Faith Working In Love | Galatians (Ep. 3)

Remember that one time you were at a family get-together, and you poured yourself a drink, and right before you were about to take your first sip, your grandma stops you and goes, hey, hey, that'll be $2.99. No, that's never happened ever, right? Why? Because you're family. And in Galatians 4, Paul is reminding the church in Galatia that they are family. They're not slaves, they're not prisoners, they're not servants. They are family. Let's pick it up at Galatians chapter 4, verse 8. Normally, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain. Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. Paul is reminding the Galatians, hey, listen, you used to be in slavery. You used to be under the bondage of these so-called gods that told you you had to do everything strict and to the book for your life to matter, for your life to be cool with God. And Paul is reminding them, look, I came to you like you were my family before you were my family. And you treated me like family. He's reminded them of how beautiful it is when we treat each other as heirs and we don't say, well, my rules say this and your rules say that, so you can't come near me and I can't come near you. He's saying, look, I'm worried about you guys who are doing that again because you've experienced

freedom already. He doesn't want them to go back into bondage. He wants them to remain heirs. Now as we get into verse 17, it's important that we see that Paul, now he's going to reference these Judaizers, these false teachers who have crept into the Galatian church, and he's going to really call them out, but he's calling them out for the purposes of making sure that the true gospel is kept intact. That the stuff that these guys want to bolt on is shed off and not kept, but that the essence of who Jesus is and what he taught is maintained. That's why he's calling them out so strongly here. Verse 17, they make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them, for it's always good to be made much of for a good purpose. And not only when I am present with you. What's he saying here in a nutshell? He's saying these people who are adding all of this stuff to the gospel, in essence, they're hypocritical. In essence, they are up to no good. In essence, they are making a mockery of the good purpose of the gospel. And Paul is saying this, look, he's saying, look, if the gospel is alive in you, you're going to be made much of, there's going to be a good purpose, whether he's present or not. And Paul is saying, my message doesn't change based on who's in front of me. Paul is saying, my message stays the same no matter who's in front of me. That's how you know it's the true gospel, right? You know it's the true gospel when the message stays consistent, regardless of what's happening around the message, regardless of what's happening culturally or interpersonally or personally, the gospel is strong enough and powerful enough and stable enough to stay the same. But these guys who are flipping their messages up depending on who's in front of them, that's

not the true gospel. So Paul is being really clear here. He's saying, look, man, if we're going to, if we're going to preach the gospel, it's going to be consistent. Paul then goes on here to bring up a story of Abraham again, right? He brings up Abraham. He does that for two really main reasons. One is the church in Galatia would have known this story. And two, because Paul really wants to tie it together for people that this, this story of the gospel, the story of God's redeeming love is a story that's thread throughout. It's not something that Paul made up. It's not something that just him and his friends put together. This has been God's design from all along. And he tells a story of Sarah and Hagar, right? And so Hagar gets pregnant, right? With the offspring of Abraham, and she's a slave and she gets pregnant because Abraham for a sec there didn't believe that God was really going to do what he said he was going to do. He really fell into this idea of slavery in a terrible way, and he tried to rush the process. He didn't trust God. And Hagar and her offspring get shunned. But Sarah gets pregnant and God keeps his covenant there because when God says he's going to do something, he does it. He always does it. And you can trust him. And if God says that you've been set free, if God says you are an heir, then guess what? You are. You don't have to add anything to that. You don't have to rush that process at all. Abraham tried to rush the process.

Abraham tried to add on his rule of it's got to happen now to the process. And what happened was a catastrophe. And the Galatian church, they were treading this water of adding to God's Word and adding to what he was doing already. And it might have been disastrous for them, but thankfully they had Paul to help set them straight, help remind them that they're not slaves, they're not servants, they're not prisoners, they are heirs, they're children of God. Here's what he says in Galatians chapter 5 verse 1. For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. For freedom, for freedom Christ has set you free. He has not set you free so that you can go and grab another book of rules. He didn't set you free so that you can go and grab another religious practice and add it to your life. He set you free so you can have a life of freedom and not go back into slavery, go back into the yoke of bondage. You read these words and you might go, these idiots, I would never do that. I would never submit to the yoke of slavery. I would never go back into bondage. I'm set free. But the truth is we do it all the time. This happens in our world all the time. We try to keep religious practices, we try to keep our checklist of do's and don'ts, we try to keep our rule book tight. And if you don't follow my rule book exactly how I have it, you are a bad Christian and you don't know Jesus. We do it to each other. Look at the division in the world right now. We're a lot more like the Galatian church than we might think. And here's how Paul continues to challenge these folks here. Chapter 5 verse 4. He calls them out heavy here. Watch this. He says, you are severed from Christ. You who could be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace. For through the spirit by faith we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision or uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working through love. Important to you culturally or important to your family or important to you personally or important to you health-wise, whatever that might be. Recognize that whatever those are, they don't count for anything in comparison to faith in Jesus. Through faith working itself out through love. Man, that's a message that we need to hear in our world and I need to hear in my life more and more and more. Let's pick it up in verse 13. For you are called to freedom brothers only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh but through love serve one another for the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Pause right there. The entire law, all the rules, every checklist you can think of is all summed up into one thing. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Paul did not want the Galatian church to be divided or be in their echo chambers or be in their little bubbles with their preferences that they have built up. Paul wanted to remind the Galatian church that all of the law, all of the law is summed up in you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You know why? Because Jesus leveled the playing field. Jesus broke down all the division. He broke down all of the preferences that keep us in different categories and he said hey everyone's free now. Verse 15. If you bite and devour one another watch out that you're not consumed by one another. Here's the deal. We can choose to allow our preferences and the things that we build up in our lives to separate us and cause us to bite and devour each other and eventually consume us or we can allow the freedom that Jesus gives us through trust in him only to come in and level the playing field and remind us that hey

if we believe in Jesus we are heirs. We are all part of the same family. The church in Galatia needed to hear that message. They also needed to hear that this has been God's plan all along. Since the very beginning it was God's plan to bring us into a family with him and be heirs. It started in the very beginning. It's happening here in the scriptures. It's also happening right now. We join together as a family of people who believe in Jesus from all over the world, from all walks of life, from every socioeconomic group and demographic. We are all heirs. So whether we have a lot or a little we know the playing field is level when it comes to our access with God and it comes with relationship with Jesus. We can have that kind of freedom. It is for freedom that Christ set us free. So what's our job? Live freely. Now the question becomes how do we do that? That's for the next video.