 Tonight, we're just continuing our walk through this letter to the churches of Galatia from Paul. And tonight our sermon title is a painful paradox, a painful paradox. And Paul's going to be expressing his heart to the Galatian believers here over the circumstance that they find themselves in, and our text is in Galatians 4 verses 8 through 11. A painful paradox. Galatians 4 verses 8 through 11. Let me read the text to you and then we'll pray and talk through this together. Verse 8, this is chapter 4 verses 8 through 11. But then indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. But now, after you have known God or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I'm afraid for you lest I've labored for you in vain. Let's pray. Lord, Father in heaven, God, we praise you and thank you for the labor of Christ on behalf of those that repent and believe the gospel. We praise you and thank you, Lord, for the labor of those messengers of yours sent by you whose feet bring the good news. And we praise you and thank you, Lord, for the gospel. Thank you, Lord, that you have saved our souls, God, that you've forgiven our sins. You've cleansed us, God, and that you changed us. And you're conforming us into your image day by day. We just praise you and thank you for that work. God, thank you for the finished work of Christ. And thank you that we can trust in Christ for salvation, to be free from bondage, to be free in Christ, or to live pleasing in your sight, and to inherit the promises. God, to be sons of God, heirs, heirs with Christ. It's a glorious promise, Lord, and we thank you for that. Thank you, Lord, for the clarity and the simplicity of the gospel and praise you, God, that by your word and by your doing, we can be known by you. It's an awesome thought, and we praise you and God for your saving work, for what you do in the hearts of wicked men to save them, to convert them, to give them new life in Christ. It's just an awesome thing in our sight, Lord, and we praise you and thank you for it. Be with us now, Lord, as we look at this passage of Scripture. May we take this warning to heart and to avoid it. May we walk steadfastly in the faith, not departing, not turning to the right or to the left, but following you, persevering in the faith to the end, finally being saved, glorified. God, protect us from this error that Paul is calling out here. Protect us, Lord, to help us to take heart at this example of the Galatians departing from the faith in Christ, the simplicity of the gospel, and, Lord, help us to take this to heart, take heed of this, and help us to stay faithful, to walk by faith. Lord, for your glory, God, and just for the ultimate promise, God, of one day just worshiping you in heaven for all eternity, for your glory, God, in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, well, we're here in Galatians 4, and again, looking at Paul's exhortation to these Galatians, his warnings to them, his pains on their behalf. Paul said it's like he's giving childbirth with them. This is painful for Paul, and Paul has, again, this warning that he's giving them, warning them to turn away from the error that they've turned to, warning these Galatians not to fall into this trap, and it's this trap of law-keeping, this trap of legalism, living, trying to please God in their own merit, trying to establish a righteousness in their own merit, trying to earn favor with God by their law-keeping, and it's just not where they need to be. And Paul here is very concerned. This is giving him great concern. He's concerned over their salvation. Not sure if they're even saved. He's just giving him great concern. This is a painful period of time for Paul, and Paul here is trying to establish or trying to figure out whether or not he's labored for them in vain, and he's thinking to himself at this point, wow, if you're going to head this direction and you're going to continue along this path, then all the labor that I've done is a waste of time. It is worthless. It is of no good use because you haven't appropriated Christ and the forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ, and you're returning, we see here, back to the weak and beggarly elements of the world. You're returning to your idolatry, and this is really, really concerning to Paul. This is a serious, serious issue. Once you've established an understanding of the gospel and you know that you need to walk by faith in Christ, and you by faith have turned from your sin and have turned to Christ, and you're following him wholeheartedly, what you don't want to do is to turn away from that. This is perseverance to the end. It's he that perseveres to the end that will be saved, and so turning from faith in Christ is a damning error, and it's a deadly error. It is a Christian killer, and it is a church killer, and we can't do it. This is very, very serious to Paul. These Galatians became heirs of the promise through faith, and now Paul is astonished that they're turning away so quickly, and we see him laboring for them, painful labor, diligent labor, labor, wholehearted labor on their behalf to see them saved, and we've seen that in our study through the book of Acts, right, when Acts 13 and Paul and Barnabas trekking through the Tarsus Mountains throughout the region of Galatia to share the gospel with them, to preach the word of God to them so that they can be saved. We see him going from those churches, that church in Antioch toward Pisidia into Lystra, into Iconium, into Derby, everywhere suffering persecution. We'll see that more in a minute, but he has labored for them, and he's labored to show them that the promises are inherited through belief, saving belief, saving faith in Christ and not by works of the law, and if they are in Christ, heirs of God, sons of God, by faith in Christ, then they are no longer under the law, and we see that in other places in Galatians. Look at Galatians 3, just a page back and down in verse 10, for as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse, and he's looking at the Galatians wanting to return to works of the law, and it's like, look, if you return to works of the law, you're under a curse, for it is written, curse is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. And here, these Galatians wanting to go back to that, after having come to Christ by faith, after having understood forgiveness of sins in Christ, why would you ever want to go back? And if you go back, it proves you weren't genuinely saved to begin with, and he's in fear for them. But also in Romans 10, flip to Romans 10, let's take a look at that. He warns them of the same thing, Romans 10, beginning in verse 1, it's the same issue here. He's been laboring for these believers, he's laboring here in his letter to the Romans, he's laboring for the Galatian believers, he labored to the Philippians, he labored to those believers in Thessalonica, Paul is laboring. In verse 1, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved, for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God. That's what we're talking about here, that's what Paul is talking about. He's talking about submitting to the righteousness that is from God, Christ's righteousness, not their own. Verse 4, for Christ, listen Galatians, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes, end of the law for righteousness. If you're seeking to achieve righteousness through works of the law, it's impossible. And Christ is the end of that law. Verse 5, for Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, the man who does those things shall live by them. If you're going to seek to achieve or attain righteousness through the works of the law, you got to keep all of it. You got to keep all the law. You have to keep every single bit of it, otherwise you're not righteous. Verse 6, but the righteousness of faith speaks in this way. Do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down from above, or who will descend into the abyss, that is to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith which we preach. That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised them from the dead, you'll be saved. That confession of the mouth is simply an outward expression, an inward reality of genuine saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's saying here that it just simply cannot be attained through works of the law. It is simply and only by faith alone in Christ alone. But here, after hearing that, after coming to grips with that truth, these Galatians are returning. They're lapsing, they're reverting back to the enslavement and the bondage that they were under. They're doing this to the astonishment of Paul. And it's just if you, if you're a disciple of Christ here tonight, you've repented, you put your faith in Christ, and you've been changed by God, you've seen the truth of God's salvation to you, you can be astonished with Paul, can't you? In that by faith in Christ, we have the promises of God, we've been transformed, we have heaven to look forward to, and it's all through Christ. And if you've walked the Christian life for a while, you know that it's your faith in Christ that gives you the victory over sin and the ability to live for Him. Boy, how foolish, how utterly ignorant it is to turn back, to go away from that, to turn back from faith in Christ, to turn back from living for Him in that way and go back to trying to do good, go back under the law where you're condemned by the law and trying to keep it. To return to that is just utter foolishness. And Paul here is astonished at that. They've chosen again to subject themselves to the law, subject themselves to law keeping in order to have right standing with God. And it's something that just has Paul, it's stripping gears in his head. He's just amazed at this. Paul instantly sees and understands the danger with what these Galatian believers are doing. He understands the danger that they're facing and the danger is this. They originally started with an internal attitude of repentance and faith in Christ expressed in external ritual observance. We talked about that this morning with the sacrificial system, right? Always, always, always from Genesis to Revelation, God is concerned with a heart. And it's out of the heart of man that sin proceeds from. It's out of the heart of man that this wickedness comes. God is always concerned with a heart. So with the Old Testament law, there was originally an inner heart attitude of repentance, an inner heart attitude of a love for God, a faithfulness to God, a desire to please Him, a desire to live for Him. That inner heart attitude then was coupled with God's object lesson of the sacrificial system or God's object lesson of the law, showing them that in order to maintain communion and write relationship with God, they need to be clean. They need to be forgiven of sin. They need to be right with God in that way. That external heart attitude started leaking out and it became more a faithfulness to observance of external ritual completely apart from that inner faithful heart attitude toward God. And their behavior, their observing of the law became ritualistic. And we see people doing that all the time, don't we today? In churches, Catholic churches, other churches, legalistic churches, where there is a faithful observance of ritual, and some people are attracted to that, but their heart is faithless toward God. Their heart is cold or indifferent toward the things of God. They're more concerned about ritualistic obedience to ritual to observances of law than they are about loving Christ and valuing Christ and Christ being precious to them. It is faithfulness in their heart toward God. But faithful toward observance of the laws, faithful toward observance of their rituals, and that's what Paul is battling here. The Jewish believer, the Old Testament, became faithless. They profess God with their lips, but their hearts are far from him. They were faithful, many Pharisees to the infigy Paul himself, right? Blameless according to the law. They became faithful in their observance of the law, but their hearts were far from him and they were faithless in their hearts toward God. That's what legalistic lawkeeping does. Legalism causes faithlessness toward God, faithful toward ritual, faithful toward observance of laws, faithful toward rules and rulekeeping, but faithless toward God. There's no heart from God. Your faith is in your rulekeeping. Your faith, if you're a legalist, your faith is in your observance of tradition, observance of patterns of behavior, observance of rules and regulations, those things that cannot make you clean. This saps your joy. It takes away your joy that's in Christ. It takes away that joyful heart that understands the forgiveness that we have in Christ. It just sucks that away, siphons it out. It makes you joyless. It puts you in a downward spiral of despair, of ever trying to keep laws, ever trying to keep rules to somehow please God. Others, other legalists are simply completely oblivious to that. They're perfectly happy just going from one rule to the next, just living that way. I don't do this, I don't do this, I don't do this, I do this, I do this, I do this, and I am, look how spiritual I am, I'm right with God, right? And that's the way people do this. It's faithless. The focus isn't on Christ. The focus is on your rulekeeping. The focus is on your observance of rules, your observance of tradition, your observance of ritual. Focus isn't on Christ. That's what legalism does. It takes your focus away from exactly where your focus should be. These Galatian believers, their focus should be squarely on Christ. Their Savior, their Deliverer, the one who will give them victory. And yet, taking their focus off of Christ, they're turning their focus over here to the weak and beggarly elements of the world, this idolatry that they were once involved in, they're reverting back. It's amazing. But all of this, this legalistic lawkeeping, deceives you into thinking that you're spiritual. Somehow, in the minds of these Judaizers who were plaguing the believers in Galatia, they were thinking that they were more spiritual, that they're more right with God. Certainly, we need to go back to these laws. We need to go back to these observances because we're more spiritual if we do. We're more right with God if we do. There's benefit in this. That's exactly what legalism does. It bolsters spiritual pride. And that spiritual pride leads to, as we've talked about, this critical spirit, this critical attitude. Simply nothing more than spiritual pride. It is a church killer. It's a Christian killer. If you turn to legalism, you are going back. You're apostatizing. You are leaving the faith. You are never in the faith to begin with, and it will kill you. It is deadly. It is like playing with poison, playing with a rattlesnake. It will kill you to do that. And so, Paul is really alarmed at this. I mean, this is causing him great distress, and it makes him think that possibly all of his labor for them is in vain, that all this has been a waste of time, and he's just perplexed by it. If you can imagine just what he has invested. I mean, Paul is laboring here. We talked about the trip through the Tarsus Mountains to Antioch, and he suffered persecution there. They persecuted him and Barnabas, and they forced them out. In Acts 14-5, we're going to get there on Sunday morning, there was a violent attempt to stone them when they got to Iconium. They attempted to stone Paul in Iconium. There was such great persecution. He was laboring there for their souls, laboring for the gospel. In chapter 14-19, Jews from Antioch, these Jewish people that were listening to Paul's sermon in Acts 13 this morning, they're listening to Paul preach the word, those Jews that just left, and then next week we're going to see how they persecuted him. They were so hostile toward Paul, and his laboring for the gospel that they followed him to Iconium, followed him to Lystra, and then in Lystra they did stone him. They stoned him and left him for dead outside the city, and he had to escape, he escaped with his life. They believed him to be dead, and they stoned him. And in 2 Corinthians 11, on top of all this, on top of laboring for them, laboring for the gospel, wanting to see souls saved, preaching Christ on top of that, he said that his great concern, his deep concern, the thing that he was agonizing over was concern for all the churches, and he's concerned for all the churches because of their souls, because he labors for them for their salvation. He wants to see them saved, and he had given them his very life. He's given himself also, he said, and their lives so that they could be saved. Now if you've ever witnessed to somebody, think about it, you've ever witnessed to somebody, maybe a family member, maybe a friend, maybe somebody at the door, maybe somebody that's come here, and you've witnessed to them, and you have poured your heart out for them. You have labored with them for their salvation. You have agonized over them, agonized over their soul in prayer to God for them to be saved, and you have shed tears, and you have lost sleep, and you have agonized through one conversation after another, just wanting them to get it, wanting them to see Christ, and to turn to Christ, and to turn from their sin, and to follow him, and you've agonized over their soul, and you've wept over them, and you've prayed over them. Can you see how, I mean the entire time, you're just, you're, you're enwrapped with attention for them, for their soul, wanting for them to be saved, and have you ever seen someone slip away, and just, just fall away, and they just, maybe they ran good for a period of time, and they just started departing, and how your heart just sank, and how you were grieved over them, wanting them to be saved, and you see them in this position now, where they're just, they're in danger, and they're in real peril, their soul is in danger, and it just causes you grief, you're grieved over that, it causes you heart and soul anguished for them, and that's where Paul is, that's where he is right now. With these Galatian believers, he has poured out his heart, poured out his life, poured out his soul, poured out the Gospel on their behalf for them to be saved, and now they're departing from this, and it has got him in anguish, got him just perplexed here. This makes Paul fervent for the truth that is in the Gospel. It should compel us, as it has compelled Paul, to learn his enemy and root that out, to rebuke that where we see it. Here Paul rebuking and rooting out legalism. Legalism will destroy these believers, will destroy this fledgling church in these churches in Galatia. It'll destroy them, and so Paul is aggressively rooting this out, aggressively attacking that error, and bringing it to their attention, and even rebuking them, we've seen that for the benefit of their soul. We've got to do the same thing, we've got to learn our enemies. When we see legalism in the church, we've got to chop that thing out. We've got to gouge that thing out when we see easy believism, infect someone that we've been witnessing to. We care for their soul, we're witnessing to them, we want them to be saved, and they're trapped in this lie of easy believism. They can just live in their sin. That's got to be rooted out. You've got to attack that at the root, you've got to dig that thing up so that that person can be saved. Legalism must be dug up. This false ritualistic observance of rules and regulations, heartless worship of God, which is no worship at all, needs to be dug out. It's got to be dug out of the church, out of your life. We've got to treat that with utter disdain to get it out because people's souls are at stake. Here in chapter 4, beginning in verse 8, Paul introduces now this paradox that has got him so tied up with these Galatian believers. This paradox begins in verse 8, but then indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. Now, this is true of every single person prior to Christ. That word served there means enslaved. You were enslaved to idols. In 1 Thessalonians 1-9, it says of believers, for they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Those who do not know God, they worship and they live for things that are not gods. They worship and live for themselves. They worship and live for idols. This is what 1 Thessalonians is talking about. When you come to Christ, you turn from those things which are idols, you turn from worshiping those, and you turn to Christ to serve the true living God, to go from idols to serving Christ. This is a fundamental error of unbelievers. The fundamental error of unbelievers is unbelief. You are living for and serving yourself. You have no belief in God. You have no belief in Christ, and so everything to you is a service to idols. It's a service to yourself. It's living for yourself, worshiping yourself, living for your own pleasure. It's simply a partaking in self worship, self-direction. Romans 1, 21 through 23 says, because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man. Further in Romans 1, 28 it says, and even as though they did not like to retain God and their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil mindedness. They are whisperers, backbiter, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death. This is the picture of every person outside of Christ. They simply live for their own fleshly lusts. They live for their own desires. They live for themselves. And in doing that, they're worshiping idols. This is idol worship. And in 1 Thessalonians, when it says that we've turned from that to serve the living God, the true and living God, you're turning from that immorality. You're turning from that self-indulgence, that self-worship. You're turning from idols, those idols that you have made. Here's the first thing in that that you have to accept. These Galatians need to accept that. We need to accept this. And that is the simple fact. It's like 101, beginning point. You were made. You were made. And if you were made, then you are accountable. It begins with that. And somehow, the heathen, when we were outside of Christ, when we were in unbelief, when we were serving idols, somehow we were like the masters of our own destiny, the masters of our own creation, and we're living for ourselves, just the fundamental truth needs to sink in, that you are made. You are owned by someone else, namely God, who created you. If you're made, then you're accountable to him. And he is God, and not you, and not your idols. You have to turn from idols to serve the living and true God. But now in verse 9, back in Galatians 4, here's the paradox. You did not know God. You serve those things which, by nature, are not God's. But then now, verse 9, after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning again to the weak and beggarly elements to which you desire again to be in bondage? It's absolutely amazing. That is paradoxical. It is unfathomable that they would do this. It's a paradox. Not knowing God, they served idols. Now that they've known God, or rather have come to be known by God, they desire to go back. Now, it's interesting here in these two verses. Paul, in speaking to them, in rebuking them for this, compares reverting back. Now, when they were lost, they served idols. And now that they are going back, and they're going back to, in this case, in these passages here, in this passage, they're going back to calendar observance of Jewish feast days, of Jewish feasts, of Jewish celebrations. They're going back to observance of the calendar. And Paul says that they're reverting back to the law here is paganism. When they were lost, they are in pagan idol worship. Now in verse 9, they're reverting back to what the Judaizers are asking them to do, keeping Jewish laws. Paul is saying, that's you're reverting back to idols. You're referring back to paganism. You might as well, you Galatian believers. If you're going to turn back to that, you might as well be worshiping your stick gods. You might as well go back to worshiping yourself. Worshiping your idols, you're going to go to the same place, if you do. It's, he's reverting back. They're reverting back to paganism, back to idol worship. He calls them here weak and beggarly. Beggarly there is poor, worthless, absolutely worth nothing. Worthless. And it's interesting that word return. You're returning back is the word epistrefo. It's the word in Greek that is often used for repenting. When you turn to Christ, this is like the anti conversion. They're turning from Christ, turning back to their legalism, back to their lawkeeping, back to that heartless ritual. It's like a, the anti repentance. It's a converting back. It's going the other direction. They should be turning away from that stand and turning to Christ. But here they're not turning to Christ. They're turning away from Christ. They're not turning from their sin. They're turning back to their sin. Their actions here are basically just a simple renouncing of the faith. They started in the faith and now because of a, this persistent, what the passage here of what verse nine says, this desire in their heart, this desire to turn back to idols, this desire to turn back to their legalism. They're turning back to pagan worship. This is a renouncing of the faith. This is turning away from Christ. This is apostasy. This is the biblical term backsliding. Backsliding doesn't mean that you just, I'm going to dip into my sin for a couple years and I'll be right back. Now backsliding is apostasy. It's turning from the faith. It's turning away from Christ means that you were never saved to begin with. They went out from us because they were not of us. If they had been of us, they would have stayed with us, but they went out that it might be made manifest that they were not of us. This is apostasy. It's renouncing the faith. Now this little phrase here, verse nine, this whole diatribe on the part of Paul explaining this returning to works as basically pagan worship would have been absolutely shocking to the Judaizers. And if you can imagine the Judaizers believing themselves to be spiritual, attempting to maintain right standing with God on the basis of works, this would have been, what are you talking about, Paul? This would have been completely shocking to them as it is when you bring up the same thing with just about any legalist. If you're talking with a legalist, there's something about our flesh that just wants to try to maintain right standing with God by what we do. It's like, okay, I'm going to be more spiritual because I'm not going to watch that kind of movie. I'll watch this kind of movie, but I won't watch that kind of movie. I'll listen to this kind of music. I won't listen to that kind of music. Listen, follow your conscience, but when you start imposing your understanding of faith, your understanding of what you're able to do and what you're not able to do, your fences for your own purity, your own trying to dig out the fleshly lust that are in your own life, and you try to go then and impose that on someone else? That's legalism. You can't impose your fences on someone else. Those are your fences, but these Judaizers here are doing just that, and they think themselves to be so spiritual. And so for Paul to say that then you're turning back to the weak and beggarly elements, you're turning back to your pagan idol worship, this would have been shocking to them. They've known the Galatians here have come to know God as their Father. We looked at that last week. They are sons of God. They have Jesus Christ as their elder brother. They can come to God as their heavenly Father and have access to God in that way. It's absolutely amazing, and yet they are forsaking that. They're forsaking that nearness to God. They're forsaking that intimacy with God. That kind of intimate fatherly children, father to children, adopt and son kind of relationship with God is absolutely lost in legalism. When you turn to legalism and you begin seeing the Christian walk as simply a series of do this, don't do that. Obey this, don't do that. Obey this, don't do that. Live this way, don't live that way, and that's the total focus of your supposed Christian walk. And that relationship with God is completely severed. That intimacy with God, that access to God that you only have through faith in Christ, with God as your heavenly Father who cares for you and you can cast your cares on Him, that's broken. And it becomes nothing but just a series of godless, faithless ritual observances. And that's dead religion. That's dead, heartless, so-called Christianity. That's legalism. Legalism destroys that God-given blessing of that kind of relationship with our heavenly Father just destroys it. Their desire here was to do that. Their desire here was to go back to just that kind of thing. And it's amazing to Paul. It's irrational. It's inexplicable. There's no explanation. It is inconceivable that they would go back to this kind of relationship. This kind of ritual observance is just it's stripping gears in Paul's head. Go to Colossians 2. Let's look at another example of that. Colossians 2, so a few pages to the right. Colossians 2 and look beginning in verse 11. This is Paul's exhortation here. In him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. You're buried with him in baptism in which also you were raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh he has made alive together with him having forgiven all your trespasses having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us which was contrary to us and he has taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross having disarmed principalities and powers he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them in it so let no one judge you in food or in drink or regarding a festival or new moons or Sabbaths which are a shadow of things to come but the substance is of Christ let no one cheat you of your reward taking delight in false humility and worship of angels now false humility is pride it's born out of pride it's produced in pride this false humility and worship of angels intruding into those things which is he has not seen vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind it's what happens to the legalist it's what happened to those who are trying to establish right standing with God by their works holding fast to the head from whom all the body nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments grows with the increase that is from God verse 20 therefore if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world why as though living in the world do you subject yourselves to regulations do not touch do not taste do not handle which all concern things which perish with the using according to the commandments and doctrines of men these things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion there it is again false humility and neglect of the body but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh this is empty hollow religion this is deadly now he makes a side note here i want you to see this from verse nine back in glations four makes a side note here of their position the truth of their position and he says in verse nine but now after you've known god and he qualifies that or rather are known by god this is man's responsibility and god sovereignty in the same clause all right in one sense they know god but to be more theologically correct he qualifies that by saying or rather are known by god god has exalexato we talked about that word before god has chosen them this is all by the gift of god they are known by god it was said in the old testament that known by god simply meant that he chose you that he chose to set his affections on you that he chose to love you and this is not a choosing in the sense of looking down the corridor of time that is nowhere in scripture this is god in and of himself by his own will not by the will of man not by the exertion of man not according to your works not according to foreseen faith he didn't foresaw you he foreknew you this known by god is simply a choosing of god he chose these galatians if they're genuine believers they're chosen by god if you're here you're a disciple of christ you're a genuine believer you're chosen by god and god has done this this is god's gift to you his mercy and grace in saving you so don't be tempted to turn away from that don't be tempted to turn away from christ the truth is that god knows them we love god because he first loved us right we love him because he first loved us and they cannot rest on their knowing of god they must rest in the fact that god knows them now think about that for just a second even arminian theology or an understanding of the gospel in that way that it is your knowing of god that is the basis for your assurance in the faith and that's why in real arminian theology people thought that they could lose their salvation because if it's based on your knowing god based on your faithfulness or your faith and the exercise of your faith then it's of you to lose it and it can be lost and you can depart listen if you are genuinely in christ it is because god has known you and has secured and purchased your salvation and that your assurance should be resting in the fact that god knows you and if god knows you then the faith that you have is going to be in christ and it's going to produce the fruit that god says that it will produce and that faith in christ will persevere to the end and it won't wane if you fall from the faith it's because god didn't know you right there these glation believers they are known by god god knew abraham and he knew israel he knew jeremiah in the womb right and appointed him as a prophet that's god's knowing that's god's selection right but now look past verse nine into verse 10 here we see now that this returning to these weak and worthless elements this returning to their legalism is summarized here or demonstrated in their observance of the calendar verse 10 you observe days and months now those are sabbath days feast days you observe months new moon festivals you observe seasons and years jubilee years these are this is the jewish calendar now these judia isers here and in this section in galatians simply they are mixing faith in christ so they think following christ being disciples of christ the new christian church here they're mixing that or tempted to being pushed to observing the jewish calendar observing the festival days observing the sabbath observances by keeping this calendar paul says here that they are returning to the weak and beggarly elements they're returning to serving idols they're returning to legalism they're returning to death they're returning to being outside of christ outside of the salvation that they have in christ they're turning away they're turning back to false gods now picture this for a second if you put yourself in the position of being a judia iser and simply your observance of the calendar now is being compared to worshiping a false god that's amazing and this is this is damning error here um they're showing themselves to be removed from christ by following this pattern this direction now this should show okay this should demonstrate for us this is simply the jewish calendar but for us listen any departure from faith in christ is a serious a deathly serious departure it's a deathly serious error if you're living by faith you continue in faith you're living by faith in christ you persevere in faith in christ to the end to be saved any departure from that is very serious it is deadly and if you persist in that departure and you apostatize from the faith you go back to the weak and beggarly elements you're proving yourself never to have been saved your soul is in danger so this is why it is so important in the christian walk in our christian lives living for christ that you must maintain focus on christ in all that you do everything you do there is no room and it's throughout scripture it's all over the place there is simply no room for that wicked heartless godless religion when you obey christ listen legalism is not holiness but holiness is not legalism we're to live for christ we're to live pleasing to him but if you seek to live pleasing to christ and you do that enough heartless godless manner just one external obedience one external ritual after another that's going to land you in hell one day that's the error here that paul is rebuking these glations for that he's astonished at them for doing living the christian life is living the christian life by faith in christ when you read your bible it's by faith in christ i love the lord i love his word i want to read his word i want to learn his word i want to just be bathed in the word of god you're doing that out of love for christ and what he's done for you when you evangelize should be done out of love for christ the jahovah's witnesses the mormons do not witness out of that heart for god because they don't have that heart for god it is just simply a ritualistic observance i already said i believe it was mark that said you never see a jahovah's witness witnessing to somebody at the line at public's or at the library or at the restaurant they simply don't evangelize that way because they don't have that heart the genuine christian is concerned for souls they're evangelizing listen this ritualistic observance is what he is warning them from any departure from faith in christ and your christian walk is deadly we need to be warned by that when you start slipping into like we talked about putting yourself on that dissecting table and just looking at your performance and you take your eyes off christ you're in danger and these glations if they continue along this path and they go back fully to that they might as well be worshiping a stit god they're just reverting back to their paganism the Gentiles here in glacia too would have been attracted to the old testament law maybe you've talked to people like this before but uh witnessed the people before talked to folks that once i read one place that one of the largest sources to jahovah's witness or to catholicism or to the eastern orthodox church are those folks in easy believism that are attracted to ritual observance there's something about our flesh that is attracted to just sort of mindless heartless ritual there's something about that in the wicked flesh of man that is attracted to that Gentiles in these churches would have been attracted to that old testament law it would have been very simple for judicizers to sway people away if paul hadn't have been there if paul hadn't have rebuked this there's no telling what would have happened we might have lost and that's why he's an anguish here he's on the verge he feels like of possibly losing this fledgling church losing these people that he's labored for there's just something in our flesh that wants to do that and these Gentiles here would have been attracted to that as many are today it's the same thing there are many that would leave orthodox theology in a dead church and return to what they see as an attractive reverence for god in the catholic church through their ritual and it's simply a dead mindless heartless ritual and so new christians even old can can be swayed by this but then now in verse 11 we see now as a result of this this calendar observance this ritualistic means that they are turning back to their potential apostasy here turning back to paganism turning to legalism this is great pain to paul and in verse 11 we see the pain of that i am afraid for you paul says let's i've labored for you in vain all of this has raised questions about their conversion if they stray and if they continue along this path they're under a curse those who trust in the law are simply cut off look at galatians 5 we're going to get there in a couple of weeks galatians 5 look at verse 2 indeed i paul say to you that if you become circumcised christ will profit you nothing in other words if you're going to keep the law through circumcision and you're depending on that to have rights standing with god then what profit is christ you've rendered the cross of christ vain an empty useless thing so don't do that verse 3 and i testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law if you want to return back to that paganism you want to return back to that idol worship you want to turn back to that legalism then you're putting yourself back into the situation that you have to keep every bit of the law in order to be right with god and you can't buy your birth in sin your mother conceived you just as he did david david you can't do it there's it's impossible verse 4 you've become estranged from christ if you do that you attempt to be justified by law you have fallen from grace cut off only those that continue in the faith inherit the promise if you don't continue in the faith you don't inherit the promise now all of this from verse eight down through verse 11 is a warning this is a warning from paul he's saying wake up he's telling the galatians here wake up what are you doing you're returning back to this weak and beggarly paganism that you were once involved in and he's saying you're playing with fire here you're holding the snake you're handling deadly poison wake up wake up from this bewitching influence that is upon you wake up from this this influence that the judaizers are having on you turn from your legalism turned back to christ this is waking them up he's calling them back to the gospel and if they don't turn he's fearful that they never will fearful for their souls that all his labor for them in the gospel would be in vain and paul is familiar with this feeling he's familiar with his toil philippians 2 verses 14 to 16 he tells the philippians do all things without complaining and disputing that you may become blameless and harmless children of god without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world holding fast the word of life so that i may rejoice in the day of christ that i have not run in vain or labored in vain he doesn't want all his labor for them in the gospel to be in vain in first thessalonians 3 to the thessalonians he said in verse 1 through 5 therefore when we could no longer endure it we thought it good to be left in athens alone and sent timothy our brother and minister of god and our fellow laborer in the gospel of christ to establish you and encourage you concerning your faith that no one should be shaken by afflictions for you yourselves know that we are appointed to this for in fact we told you before when we were with you that we would suffer tribulation just as it happened and you know for this reason when i could no longer endure it i sent to know your faith he wanted to find out about him he wanted to know how they were doing and he wanted to do that lest by some means he said the tempter had tempted you and our labor for you might be in vain he's concerned this is just the it's the heart of a christian this is the heart of someone when you've labored over someone in the gospel and you want them to be saved boy it's the heart of a disciple to be concerned for their soul that's the heart that god gives you when god makes you alive in christ jesus he gives you that heart to want to see soul saved and he gives you that heart that loves them it has this kind of concern for their soul paul's not saying here to these galatians yeah they get it or they don't okay i'm gonna tell you i'm gonna give you the gospel one more time okay listen up make sure you hear it all right if you got it fine if you don't okay so be it that's not paul's attitude at all no he's laboring for them their soul was at at stake and listen your soul my soul would be at stake too if we succumb to legalism if you succumb again to attempting to maintain right standing with god based on your works based on your performance your soul is at stake if you succumb to that legalism you will die in your sins you're in bondage to sin you will go to hell when you die we need to walk by faith the christian life is lived by faith in christ that's interesting here all the way through this section all the way through the book of galatians so far this is really establishing a theology of conversion establishing a theology of conversion and showing us what sanctification looks like what living the christian life is and looks like before you were saved you were enslaved redemption is freedom from the tyranny of sin and freedom from the tyranny of the law it's not that we don't obey the law any longer as christians it's simply you cannot be saved through law keeping you cannot keep the law and redemption like we talked about this morning forgiveness is being freed from that freed from that tyranny this is totally and completely a work of the lord salvation is ultimately completely convincingly of the lord and not about human choice or human exertion or human will or human anything especially not human law keeping for their own human righteousness we have the righteousness that comes from christ if you're in christ that's the only righteousness that saves the only righteousness that you need to be right with god it's the only righteousness that makes you right with god living the christian life is an ongoing religion or ongoing reality of living by faith in christ all the way to the end all the way to the end never falling short of that you cannot turn away from christ you cannot turn to your works you cannot trust in yourself you can only trust in christ you cannot trust your performance you can only trust in christ you cannot trust your own choice you can only trust in christ you cannot trust anything that you do you can only trust in christ and if you continue trusting in christ and you do that persevering to the end that's living by faith in Christ, those that persevere to the end will be saved. We need to maintain trust in Christ. Legalism is deadly. We've seen that. We've seen examples of that. Legalism will absolutely wreak havoc on a church because the church no longer, in legalism, the church no longer worships Christ. The church is involved in pagan worship. It's like turning back to a pagan idol. Your focus isn't on Christ. Your eyes aren't on Christ. Your focus is on the works. Your focus is on the obedience. It's on the thing that you do. It's a pagan idol. It's like worshiping a stick god. That's what legalism does. Here faith in Christ is all about Christ. Start to finish. Everything is about Christ. Your heart for Christ. Your passion for Christ. Your fervency. Your zeal for Christ. It's all focused on Christ. That's the faith that saves. That's the faith that is generated out of the heart that God gives you out of the new nature of a genuinely converted person. It's all about Christ. Living the Christian life is all about Christ. It just, I mean it seems, doesn't it? It seems so simple. It seems so straightforward. But there's something about our flesh and something about just the wickedness in our own flesh. That other law in our members, like Paul says in Romans 7, that wants to turn us that we desire, as these Galatians did, they desire to return to bondage. They wanted to trade in freedom for slavery. Wanted to trade in the liberty that is in Christ for bondage to sin, bondage to the law. It's just an amazing, it's an astonishing thing. But that is, it's the propensity that exists in our flesh. And we've got a really, really, if you're here tonight and you're a disciple of Christ, you have to be constantly on your guard against that kind of thing. Make sure there are times, isn't there, when you are living the Christian life, when sometimes you feel as though God may be distanced. Maybe he's pulled back. Maybe you feel as though your prayers are sort of hitting a glass ceiling, you know, and just aren't going anywhere. You feel disconnected from God. And listen, there is truth in the fact that when you reach times like that, you just keep trusting Christ. You keep your focus on Christ. You keep praying to Christ. You keep obeying Christ. You keep living for Christ. And when you get through that period of time and you look back on it, say, Lord, praise you God that you've brought me through that. I don't want to ever be in that position ever again. And now that you've been through that, you know how horrible that feels. You start seeing it creep up on you again. God, please help me. You recognize that you start crying out to God for helping that. But during that, what you don't do, during any part of this, what you don't do is just don't take your eyes on Christ and just start going through a mindless ritual. This is all about Christ. Your obedience is about Christ. Your everything about you in the Christian walk is about Christ. It's to be lived for Christ completely, wholeheartedly. Everything you do is about Christ. And as soon as you lose that, you lose the faith. As soon as you lose that, you're returning to those weak and beggarly elements. You've got to maintain that. Be on your guard to maintain that. Be careful to maintain that. Christ is worthy, is he not? I don't want to be involved in mindless, heartless, godless, faithless, empty religion. This is Christ. This is about Christ. And it's only through Christ that we will persevere to the end. It's only through Christ that you will make it. You'll inherit the promise. It's only by Christ. And only by faith in Christ, you can have any victory in this at all. And just got to guard that. And it is precious. It's precious. And it's not to be trifled with. And here Paul is in great anguish. Take this lesson from Paul in Galatians 4 here for yourself. If you found yourself in that kind of a situation, then labor for yourself the way Paul is laboring for these Galatian believers. Labor for yourself in that way. Turn your focus back to Christ. Turn your heart back to Christ. Turn your obedience back to Christ. Focus on Christ. Passion for Christ. That's what Paul is fearful of here. They won't do that. And they'll slip into a godless eternity forever in hell. And our souls are at stake. This is something that has to be maintained. And it's maintained through faith and focus on Christ. Let's pray. Father in heaven, God, thank you for this warning from scripture. God, thank you for this exhortation from Paul. I'm so grateful to you, God, for this teaching. I just, we need the warning, Lord. And we want to have hearts inflamed with passion and zeal for Christ. We are so grateful to you, God, for this great salvation. And it's a grateful heart out of great joy that we long to serve you, to worship you, to praise you. Instead of that heart, God, that you've given us, please protect us, Lord, from the deadly, insidious, wicked influence of legalism. Help us to dig that out. Not dig it out of our hearts. Dig it out of our church wherever we find it. Lord, help us to serve you, Lord, in, by faith in Christ, with our focus on Christ is all of Christ. We're going to praise you, God, and thank you for it. If it were anything to do with us, we would be in big trouble. So thank you, Lord, for your grace and your mercy toward us in this. Help us to live faithfully for you, God. And persevere to the end where we look for with great anticipation to being with you, being with our Lord Christ in heaven for all eternity, praising your name. We love you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.