu/herodotos/%CE%B3%CE%B1%CE%BB%CE%AC%CF%84%CE%B1%CE%B9/#:~:text=By%20the%20mid%2D2nd%20century,child%20or%20associate%20of%20Asclepius)
But the archaeological record suggests that the Anatolian goddess Cybele - the so-called “Great Mother” and patron god of cities and mountains and fertility - may have actually been their primary deity. The Galatians apparently even INVENTED some NEW gods of their own: Telesphorus, the child-god of HEALING originated in Galatia.
And it can be EASY for us to judge them, as these primitive, ignorant people. But what is idolatry at its heart? It is “avoiding GOD by means of replacement”. Deep down, we’re no different than the pagan Galatians. See, natural, sinful man does not want God to be GOD. Because WE want to be god. That’s why Adam & Eve ate the apple in the FIRST place; remember how Satan tempted them? “God knows you’ll be LIKE him, if you EAT it”.
WE want to be god, but we ALSO know - and this time, not so much “deep down”; it’s right there on the SURFACE; this much is BLATANTLY apparent to us - that we are NOT god. The very idea is pretty LAUGHABLE, isn’t it? That YOU, who came THIS close this morning to accidentally brushing your teeth with Preparation H… that YOU, who overcooked the eggs AND UNDER-cooked the pancakes for breakfast… but YOU’RE god? I don’t think so; we KNOW we’re not gods.
So what do we DO instead? The exact same thing the ancient PAGANS did: we try desperately to manipulate the world around us so as to BEND it - to whatever degree POSSIBLE - towards our own WILL. Our “gods” may go by different NAMES, but the same basic principle is still at play: “I serve this idol, so that IT will serve ME.”
The GALATIANS thought, “If we serve Artemis, she’ll bless us with prosperity”; we think, “I give my heart and soul to this company, and it’s gonna bring me meaning and fulfillment in the most ultimate sense.” DOES it?
The Galatians knew, “I can’t control the weather, but maybe ZEUS can. So maybe if I bow down to ZEUS…”; to us, that’s weird. And yet we admit, “I can’t control my own anxiety; but EATING seems to mitigate it somewhat.” So we bow down to FOOD.
Ask yourself: “What do I LEAN on, so I don’t have to lean on GOD?”
*MONEY: “I can’t feel SAFE, SECURE, CONTENT, unless my bank account shows THIS number or higher…”
*FAMILY: “As long as these 4 people all love and accept me, all is right in the world; but the minute those relationships take a TURN…”
*SEX: “When I feel SCARED, when I feel LONELY, when I feel SAD, I don’t need GOD; I can escape those negative emotions with just 3 easy clicks; there’s an APP for that…”
And as you’re probably aware, idols are RARELY forged from BAD things; sex, family, work, money, food, beauty, approval, comfort… they’re all GREAT things. But an idol is when a good thing becomes your ULTIMATE thing. Your functional GOD.
How about CHURCH?! Religion… had become the Galatians' new idol. Paul says, “You went from Gentile PAGANISM… to Gospel FREEDOM… BACK to Jewish LEGALISM now. And you’ve really just exchanged ONE set of idols for another!” You’ve traded Zeus and Artemis and Cybele for “days and months and seasons”... for circumcision and kosher-ness and Sabbath-keeping.”
Paul says in v9, “those were ELEMENTARY principles” - the spiritual “ABC”s; we talked about at length last week, so I won’t belabor it. But just to quickly remind you and summarize Paul’s argument: the Law served a purpose… for a TIME. My son BO is almost THREE; he’s just LEARNING his ABCs; Elijah is in kindergarten; he’s starting to put them together to identify WORDS. Ellery is almost TEN. Her 4th grade teacher sends out a newsletter every Friday to recap the past week and preview the next one; if I saw, “Reviewed ABCs” on there, we’d be shopping for new schools. Working the ABCs is GREAT… if you’re in PRE-K… KINDERGARTEN. Likewise, the Law was GREAT… before JESUS came. But now it’s OBSOLETE. Paul actually calls it “weak and WORTHLESS”; it’s got NO power, no VALUE for SALVATION. And yet, Paul says, you are “ENSLAVED”. “You observe days and months and seasons and years!”. “The JUDAIZERS, your legalistic false teachers have persuaded you that by observing the SABBATH day each week, and the new moon festival each month, and Passover and Pentecost and Tabernacles festivals in each of THEIR “seasons” and the JUBILEE and SABBATICAL years… all these Old Testament, Jewish rituals and holidays, that somehow by observing them you can EARN your way - MANIPULATE your way into God’s good graces.”
But let’s bring it back to TODAY now; how many Christians… and “*Christians*”... have turned “observing days and seasons” into an IDOL? A religious ritual that they substitute for real relationship with GOD? If you ASK them about their relationship with the Lord, they’ll tell you how often they attend CHURCH. Or they feel self-satisfied because they pay God their bi-annual dues of obligatory Christmas and Easter attendance. Listen: any “god” who can be appeased by 75 minutes of your time twice a year, isn’t a God WORTH appeasing. He’s no god AT ALL! You’ve MADE a “god” out of your - frankly, pretty pathetic, PUNY little religious observance. It’s IDOLATRY.
When GOD desires INTIMACY! A deep relationship characterized by KNOWING and BEING KNOWN. Paul says, “How could you turn back to “weak and worthless”, cheap SUBSTITUTES, now that you have come to KNOW God, or RATHER, (more accurately, and even more IMPORTANTLY) to BE known BY God.”
Paul’s not referring to mere intellectual familiarity here; God is OMNISCIENT; he of course KNOWS everyone and everything, in one sense. But the kind of “knowing and being known” that Paul has in mind here is a personal, intimate LOVE relationship. The Bible at times goes so far as to use the word “know” as a EUPHEMISM for sexual intimacy; “Adam KNEW his wife EVE, and she conceived” (Gen 4:1). Paul says, “In a NON-sexual but no less PERSONAL, penetrating, touching-you-at-the-innermost-part of your BEING kind of way,” THAT’S what we EXPERIENCE when we are “KNOWN” by God, when he comes INTO your heart and he COMMUNES with you. If you’ve truly tasted THAT, how could you now SETTLE for anything LESS?
The fact that you’re even TEMPTED to, Paul says in v11, makes me “afraid that I may have labored over you in vain.”
I know that hits all-too close to home for many of you this morning, who have LOVED ones you’ve been praying for and preaching to for YEARS now, and you’re afraid that you’re laboring in VAIN. Maybe, like the Galatians, and like the seed that fell on rocky soil in Jesus’ parable (Mk 4:16), they “INITIALLY received the gospel with JOY”. Your child made a profession of faith when he was younger, but “when TRIALS arose”… or DOUBTS/EVOLUTION… or PUBERTY… or COLLEGE / PARTYING… or “the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things” (v19) came along, and Jesus no longer SATISFIED them.
The apostle JOHN rejoiced, “ I have no greater JOY than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (3 Jn 4) Some of us, CONVERSELY, would rightly lament, “I have no greater SORROW than to hear that MY children are NOT walking in the truth.” They have LEFT Christ to follow the WORLD instead.
Before moving to St Louis, I did youth ministry at a boarding school in Indiana. And we poured our LIVES into these students; we were like their PARENTS; many of them CALLED us, “Mama and Papa D”. But there were really 5 students in particular who we grew CLOSEST with. They were our student LEADERS, small group leaders; ALL of them went on to CAMPUS ministry later in college. But TODAY, 10 years later, only ONE of them, to the best of my knowledge, is still “walking in the truth”... shows evidence of a real, growing, “knowing and being known” RELATIONSHIP with the Lord. “ I am afraid I may have labored over [them] in vain.”
Whatda ya DO? The only thing you CAN do; the same thing PAUL does here for the GALATIANS: you just keep PRAYING and PREACHING and PLEADING… REMINDING them… calling them BACK to THE GOSPEL! – “Jesus plus NOTHING!” He ALONE can satisfy your heart’s deepest longings - lay aside your “weak and worthless” IDOLS, and come back to JESUS and find REST for your weary SOUL. (Mt 11:29)
#2- The “Old Self” that is SUPPOSED to have “GONE” was plagued by SELFISHNESS; The “New Self” that must COME is marked by: self-LESS-ness (vv12-15).
Paul implores them in v12: “Brothers, [which in the Greek can also include the FEMALE believers in the church in Galatia; “brothers and SISTERS”...] I entreat you [I BEG you!]: become as I am”. Now, at first glance, that may not sound very self-LESS at all; it sounds like Paul’s a little FULL of himself. Until you remember what he said at the end of ch2: “ I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (v20) So when Paul says, “become as I am” here, what he REALLY means is: “become like CHRIST who lives WITHIN me.” That’s what pretty much every OTHER time Paul encourages any of his churches to “become like me”, he specifies, “Imitate me AS I imitate CHRIST” (1 Cor 11:1, et al). Become like me to the EXTENT that I am submitting my life to and being transformed from one degree of glory to the next, to become more and more each day like JESUS.
And Paul’s MOTIVE in PLEADING with them is itself a self-LESS one, namely, he wants them to be FREE! No longer “ENSLAVED” to their NON-gods, but FREED to live for CHRIST, the only kind of life that is ETERNALLY gratifying.
And on what GROUNDS can Paul call them to selflessness? Answer: Paul’s OWN selflessness! “become as I am… FOR I also have become as you are.” When Paul first CAME to the Galatians, to witness to them during his first MISSIONARY journey a few years prior, he became LIKE them, as much as was Christianly POSSIBLE anyway, so that he might build BRIDGES for RELATIONSHIPS that would open up gospel opportunities. He employed the same strategy when evangelizing in CORINTH; he writes, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. [Paul says, “Look, I knew the Law had run its course and passed away now that CHRIST has come… but the JEWS in Corinth didn’t know it yet. So if I had to observe Sabbath and Passover… and keep kosher… subscribe once more to those “weak and salvifically worthless” elementary principles - the LAW - in order to REACH those still enslaved under the Law and WIN them instead for CHRIST… then so BE it. Obeying God’s Law… “Observing days and months and years”... attending CHURCH every Sunday and especially on Christmas and Easter… that’s all GREAT, as long as you’re doing it for the right REASON. And according to Paul, the chance to share Jesus with OTHERS is a great reason for rule-keeping.
But it’s ALSO a good reason to IGNORE the law around GENTILES, now that Christ has come; Paul continues ON in 1 Corinthians 9:] 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but being law-FUL to Christ) that I might win those outside the law. [The GENTILES, the MAJORITY of those Paul encountered in both Corinth AND Galatia, did NOT live by the law. So Paul, as a believer, living “lawfully” in keeping with Christ’s calling to “Love God and Love Neighbor”, knew that the best way to reach these law-LESS Gentiles was by living OUTSIDE the law: NOT keeping kosher, observing the Sabbath. Paul would attend their Saturday PIG roasts if it gave him a window for gospel ministry. Thus, he concludes…] 22 I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.”
This is what effective missionaries do; the technical term is “contextualization”: the gospel itself does not - CAN not - change; remember, Paul OPENED this letter by saying, “If anyone TRIES to change it, and preaches a DIFFERENT gospel, let him be DAMNED!” But we can and SHOULD “contextualize” our gospel depending on who we’re trying to REACH. I can preach the same gospel in a CARDINALS hat here, and a CUBS hat in Chicago. If, God FORBID, God ever called me to move and minister in Chicago… after boarding the first ship bound for TARSHISH, and doing my BEST to try and get away - it’d be a real modern-day JONAH story; God would have to drag me kicking and screaming - but EVENTUALLY I like to think I’d obey, and trade the T-ravs for Italian beef… “become like a Chicagoan to win Chicagoans for Christ”; join the mob and endorse corrupt politicians. Just kidding. 🙂
Contextualization means discovering the BEST in another culture, and leveraging it for the sake of the gospel. If you’re witnessing to someone from Africa or the Middle East, where HOSPITALITY is such a way of life, you should consider inviting them over for a meal. If you’re witnessing to someone from China or Japan, traditional “honor-shame” cultures, you might adapt the way you explain the gospel accordingly.
But the main point in ALL of this is that as ambassadors for Christ, we follow in his footsteps - Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be CLUNG to, but rather he emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” (Phil 2:6-7) Jesus became like US, that by ALL means he might SAVE us, even if it cost him his LIFE!
Paul “became as the GALATIANS were”; he was selfless. But NOW he’s gonna remind them of THEIR initial selflessness towards HIM; he writes: “You did me no wrong. It was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, [we don’t know what KIND of “ailment”; some scholars speculate that Paul may have suffered from some kind of EYE condition, hence his line in v15 about “if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me”; speaking of SELFLESS-ness! They must have really LOVED Paul, huh? But other scholars think maybe Paul had contracted MALARIA on the mosquito-ridden coast of the Mediterranean, so he went up into the highlands - the higher altitude of Galatia - to recuperate (Ryken, 173). We don’t really KNOW and it doesn’t really MATTER; what MATTERS is how the Galatians RECEIVED Paul; v14…] though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. [they received PAUL as if they were receiving Jesus HIMSELF!]”
Keep in mind: this was Paul’s first missionary journey. The Galatians weren’t even CHRISTIANS yet, when he first stumbled into town with his “bodily ailment”, and began preaching the gospel and imposing on their hospitality. Yet Paul COMMENDS them for their selfless CARE for him. Maybe that was part of his missional strategy. In Luke 10, when Jesus sent HIS disciples out, he instructed them to rely on the kindness of strangers, and look for “people of PEACE” - THAT’s who to target for ministry.
In ANY case, Paul is so PERPLEXED by these Galatians because apparently they showed him GREATER kindness BEFORE they actually came to Christ! At first, they “did him no wrong”; NOW, they’re treating him like an “enemy”, v16. So Paul demands to know, “What has become of your blessedness?”
Translation: “What the HECK, guys?! You treated me better as unregenerate SINNERS than you do now as my brothers and sisters in CHRIST?!”
But see, that’s what legalism will DO to you. It gets you climbing up some pedestal from which you are inevitably then tempted to start looking DOWN on OTHERS, even those who led you to Christ in the FIRST place; even PAUL! Can you imagine ANYONE having the AUDACITY, the GALL to judge PAUL?! “Well, he may have endured countless stonings, beatings, and shipwrecks for the sake of Christ… and be responsible for half the New Testament and about half of all the CHURCHES planted in the first century… but did you see him hanging out with that UNCIRCUMCISED fellow last time he was in town? What a SHAME. Good thing the Judaizers are here to teach us how to REALLY impress God and stay on the straight and narrow…”
You hear the self-righteousness in that? “What has become of your blessedness?” “You were such a BLESSING to me,” Paul says, “how have you now become so self-centered once more?”
“Become like ME, for I became like YOU”; I became like CHRIST, who emptied himself for our sake. Be like HIM! Instead of asking, “What RULES do I follow that make me BETTER than you?”, ask yourself instead, “What RIGHTS and PRIVILEGES might I LAY DOWN in order to SERVE you?”
“Whoever would be great among you,” Jesus said, “must be your servant… For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:44-45).
#3- The Old Self was filled with EGO & ENVY; whereas the New Self must be EXHORTED & ENCOURAGED (vv16-18).
Now Paul explains WHY he “became their ENEMY”, or at least why it FEELS that way, based on how they’re TREATING him: it was for “telling [them] the TRUTH”. And conversely, how did the Judaizers, the FALSE teachers, win the Galatians OVER? V17: by “making MUCH of you” - by stroking your fragile, over-inflated EGOS.
Whilst ALSO “shutting you OUT, that YOU may make much of THEM”. They’re simultaneously telling you how GREAT you are - sycophantic FLATTERY - while making sure you know how much BETTER THEY are than YOU - excluding you so as to prey on your ENVY.
Sadly, it’s good marketing. It built Scientology: “You can give a THOUSAND dollars and be given THIS much secret, special knowledge about the meaning of life… OR you can give TEN thousand dollars and be in THIS more exclusive club…”
Even my beloved CHICK-FIL-A isn’t above it. I got a notification in my app last week: “Congratulations! You’ve achieved RED status!” Cuz I reached 13,000 lifetime points.
See, there are “MEMBERS”, probably most of Y’ALL, who just ENJOY Chick-Fil-A.
But if you like really REALLY love Chick-Fil-A and eat there TOO MUCH, you can achieve silver or GOLD status.
But then if you’re like ME, and you have a real PROBLEM; like, you probably need an INTERVENTION; I was curious how many of the “10 Signs of ALCOHOLISM” applied to my Chick-Fil-A consumption - “It’s getting in the way of real life”; I will reschedule meetings and make trips significantly out of my WAY, when I get the craving… “When it becomes a SECRET”; I hide RECEIPTS; my family doesn’t know the HALF of my addiction… “When You Experience WITHDRAWALS, and Can't Stop Even Though You Want to” - it’s BAD, y’all. If Chick-Fil-A cared about me more, I’d get a notification - remember Nintendo Wii, if you played for more than like a half hour, it’d flash a notification: “Why not PAUSE and take a BREAK?” Draft Kings ads: “If you have a GAMBLING problem, call this number…” My Chick-fil-A app SHOULD encourage me, “Why not PAUSE, and take a BREAK… You have a PROBLEM; call this NUMBER…”. But INSTEAD, it’s “Congratulations, you’re earned RED status!” and I was thrilled and ashamed in equal measure for all of 3 seconds… til I read the line just BELOW: “Only 6,000 more points to go to achieve SIGNATURE status.” Which is I think where they just GIVE you your own STORE; you get to take over OWNERSHIP of the Chick-fil-A of your choosing…
WHY? Why do they “make MUCH of me” (“Yay! Red status!”), only to “shut me OUT” (“...but just wait til SIGNATURE status”)? To prey on both my EGO (*“Do YOU have Red Status? Can YOU “access backstage tours at the Chick-fil-A Support Center? Cuz I can…” - my EGO…) AND my ENVY (“Exactly how much free chicken ARE the SIGNATURE members getting?!”)
The Judaizers were doing the same thing to the Galatians, only with RELIGION. “Congratulations! You’ve earned “Fastidious Pharisee” status; only 10,000 righteousness points left to go until you achieve “Revered RABBI” status!”
Paul says, “Don’t you see; they’re just preying on your CARNAL, fleshly impulses, toward EGO and ENVY.” That’s not the way of CHRIST. Who promised to HUMBLE the proud and EXALT the humbled, while also WARNING that “A CONTENT heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes your bones rot” (Pr 14:30).
God wants to REPLACE our ego & envy with EXHORTATION and ENCOURAGEMENT.
Paul first EXHORTS the Galatians: “Don’t hate me for telling y’all the TRUTH”; the Bible says “Do not reprove a FOOL, or he will hate you; but reprove a wise man, and he will love you… he’ll grow still wiser” (Pr 9:8-9). Proverb 27:6 “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” Enemies may kiss and flatter you for their own selfish gain. But friends know “Sometimes the truth HURTS… but ya still need to HEAR it. And a faithful friend, like PAUL here, won’t hold back; they are willing to EXHORT you when needed.
But not JUST exhort and admonish; a good friend is also faithful to ENCOURAGE you, aren’t they? And Paul does that TOO: “It is ALWAYS good to be made much of for a GOOD purpose, and not ONLY when I am present WITH you”. Paul reminds them, “When I was WITH you in person, remember how I too made much of you, but for GOOD purpose: not to stroke your ego; not to fan the flames of your self-righteous PRIDE and PUFF you up, but rather to BUILD you up (Rom 15:2)... to “spur you on to love and good deeds” (Heb 10:24)... that you might grow in CHRIST-like-ness! THAT is Paul’s deepest prayer for them; v19: that “CHRIST is formed IN you”. By hook or by crook. Sometimes as a shepherd you get to use the STAFF of SUPPORT; other times you have to use the ROD of REPROOF, but in EVERY case, the end GOAL is always the SAME: that “CHRIST is formed in you”.
We need to ASK ourselves, Church: do we have “itching ears” and “green eyes” - ears that itch to be “made much of”, eyes that burn green with JEALOUSY toward others - or do we have humble, contented hearts that are able - even DESIRING - to hear correction meekly when we’re in the wrong, and receive encouragement modestly when we’re in the right.
But Paul’s appeal CULMINATES now in v19: “my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth UNTIL Christ is formed in you!” And we see Paul’s final juxtaposition of old and new creations here:
(#4) You WERE: DEAD IN SIN; but NOW, you’re ALIVE IN CHRIST (v19)
Only those who have been CRUCIFIED with CHRIST, who have DIED to their sin in order to be raised to NEW life in CHRIST are truly children of GOD. Jesus said, “You MUST be born AGAIN… by FAITH… in ME!”
And Paul THOUGHT these Galatians were born again, but now he’s worried that it may have been a case of false labor.” (Ryken, 169) Now we can appreciate his double entendre back in v11 - “I am afraid I labored over you in vain.”
V19: I feel like I’m having to suffer the PAINS of BIRTHING you all OVER again. Which of course is a job only the Holy SPIRIT can ACTUALLY accomplish. But we hear Paul’s parental (even MATERNAL) AGONY here at their APOSTASY; his PINING for their PURIFICATION.
“My little children”, I thought you were REDEEMED, sons and daughters of GOD. But this is NOT how God’s children BEHAVE.
Forsaking INTIMACY with God in favor of enslavement to IDOLATRY?
Spurning selfless love for others in favor of self-serving, self-righteous Pharisaism.
Indulging your ego & envy…
This is how spiritually DEAD people, still trapped in their SINS act; NOT those who’ve been set FREE by CHRIST!
“I’m PERPLEXED by you”, he concludes in v20.
Man, what a way to end a sermon! So let’s end here instead: Where do PERPLEXING, “prone to wander” people, like the Galatians, and like you and me, and even as he admits elsewhere (don’t forget Romans 7) like Paul HIMSELF - where do we find our security; our ETERNAL, unshakable security?
In our intimate knowledge and loving pursuit of Christ, and our avoidance of all other idols?
In our selfless love for OTHERS?
In our unwavering contentment and humility?
No, friends; ALL our hope is in CHRIST!
HIS knowing and loving ME, even while I was still an unlovable sinner.
HIS selfless, sacrificial concern for ME; laying down his own LIFE for me on the cross.
Don’t settle for RELIGION, like the Galatians; religion says: “Look what I did for God”; JESUS says, “No, look what I did for YOU”. Don’t settle for RELIGION, when God is offering you RELATIONSHIP with Him through His SON.
The old has gone; the NEW must come.