Clark, Robert: Studies In Galatians-08 ~ Galatians 4:8-20

I'd like you to turn, if you would please, to the book of Galatians again in chapter four. Galatians chapter four. We want to talk a little bit this morning about Christ-like Christians. Galatians four, and we shall read from verse eight through and including verse twenty. Galatians four eight. How be it then, when you knew not God, you did service unto them which were by nature are no God. But now, after that you have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire to again be in bondage? You observe days and months and times and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am, for I am as ye are. You have not injured me at all. You know how through infirmity of my flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. My temptation, which was in my flesh, you despise not, nor reject it, but receive me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness you speak of? For I bear you record that if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but not well. Yea, they would exclude you that you might affect them. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you. My little children, of whom I travail and birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now and to change my voice, for I stand in doubt of you. The apostle has had a very difficult experience in the past few months and possibly a year. In his missionary journeys, he has faithfully sown the word of God, has traveled, had faced many adversities and difficulties, and then he records for us in um second Corinthians eleven, just about the time that these matters were put before him, uh, a series of catastrophes or climactic events that had seemed to have buffeted him and plagued him during his missionary travels. He had known what it was to be stoned. He had been beaten and left for dead. He had faced imprisonment, starvation, privation of various kinds, and his heart was so burdened, he appeared in Macedonia, excitedly expecting to find somebody and good information from those at Corinth. He had many burdens of heart that seemed to just completely envelop his life, and then he gets the news that the Christians at Galatia are turning their back on the message of salvation by faith and are going back and accepting the instruction of some religious zealots. And these were imposing upon them laws, rules, and regulations. And some of the Christians actually thought that they were going to improve their relationship to God by, after their conversion and salvation, they were going to have circumcision, they were going to keep certain holidays and certain festival days. They're going to go back and put themselves under the law of Moses to improve themselves spiritually. And this letter up to this point has been an explanation of the weakness of such kind of teaching. The first two chapters, the proof of his own personal apostleship. The next chapter three was a polemical doctrinal exposition of the position and a defense, but now he moves entirely out of the argumentative and just simply and candidly pours out his heart to these persons with whom and for whom he had labored. There was a great love and a care, apparently, that once existed amongst these believers for himself. And after recalling all the back circumstances and this situation here, he writes this letter in a very moving and personal way, and he brings to our attention three basic thoughts. He says, first, consider the past, then consider your present, and then thirdly, consider the very purposes why God has saved you. First, he reviews their past for them. Notice he says in verse eight, when you knew not God, you did service unto them which by nature are no gods. These were Gentile persons. They did not know God. They had no relationship to God. And here we have drawn to us the Galatian ignorance, their spiritual blindness of heart. To another Gentile group of Christians, he wrote these words. In time past, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. What a gloomy, dark picture for those of us who are dead in sin. If we have never accepted Christ as our savior, if we've never had a real conversion experience, God sees us dead, completely alien from him. In time past, you Gentiles were without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in this world. But now in Christ, you who were sometimes far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ, for he is our peace. You foolish, ignorant Galatians. So don't you realize there was a time in your life when you knew not God, and all your religious services were unto things that were not God's at all. You were just pleasing yourself by religious activity. But by comparison, this is their past now. He says, consider your past, look at the Galatian ignorance, and then remind your soul of God's wisdom and God's great knowledge. He said, now, after you have known God, or rather are known of God. It's a most profound thing that the eternal, infinite, sovereign God, the creator of heaven and earth, the sustainer and keeper of all things, he has set his affection upon you and me. And those of you who know yourself to be God's children, you are known of God. Now, usually we use the kind of language the way Philip did. We say we have come to know God, and Paul allows for that. He says here, after you have known God, or rather are known of God. Listen to these words. John wrote concerning Philip's experience. John chapter one, verse forty three and forty five. Let me read them to you. The day following, Jesus would go forth into Galilee and findeth Philip, and said unto him, Follow me. Here's the Lord going out into Galilee. He looked for and he found Philip, and he says to Philip, Follow me. Now, the immediate experience, Philip came into a real relationship with God, obviously. And in verse forty five, Philip says, Philip findeth Nathanael and said unto him, We have found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth. Do you see the difference? Jesus Christ went out and he found Philip and said, Follow me. And Philip turns around and says to Nathanael, Come on, we have found the one of whom Moses writes. He thinks that he found the Lord. Well, that's grand, and that's beautiful, because it was done so graciously and so wonderfully and so kindly that our blessed Lord singled him out and spoke to him and drew him, and Philip of his own persuasion goes and tells Nathaniel, I found the Lord, I found Christ himself. Well, what he really means is he was found of the shepherd. That good shepherd has gone out into this world to find you and to make himself known to you and declare himself to you and to give you the faith to believe that he has died redemptively to make the atonement for the salvation of your soul. But the significant thing is that Paul wants to carry them further and says, but you have been known of God. You are known of God. God has singled you out with a familiarity. If we love him and keep his commandments, they it are who know him. Do you really know the Lord? Have you realized yourself to be known of him? Has he exposed yourself to your own mind and heart? Do you see the sin? Do you recognize the weakness and the frailty and the utter need? Have you found yourself to be known of God in order that you might come to know thoroughly our blessed Lord? He said, just consider your path. This is life eternal that you might know him, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. Do you have it? Do you know the Lord because he has known you and exposed yourself to yourself, opened up your heart and mind and allowed you to come into a real relationship with him. That's the splendid commencement of Christianity. But it doesn't end there. That is only the commencement. That's their past. He wants you to continue now. He wants you to go on with him. And this is where the Galatians had failed. They didn't seem to get the crux of Christianity. Consider your past. You didn't know the Lord, and God came and made himself known to you. But now, take a look at your present. What are you really like? And I pray that God would help us, if this is so of our own lives. If maybe some of us are really born again Christians, you've trusted Christ as your savior, and yet some of these things would apply to you. Don't look at it only as what the apostle said to Galatia. Think of what God is trying to say to you, to his word, which liveth and abideth forever. He says in verse eleven, I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. I took a long, wretched journey to be amongst you. I had a physical malaise that apparently, from the stoning that he received in Antioch, had left him with visible, offensive marks or appearances, which might even kind of turn people away from him. And he said, but you weren't that way. You received me like I was an angel, like I was Christ himself. Do you remember your love for my original services to you? Do you remember how I ministered to you when I first came amongst you and spoke to your heart? Do you really recall? And now I'm becoming afraid of you because things are not the same. Look at it, verse nine: How turn you again to the weak and the beggarly element whereunto you desire again to be in bondage? Twice he uses the word again. Twice to go back. He said, you have been known of God. You have come to know God. Now how will you go back to the weak and beggarly elements of this world? Do you want to go back again and be enslaved in a bondage to all the religious routine? That's not Christianity. That's not a real living relationship to the Lord, keeping rules and regulations. You don't sit your children down and say, now you can only call me Papa if you promise to do this and do that and shine my shoes and go there and tell everybody about me, then you can say I'm your daddy. But if you don't do that, don't tell anybody, don't be... That's absurd. You say, well, who would ever do that? But that's what you think your Heavenly Father's doing. And now that's a fact. I know that some of you think that God is saying, if you do this, and if you do that, if you keep doing that, if you don't do this, and then you may be a child of God. And if you really want to improve your relationship with me, and you really want to get close to God, start giving up this and that and the other. Oh no. Rules and regulations never cause anybody to have love in their heart. How turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements. What are weak and beggarly elements? What are the rudimentary things of the world? Keeping holidays, verse ten, observing days, months, and times, and years. The apostle says, I'm afraid I've poured out my life and ministry to you in vain. We're forgetting how to have a real, affectionate, loving relationship with our God. The law is good. It was given for a singularly special and unique purpose. We're told in this book, in chapter three and verse nineteen, it was given to serve people, to serve them by bringing them aware of their sin, to convict you and me. And here the apostle says it's a weak and beggarly element now. It came of God, and it is good, but for attaining righteous behavior and improving yourself spiritually, it is not by keeping the Ten Commandments, laws and rules, holidays, festive occasions, religious ordinances. That will never do anything but please your flesh, cause you to sit in critical judgment of other believers because you have kept the law and they have not, and that's nothing like our Christ. The crisis of Christianity is once you have made that commitment to him that we learn to go on, and to go on spiritually means conformity to the character and the conduct of Christ himself. That is Christianity. The more I am like, the more I reflect, the more I image the blessed eternal Lord himself, and that's that to which you and I have been called. But oh, you, you, I'm afraid you're making a mistake. Look at verse fourteen. My trial, which was in my flesh, you despised not, nor did you reject. You received me as an angel of God. Look at the latter part of verse eighteen. Not only when I am present with you. Was it hypocrisy? Was your pretense of love and care and affection and respect and acceptance of me, was it only because I was there, and the moment I'm gone, are you going to vacillate and change and become the follower of a different teacher or teaching? Oh, I pray not. Is it possible that we would ever become so involved with an individual, a preacher or a teacher, and that when that person's gone, then we think that we can be free and live as we please? Oh no. That's not the thought at all. The apostle says, just as when I was with you, now that I'm away, I want to see you going on for God. I stand in doubt of you. Look at verse twenty. What a sad thing for a man who imperiled his life, poured out himself in unremarkable fashion and dedicated way of serving these people, says, I wish I could be with you and to change my voice because I stand in doubt of you. I question whether there's ever been a real work of God in your heart. There's never a parent that doesn't pass through some lonely, anguishing hours when in quiet they shake their head and wonder about the children that they love so much. That mother has gone through pain. That father has labored and done and wrought. They have prayed, they have served, they have pled, they have tried to do, and then they sit back and watch a life sometimes go on in willful, indifferent, cold rejection. That's a heartbreaking experience. But think of our loving Heavenly Father and all that he has gone through in sparing not his own son, but delivering him up to Calvary's cross. And there, such anguish of soul for that holy person, he had to envelop the scene with blackness that none could look on and see the horror that he put his son through in those lonely hours at Calvary's cross. And will we then say, well, that's fine, but now I have to add to what Christ has done. Oh no. Is there any heartache greater to any faithful servant of God? John said, I have no greater joy than to see my children go on and walk in the truth. This is some longing for any with a teaching or pastoring heart, to see any that are born into the family, not to be left to starve to death in emaciated loneliness, not just to be happy to say, well, I'm born and I'm a child of God, I'll just lay here and rot. No, but to grow, to mature, to advance. Every prayer, every thought, every tract, every booklet, every word, every exercise of heart is toward the idea that you might grow and grow to be more like our blessed Lord, to be rich and powerful and meaningful of life. I stand in doubt of you, Paul says. Such a burden, such a concern. Verse sixteen, am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth? Now he's getting closer to the real mark. You see, just like you, just like me, the Galatians had flesh. We're going to see it explained and clarified in the next chapter. And there was the activity of the flesh, a tremendous operative principle that works within those of us who are born-again Christians. And he says, now, because I've told you the truth, am I going to be your enemy? You see, the truth is beginning to exorcise, was beginning to cut out. The truth is beginning to expunge and draw out what they really are. The truth was beginning to dig into the soul and expose to them their carnal, fleshly natures, and they'd much rather feed the flesh than cut it off. And the apostle wants to touch them, and so he comes back with a very tender plea. Verses nineteen and 20 are just very delightful. Do you recall that he began this book by saying there was a curse upon those that preached another gospel? He came out by enunciating clearly and forcefully doctrinal truths. He came out incisively and directly with the malaise and the problems, and he struck home with a sharp two-edged sword, and every thrust seems to cut deeper into the heart of these Galatian believers. He said it's only the truth. Don't now turn against the teaching that God can give you through me because of personal disposition. And notice now how he comes, his real heart, my little children. This man had the heart, the breadth of a father, of the nursing mother. My little children. Those that had turned against him, those that had rejected his truth, those that were openly, in a few years, he's going to have to write and say, all of Asia has left me. But he loved them and prayed for them, even though they had rejected him. My little children, those of you born into the family of God. How can you be born into the family of God? Chapter three and verse twenty six. You are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. The moment you and I put our personal faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we become a born one into the family of God. We become texlia, little born ones. But here he says, you are my little born ones, but we become sons by faith, mature adult sons. It's your faith in Jesus Christ that moves you out of childhood and through youthdom and into a state of maturity. This is where God wants you, growing, maturing, advancing. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. The goal of the gospel is that Christ be formed in your life. The goal of the gospel is that Christ be formed in your life. Never think that God saved you only to deliver you from hell. God saved you that he might have his dear son created within you. The apostle himself realized this and applied it to himself. Look in chapter one of the same book and verse fifteen. When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen. Preaching among the heathen comes after Christ has been revealed in our lives. Going out and bearing a message and serving the Lord is after there has been a real work in our home where somebody can see Christ in us. He saved me to reveal his son in me in order that I might go out and preach the gospel. I'm afraid that sometimes we feel that we just, well, we know the truth, we should go out and preach, and then an un-Christlike attitude and disposition and parents and speech and behavior, and it's more of an ashamed than an adornment to the doctrines of God. Conversion, conformity to Christ, consecrated service. Am I more like the Lord today? Are you? My little children of whom I travail and birth again until Christ be formed in you. They did not need to be born. I travail again. He is going through the birth pain. He is going through the anguish. Some of you who have led souls to the Lord, you know how you labor in prayer, and you beseech God, and you think of ways, and you present truth, and you plead with the Lord, and then you see the disinterest and the concern, and your heart is just burdened, and it's paralleled in some little measure to that pain that that mother goes through to bring forth that little soul. He says, I'm traveling again. For what purpose? That Christ be formed in you. What a lovely goal. Look at Ephesians, if you would, in chapter three. This wasn't just for the Galatians, this is for all of God's people. In Ephesians three, we read in verse fourteen, for this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man, to become a missionary, to become a godly father, become a devout mother, a faithful servant. Now we need supernatural strengthening. It's a double superlative, which grammatically is improper in English, but he says in verse sixteen, to be strengthened with might, to be empowered with empowering, to be enabled with enabling. A double superlative to bring around this point that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. This is the purpose. He had one son to bear a testimony and to declare God. Now how many does he have? If he only wanted to save your soul and take you home, he could have done that a long time ago. But the Lord wants to lead many sons to glory, many Christ-like persons into the presence of the Father, many to show the profound sovereign grace and wisdom of God to take wretched, hell-deserving sinners like you and me and make us like his beloved son, mirroring, reflecting that we are changed into his image from glory to glory, from character to character, as various aspects are added to our person. That is the holy calling, that you and I should be conformed to the character and conduct of Christ, the goal of the gospel. And I travail that Christ might be formed in you. Now, God is able, and he can affect this. Notice some of the mode in which he does in chapter four of the book of Ephesians. He says, verse thirteen, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a mature man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro and carried around with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men, by cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, making increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. What a lovely scene that we as a congregation of believers should be. Providing each one his portion, feeding the other in the body, strengthening, and in mutual love and care, circumfering one another with our intercessory prayers, our ministrations of help, sharing, speaking the words that edify, curbing the critical, harsh, judgmental, sensuous words, ministering nourishment that we mature and grow and advance. It's all I'm praying for you, that Christ be formed in you, that Christ may dwell in your heart. How? By faith. That's the only way Christ got into your life in the first place at your conversion, and it's the only way he shall ever take over our life. It's not what we do, it's our willingness to believe what God can and will do. The Lord enunciated clearly what he thought and how he thought we should be. We should have a moral conformity to Christ. Our public image is given to us in Matthew chapter five, the beatitudes, our surrender, our yieldedness, our submission. Our political position is in Matthew chapter twelve, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. An absolute neutrality in this world, politically unswervingly devoted to God, and doing whatever is demanded or of necessity here in this world. Anything else is un-Christlike. Any other moral character or position, what's our personal view? Look at him in John chapter three and four and his blessed ministration, his personal relationship always available, whether it's a great religious leader in the nighttime in John three or a poor, wretched, sinful, adulterous woman in John chapter four in broad daylight. It makes no difference. This is Christ's likeness. It's constantly ministering to others. There are three books given over to what I should be like in this world, and as I see our blessed Lord move through the scene, devout, submissive, humble, sacrificial, loving, corrective, righteous, penetrating, concerned. My, what a blessed, lovely picture, until Christ be formed in you and me. I wonder if those that have led you to the Lord. I wonder if those that have led me to the Lord travail in pain again, wanting to see more of Christ in my life. Until Christ be formed in us. Our private life, we've alluded to our public life and our personal life and our political life, and the sanctuary of our private life, that a great while before day he went out and spoke to the Father. When the enemy came and assailed him, just on his own, it is written. He didn't say, I am the Son of God. He said, it is written. Such a deep personal trust in the Holy Scriptures and their power. Anything less than that, and that kind of respect for this book is not Christ-like. And he travail that Christ would be formed in us. My little children of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you. I desire to be present with you. How can this forming of Christ be done? Look at chapter two and verse twenty. Notice after the first little phrase, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Now the apostle says that when he was converted, he had Christ living in him. Now he's praying for these Christians in chapter four: I travail until Christ be formed in you. The word formed here is only used once as the word form in our New Testament, and it's right here. And it doesn't have the thought of molding or making, but it's rather the presence and the ultimate. It's like the word metamorphosis. The very form and essential being is changed in metamorphosis. Well, now it says this being, an essential thing that is planted within you, now must begin to master me and control me. It's not sufficient that that little droplet of truth, the presence and the person of the Holy Spirit, is just in me, but now I must begin to be surrendered to it, and he begins to take form, working in me. See, he says it in a different way in the book of Romans in chapter eight. He says, you are not in flesh, in verse nine, but in spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. This is one of the definitive marks of God's people. Christ is in us by the Holy Spirit. And if the Spirit of Christ is in us, he will begin to operate and work and create and form a Christ-like character within me. Is he there? Don't be so quick to say, I am a believer, if there is nothing of Christ in our lives and in our behavior. The ultimate goal of Christianity is conformity and to the conduct and the character of Christ himself. And the proportionate degree to which my loved one and I, with a clear conscience, can see more of our blessed Lord in my life, that's the degree to which Christ is being formed within me. It's not my academic knowledge. An unbeliever could memorize Holy Scripture. An unbeliever, and many of them, have written theological books and teach in seminaries. Unbelievers can stand behind a pulpit and shepherd and pastor other people in this religious world. But only a child of God can have Christ formed in him by the Holy Spirit. And when we look at Christianity in this way, we see that there's a ever increasing or decreasing population of God's children. Let's never be satisfied with merely knowing truth. Never be satisfied with just being able to attend service. Allow our souls to thrive on having more and more of our blessed Lord in our lives. Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. You shall find rest to your soul. Christ will be created within us. He says, now which do you want? Now that you have come to know God, or rather have been known of God, will you go back to rules, regulations, and mere religion? Is your soul going to expand, and loved ones and friends are going to find a rich, full, mature Christian character that's edifying and strengthening others in the body of Christ? A likeness to our blessed Lord, bringing blessing and refreshment and encouraging to others. And it's just the degree to which I yield to what God wants to do with me in my life. May God speak to your heart and mind through his word, and may Christ be formed in us. For God. Shall we pray? Our God and Father, we know that there are many religious activities going on in the world. We can be much occupied with our church obligation, our service for thee, and even our study of thy word. We can exclude thy beloved son from our hearts and lives and temperament. We pray that out of the abundance of our hearts, our mouth would speak words that edify and bless. Pray that Christ would be able to control more of our temperament and thinking. Pray that we would surrender and yield our own willful, strong natures, and that Christ might be formed in our hearts. We know that he lives in us, and we pray that we might indeed be strengthened with might by thy spirit, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, and that thou would enlarge us to know what is height and depth and length and breadth, that we might comprehend and enter into a deep insight into thy love, which surpasses all form of knowledge. Oh God our Father, that thou might find pleasure in us because we look and act and speak like our dear blessed Lord and Savior. Help us to learn of thee, blessed Lord. Create thyself in us. Thou, eternal spirit of the living Christ, we pray that thou wouldst use thy word, that we as a company of people and individually might reflect more and more of the beauty of Jesus in our daily lives. We pray this blessing and ask it in the name and for the honor and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, bless every home that's represented, we pray. Help the truths linger in our soul that we might share them with our loved ones and friends. We pray this blessing and give thee our thanks in Jesus' name. Amen.