Gods Sons in Slavery Again
Galatians 4:8-14 · Roger Henderson · Aug 18, 2019
Galatians (2018-20), No. 35
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261915584749

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, good morning. Today, we're going to continue in Galatians chapter four. Actually, I plan to do three weeks on these verses that were read. And I've kind of the first last week we talked about verses seven and eight. Today, we're going to do nine through 11, followed by 12 through 14. So let's look at this outline by Macaulay to start with. If we go back to what was taught previously, in chapter 4, verses 1 through 7, about heirs and sons of God. And this section, I like what Macaulay did. First, I named my lesson this, God's Sons in Slavery. So the first part, we talked a lot about last week, about the idea that in their past, they worshipped no gods, they had no knowledge, no freedom, and no reality.

Today, we're going to kind of move into the next section, their present time in legalism, which Paul is, as you notice, it was read the last part of what was read. Paul has a great burden for the Galatian believers. He actually says, I beg you. He says, have I spent all my time in vain with you? So Paul is very exercised about where the Galatian believers are going, where they've headed, what they've done.

So we're going to look at that. But it's interesting. When he starts verse nine, he kind of pauses for a second. He says, let's reflect on knowing God and being known by God. And I just was so excited about that section. We're going to spend a lot of time on that little for those two phrases there, knowing God and being known by God.

But then after that, then he moves into the section about brethren, you're on the wrong path. You've turned back to your former ways. He describes your former ways and Then lastly we're going to get a little peek. We start in verse 11 about his concern for the brethren at in Galatia So let's look at here are the verses that we talked about last week's verses 7 and 8 We're going to review that briefly and then we're going to get into 9 and there's a great contrast there but now but now you have come to know God talking about where they are and as believers, and he goes on through and he talks about their weaknesses, the worthless elements of where they've gone, how they observe days and months, and he says, I fear for you.

I fear for you. Perhaps I have labored over you in vain. And this kind of reminded me, sometimes, maybe more in the family, sometimes we look at situations and we say, I've spent all this time I've spent, but I fear that it's gone for naught. So that's a very common feeling that people have, believer and unbeliever alike.

So let's get into, I did this last week, this is just some observations about the verses from Galatians 3 through 4, 7. And three segments, I think I spent a lot of time last week about this. I'm not going to let you go on these three segments. You're going to have this right embracing in your mind or emblazoned in your mind, whatever the right word is for that.

Believers are no longer slaves. We see that in 4.7. Believers are sons of God. Two verses on that. Then you move from being a son to the wonderful blessing that we have. We're heirs of God. We see that in two places. You're Abraham's heirs. your Abraham's descendants, excuse me, heirs according to a promise, and if sons, then an heir through God. So now let's just review briefly these three points that I kind of found are obvious in verse 7.

Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son. If a son, then an heir. So having a very simplistic mind, we go from box A to box B to box C. You're no longer a slave and we talked about that how they how when you were unbeliever you were a slave you were you were you were in slavery But now you're a son because of God's grace, but based on your belief You became a son and from that you became an heir through God So no longer a slave but a son and an heir through God That was verse 7 then verse 8 last week. However at that time I So the question comes up, what time is he talking about?

As I mentioned before, the rest of the verse tells you that. Many times I found when I study, I'll say, well, what's the answer in this verse? I just read a little bit farther, either read the previous verse or the next verse, it answers the question.

However, at that time, when you did not know God, well, when was that? When you were an unbeliever. You were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. So three kind of pre-salvation points. No knowledge, you didn't know God. No freedom, you were slaves. No reality, you were slaves to the no small g gods.

And we see that that's much of our world, that's much of our system. So now let's move into the next verse, verse 9. So there's actually two parts that I saw here. Part A is this wonderful declaration. It tells us about knowing God, and being known by God. So that is just, when I saw that, I said, wow, this is just amazing. This has amazing truths we need to understand. Then part B, he's going to ask a question. He's going to say, how is it that you turn back to the weak and worthless rudimentary or elemental things? Why are you doing that? Why are you going back there? So now let's get to the good news first. Let's talk about where every believer is in terms of God.

So he starts off, but now you have come to know God. But now that you have just been added by the translators, but it helps you to read it better. But now that you have come to know God, it's the idea to come to know. It's a know of experience. You've come to know God, recognizing, understand him. And it's, it's basically heiress, the past point fact. So I kind of had to step back here a second. So what does he mean, have come to know God? So a question came up in my mind.

I kind of related a love for God and knowing God. So I'm going to kind of go down that path at the same time. Can man's love for God accomplish knowing God? Can a man just say, I want to go find God. I'm going to read every book. I'm going to talk to every person. Can man's effort Accomplish that can he accomplish knowing God on his own? I think you're gonna know the answer, but so two verses I offer Beautiful verses that talk about man's love for God and God's love So so which came first?

You know the answer You know the answer, okay? Okay, how how man's God relates how man's love relates to God's love and We love, we love because he first loved us. Just crucial, just crucial. If you don't see that, if you don't see that God took the initiative, if he didn't take the initiative, we would be unable to love him. And God has acted first so that we can love him. That just has to be at the core of your understanding. Otherwise, you're going to go amiss. Another wonderful verse that actually occurs before this. kind of definition of love.

In this is love, not that we love God. Isn't that interesting? Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation or satisfaction for our sins. So the emphasis, the emphasis here is, is not that we love God. And that, that kind of hurts in some ways, especially as it's that he loved us. So a couple, this is the nature of love. Our relationship did not start with us loving God.

If we understand that, that he took the first initiative, then we can respond. God has designed us to respond to him. And that's what this verse is talking about. His love for us and his son allows us to love him. Just marvelous. So now, I attempted something here. Our brother Hal had one.

So I attempted the definition of knowing God, thinking about what I just read. So what does knowing God mean? So this is the tact that I took. I appreciate if you have a better definition of knowing God, I'm sure there's many better ones, but this is one that occurred to me that made sense with the gospel.

First of all, to grasp or believe the significance of who Christ is. If you don't start there, You don't have a chance. And secondly, and what he accomplished on the cross. If you come to that, if you grasp that, once you have done this by faith, we then receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit simultaneously showing us the things of Christ, the riches of God's grace. Now what you're going to tell me is just what I experience. We don't understand this out of the chute. Day plus one after you become a believer, you don't really know much. You think you know much, but you really don't.

But over time, God is so gracious, he reveals to us the person of his son, the wonderful things of Christ. Remember what the Lord said? He said, I'm going to go away and I will send the comforter and he will guide you into all the truth. He will speak of mine and show it unto you. The Holy Spirit is going to show us the things of Christ. And that's a marvelous Privilege we have as believers So so that's knowing God.

So that's part one part two is in this construction He says but now that you have come to know God or rather to be known by God So what's Paul doing here? So let's look at or rather Milan I'm not sure how you pronounce that it's used as an intensive. It's my understanding Paul is not correcting himself. He's not saying. Oh, well boy, I'm I was writing too fast, my thoughts got ahead of my words, and no, I really mean to be known by God. Scratch out to know God. No, he's not really saying that. So what is he saying?

An example would be here, another use of the rather, or rather, is in Romans 8.34. Christ Jesus is he who died, yes rather, who was raised. So here you have presented to you his death on the cross and his resurrection. They're both tremendous. You can't have one without the other. So it's a technique to emphasize the second is even more important. It's yes, he died, but he was raised. That's even more important.

Who's at the right hand of God. So in this context, or rather statement adds more information. of our relationship to God. You could say, how much more? So let's read it that way. But now that you have come to know God, or much more, be known by God. Boy, that's a part that I want to... So I was thinking about this.

And it happens to be the same word as before, the known is gnosko. But this time, God's performing the action. He is showing us about himself. He's performing the action for us to know. So and then we kind of renders that having become known by God, which I liked a little bit better with the verb tense. Scripture tells us that every believer has the following assurances about God knowing him. So this is really cool. This is exciting stuff. In fact, actually, we were doing this, and Bonnie was reviewing the charts, and she has a brother in Pennsylvania.

And she says, oh, I want you to give him this last verse. I want you to send it to him in the email. Can you help me? We can cut and paste it in the email, and we'll send it off to him. And it's a verse you guys maybe have memorized, but you'll see in a second here. But it's just, God knowing us is so incredible. When you see, OK, well, I'll get to it. It's just amazing. So one of the many aspects of this, and this is once again, you can fill in a lot more blanks here, a lot more verses possibly.

This is talking about his foreknowledge of us. In Romans 8, 29, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. So he foreknew us. He foreknew every single believer. And that's a statement that is made about believers, and then you can get into a whole theological discussion, but he foreknew us.

Every believer can say God foreknew me God's knowledge of us includes his total acceptance of us in Christ since Christ is a satisfaction for our sins So now here's here's my verse. This is one you all love and I think it's just tremendous Psalm 139 and this is the psalm of David But even though it's it's Old Testament David's heart was for God and he understood the incredible Omniscience of God how God knows everything and how he just doesn't know it. I know all these facts I can tell you ten facts about Roger or ten facts about whoever He knows it in a loving way and he cares for every bit of knowledge about us is one of love and care So let's just go through this one It's just it's just amazing. Oh Lord You have searched me and known me and And the idea of search is that he sought us out. He seeks me. He knows me. There's nothing hidden from him. There's no... Something that's not revealed. Let me just find something here just for a second before I make some notes.

Okay, good. All right. Secondly, you know when I sit down and when I rise up. Just think about that. We don't think of that as very significant. Everybody sat down today in the pews, right? Well, he knew that. Everybody's going to rise up. We knew that.

You think, well, how? That's not very significant. But it shows the depth of his understanding. And he not only knows the physical, this talks about the sitting down and the rising up. He understands my thoughts from afar. There's another huge one. You think, man, I got all this stuff going around my head. The job's terrible. The families, things are going nuts.

You know, he knows our thoughts. He understands them. He's with us. He's for us, not against us. He knows my thoughts from afar. You scrutinize my paths and my lying down. Another physical aspect, He knows the paths I take, or actually, it's the journeyings. He knows my journeys. I journey here, I journey there.

And you may think, boy, that's kind of... I can't do anything. He knows everything. And you're right. Well, that can either be great comfort or it can be great burden. I've got to hide something from Him. But it says you can't hide anything from Him. So you're out of luck. You might as well join him, right? And he's intimately acquainted with all my ways. Intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there's a word in my tongue, Behold, O Lord, you know it all. I thought about this one. This is a tough one for me, because sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my thoughts. I say things, and I say, why did I say that? Why did I really say that? Was that necessary? No, it wasn't.

But he says, he knows that already. He knows my thoughts. And he said, well, you know, it's just incredible. He knows my thoughts before they're on my tongue. Behold, oh Lord, you know them all. You enclosed me behind and before. You laid your hand upon me. I thought even that's amazing. It's amazing. I have a story about Vonnie. We babysit the grandkids. Mike says I'm bragging. I probably am. But our oldest grandson, Cedar, he's five, he just loves his nana, which is Vonnie.

And so he has to get a hug or a kiss when we leave for the day. And so this last week, I had left early. So he'd gotten a hug and a kiss before Nana left, but then he wanted another hug and a kiss after, because Nana hadn't quite made it out the door. So she came back and gave him another hug and a kiss. It just reminded me about, kind of brought to mind, and laid your hand upon me. Just, you know, you lay your hand upon your children, your grandchildren. It's just that, doing that, it just expresses your care and concern for them.

God, He knows us. He loves us. He's intimate with us. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It's too high. I cannot attain to it. So God's knowledge of us is where it's at. Yes, we know him. I'm so thankful we know him, but he had to do it first. He just shows us. He showers upon us his knowledge of us. There's nothing we can do. It should be great comfort. It shouldn't be. Yes, he knew we blew it. Yep, we did it. We made a mistake. We said something we shouldn't have said, whatever it is. But he knows us. He loves us. He cares for us. He died for us.

So just amazing. So now, Paul, with that wonderful statements, going to shift gears and say now, I got a problem with you guys. Look what you got, and what are you doing? So here we go. So he's going to shift gears here. Now in verse 9b, Paul asks, how is it that you turn back to the weak and worthless rudimentary things? So let's look at that part. And he's going to spend basically the rest of, you know, a number of verses here talking about that. He says, how is it possible? So we start after the first A part of the verse.

How is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things? You could render it, how is it possible? The idea of turn back is to turn around. They've done a 180. They've done a 180 on him. And actually, that word can be used in a positive sense. It's used like in 1 Thessalonians 1 9b.

How you turn to God from idols to serve a living and true God, so that's a very wonderful thing this case They're turning back to where they were before and it's going on right now He says you've turned back and it's still going on. You're still you're still there. You still turn back.

You're still doing this And he says once again, so apparently this wasn't the first time So here's what they turn back to here's here's here's the great things they turn back to the weak the powerless the They can't produce results, Wieske says they are the weak, weak in that they have no power to rescue men. Worthless or beggarly, poverty-stricken, cannot produce wealth. They are beggarly since they bring no riches, endowment of spiritual blessings. And it's weak and worthless, elemental or rudimentary things, and the idea is that they are They're the leftover things from the Judaizers came along the Galatian churches, and they said hey you got to do Yeah, that's grace of God knowing Christ is great, but hey you got to do the law you got to do circumcision they just piling this stuff on and the Galatians bought it some number of Galatians bought it and Galatians 4 3 says we were held down in bondage and Under the elemental things of the world same same word is in this passage that we studied earlier So now so now he's going to explain further to which You desire he says it's bad enough.

It's not like he got caught. Oh, I you know, I thought the Obeying the mosaic law was kind of good. That was kind of that was my fire insurance if if grace didn't work out I'll obey the mosaic law I get double the double the thing No, no, no, no, no. He says, it wasn't just a happenstance, you desired, you desired to go there, you desired to impress people by your lifestyle, that you were apparently keeping the Mosaic Law or whatever, to be enslaved, to serve as a slave for the second time. Their former rituals and practices were more attractive than Christ.

It's sad to say. So and then now we're going to see the details of that. So what are the details of this going back to their former practices? You observe days and months and seasons and years. And actually, the word observe, that's a verb in this clause here. You observe to meticulously and rigidly observe.

They weren't just doing that. They were all in. They were all in. They were just, they were going to be just as good as the Jews. Well, if you obeyed the law, I'll do it just as meticulously as you did. Pretty, pretty indicting statements. And I think Mike and I have noticed this. Paul comes back and he just comes back again and again and again saying, you guys, look what you've done. Here's what, and he comes back somewhat repetitively, but with some nuances here, just you, what are you guys doing?

Days and months and seasons, days are like the Sabbath, years are like the the year of Jubilee and those kind of things, which are good in some sense in their economy there. The days, months, and years with the Galatians were observing were those which the Mosaic Law required Israel to observe. That's what we says. Apparently the Galatians were doing this because of the Judaizers who were among them.

And a parallel verse here, only there were some who are disturbing you, I believe the Judaizers and want to distort the gospel of Christ So here's Paul's heart here the last part here we start in verse 11 when they'll continue I Fear for you that perhaps I have labored over you in vain. I Fear or I'm afraid for the Galatians perhaps less somehow I have labored over you the idea is it's it's a perfect tense and The idea is you labored in the past and you continue to labor up in the present.

In vain, it seems like there's no purpose. I labor for you, I've told you, I've shown you the things of Christ, but was it in vain? And here's kind of a parallel verse in 2 Corinthians 11, 3. But I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, Your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

Okay. All right. So next week we're going to, I have some, I have three concluding charts I want to talk about. Let's take a little bit of time, but, but this is a kind of gets through the, through verse 11 and Paul's going to go on. He's going to talk about how much, how he had a bodily illness. A lot of interesting things are going to come up in the last part, but it's mostly about. his struggles with the Galatian believers and how he cares for them and he fears for them.

Okay, so what I wanted to do here is I wanted to cover three charts. They're from her brother Hal, and I just couldn't pass it up. I'm sorry, I apologize, but they're so good I could not do it. So here we go. Okay, this is one that her brother Hal did back in 1996 or so.

The contrast between not knowing God and knowing God. A little bit different than what I talked about, but hang with me here. So what he's going to compare here is an unbeliever in verse 8, not knowing God, with this wonderful place that we're at, knowing God and being known by God. Not knowing God as an unbeliever and knowing and being known by God as a believer. Well, first of all, our position before a believer was an atom. Now our position is in Christ. The time, we were in unbelief. At that time, in unbelief. Now, we're a believer. And then lastly here, the practice.

It says in verse 8, you were slaves to the no-gods. You were slaves to the things that they are not rightly God. They cannot be God. They cannot be deity. But now he's going to present the problem that Paul's addressing. God's desire is that we walk by faith in our freedom, but you turn back to the no gods, which are weak, powerless, and beggarly in spiritual poverty or spiritual poverty.

OK, so that's chart one. Chart two is conclusions from Galatians 4, 8 through 11. OK. So I agree here. I think we are no different than these Galatian believers. We really are not. You may argue that we're not going to probably go back to the Mosaic Law, at least hopefully not here at Holly Hills. I think we've learned that lesson. But there's other things that replace that. And we can talk about that in a second. So first of all, let's talk about when we were unbelievers, we didn't grasp the facts about Jesus Christ. We didn't understand them. We served as slaves to the world system.

It's riches, power, and wisdom. You know, I think, and there might be a verse. I have a homework lesson. Help me find the verse that has riches, power, and wisdom in it. Roy probably can quote it. Here, I ask him. But anyway, there's a verse that talks about, what are man's three great desires? Riches, power, and wisdom. Just think about our world system. What do we see?

People want to get very rich. Some don't care about riches. They want to have power. I want to have power. Or I want to have wisdom. I'm the smartest guy in the block. I'm Carl Sagan. I can tell you about the universe. Right? That seems to drive men.

Our desire was for the things of this world. This is an unbeliever. That's all we knew. All unbeliever knows is the things of this world. He's blinded to who Christ is. Then by God's grace, we came to know God through Christ and be known by God. The richest power and wisdom of the world passed away.

New things have come into being. And the verse that really captures that really well is, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature or better like new creation. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come for a brand new person in Christ. Old things have passed away. We now have the riches, power, and wisdom which is in Christ, not in the world.

But there is a temptation turned back to those things which are weak and powerless, beggarly, poverty-stricken, without spiritual wealth. Okay, so let's just stop for a second. So a couple of things I wanted to share. One thing that occurred to me And there's a dear brother who was with us maybe 10 plus years ago. And he was with us. He was with us when Hal was still alive. He loved Hal's teaching. He even taught in Hal's classes occasionally. And when our brother Hal went to be with the Lord, this brother just slowly drifted away.

He went back to his, I'll call it his religion. And I called him several times, talked with him. I even found some people I knew. He was a friend from work that knew him and said, well, he's really doing well in his religion. And it just hurt my heart so much to see he's doing well in his religion. But to my mind, he did what he taught. He turned away.

Hopefully, maybe I don't know. Maybe there's more information about him. But that was one example. Another example that strikes me here about Turning back or turning away is that I was talking Sunday school a little bit. We talked about this You know think about this we can you know God wants a personal intimate relationship with us just like look look how he knew us look at that that that verse 139 how he knows us does he want us us to be quoting back to him our stats, you know, like if you're a football player got 27 touchdowns and four incompletions, you know, they have your stats do we give our stats Oh and I read my Bible 12 times today. I prayed four times today. I gave X amount of money to the church.

Does he want our stats or does he want us? Does he want a relationship with us? I was thinking about, and this is one that I'm guilty of, does my wife want my stats or does she want me? Does she want me to do all this stuff for her, which I don't do a great job sometimes, or does she just want me?

Many times she'll say, Roger, just sit down and talk with me. Just sit down and talk with me. Boy, that hurts. And I don't, many times. I just keep on going. I don't listen. Anyway, so we can be there. We can do this. We can turn away. Anyway, if we submit to the temptation, we go back to the slavery we were bought out of. Let us instead, by faith, live in the freedom in which He has set us free.

So, just tremendous, I think, really interesting verses, amazing where Paul just, he needs to show those Galatian believers the wealth they have of God's knowledge of them, that tremendous wealth. And I think we need to remind of that too. He knows us. Don't think for a second that he doesn't know exactly where we're at. And that's to be great encouragement. If he knows that, then we can be at rest. Okay, you know how bad it is, Lord. You know how tough it is right now. But I can trust you. Let's close. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for your amazing love for us, your amazing grace. Thank you that you died on the cross on our behalf. In Christ's name, amen.