Paul’s letter to the Galatians is such a rich study to immerse yourself in because it constantly drives home the importance of living our lives centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and returning.

The Galatians had some very loud and impressive voices speaking (rather deceptively) into their ears about the importance of obeying the Mosaic Law (moral, social, and ceremonial) so they could maintain their right standing with God. Paul could not stand idly by and allow this kind of heresy to infect his beloved Galatians; he could not allow the voices of these heretics, destroy his labor of the gospel among them.

We all know what it is like to have impressive, authoritative, loud voices speaking into our ears, right? As soon as you come to believe the gospel, the enemy will ensure that there are other voices present to compete with the voice of God so that he can knock you off your game. It is almost as though, our enemy, the devil, once he realizes that you and I have come to salvation in Christ Jesus, will stop at nothing to hinder the forming of Christ within you; he will never stop trying to keep you from becoming more and more like Jesus because Jesus is his mortal enemy!

The reality here for the Galatians, is that the heretics had become instruments in the hands of Satan. They were attempting to coerce the Galatians into believing that it was their duty to obey the Mosaic Law to maintain their right standing with God, instead of obeying God out of love for him because of the right standing that he gave them freely at the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus.2

Up until this point, Paul has used some very complex and forceful theological arguments to make his point that our right standing with God is founded upon nothing more than the work of Christ crucified, risen, and returning; our obedience does not save us. Period. But now, as we work our way into chapter four, his tone changes this week – it changes from forceful, theological, argument to passionate, pastoral, pleading.3

Look at the text with me…

8Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

12Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. 13You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, 14and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn of despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. 15What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. 16Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. 18It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, 19my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! 20I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

Notice the tone of Paul’s language in verses 11, 16, 19, and 20 where he says, “I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain… have I become your enemy by telling you the truth… my little children… I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you… I am perplexed about you!” These are the words of a passionate pastor who is pleading with his people to stay the course – to remain on the highway of gospel centered living – until Christ is fully formed within them, no matter what the other voices are saying.

Have you ever stopped and thought about how many voices are competing with the work of Christ being fully formed within you? Let’s not forget that these competitive voices are not always immediately ugly or wrong; the Mosaic Law was not ugly or wrong, it was just being pitted against the gospel in the wrong way like a good tool being used for the wrong reason.

What voices could be competing with the work of Christ being fully formed within you? The voices that I think are common among us in this church are the voices of addiction, family, vocation, tradition, and nation. Addiction could be as filthy as pornography or as clean as nightly Netflix. Family can easily become pitted against the work of Christ in you if you have made your family an idol.

Vocation is probably one of the biggest voices that can deceptively knock you off your game of seeing Christ fully formed within you; especially if you see your vocation as ministry. Traditions (like holidays or special events) can be really good but can also be a distraction from God’s grace in your life. I do not think I need to say much about the nation we are part of and how blessed we are to be Americans; but there are ways that our nationalism can compete with the full formation of Christ within us.

Now, you may or may not fit within one of those categories – you might not struggle with one of the voices I have outlined – but I would encourage you to make note of the loudest voice in your ear right now that is competing with the full formation of Christ within you. Because you and I both need to learn how to silence those voices and I think that is what Paul is trying to help the Galatians do today in our text; he wants to help the Galatians silence the voices that are competing with the work of fully forming Christ within them.

#1: DO NOT GO BACKWARD (VV. 8 – 11)

In verses 8 – 11 the apostle Paul is concerned that if the Galatians listen to the voices of the heretics among them, they will actually begin to move backwards into slavery rather forward into the fullness of Christ being formed within them. He reminds them in verse 8that before they came to God they were “enslaved” to fake Pagan gods. But now, according to verse 9, they moved forward from fake gods to knowing the real God and being known by him. So, why would they want to go back to slavery?

Why, Paul asks in verse 10, why would the Galatians go back to Pagan traditions – the traditions of the broader culture around them? The answer is, the Galatians would not go back to Pagan traditions. But, to begin observing the Mosaic Law as the way to being right before God is as worthless as going back to Pagan traditions, in Paul’s mind. This is why Paul says in verse 11, that if the Galatians go back to slavery, then he is afraid that his pastoral labor would be in vain.

The bottom line here is that going back is never the way to move forward. The rearview mirror is smaller than the windshield for a reason – driving a vehicle forward requires forward vision not back peddling. Going back to your old manner of life before Jesus will never move you forward in becoming more like Jesus. Likewise, if you bring some of your prior worldly habits, convictions, and values into your relationship with Jesus now, the formation of Christ within you will be hindered because you will live in a perpetual state of going back to slavery instead of forward in Christlikeness. Do not go backwards my friends!

#2: IMITATE OTHER GODLY LEADERS (VV. 12 – 14)

Paul knows the power of imitation, so in verses 12 – 14 he pleads with the Galatians to imitate the godly example they see in him instead of listening to and by default imitating the heretics among them. In verse 12 he reminds them that he is no different than they are and that they need to continue imitating him as they have always done – the Galatians never did him any harm and never gave him any reason to chastise them – because until the voices of the heretics caught their attention, they were walking well.

And not only that, but Paul reminds them in verses 13 – 14 of when they first met and how Paul’s deformed and beaten body had not been an offense to them – even though they had to care for him quite a bit because of his physical disabilities – the Galatians did not reject him on account of his appearance because they judged him rightly upon his love and faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Imitation is a powerful thing. Who we allow to influence us is the one who holds the power over us as we become just like them. Think about how much time you spend listening to your favorite podcast, favorite musical artist, favorite news outlet, or maybe even favorite preacher. When I listen to too much Dan Bongino, or Tucker Carlson, or Fox News, or any other media, I am willingly allowing those voices to become voices that I imitate. The question is… how much room do I make for those voices in comparison to the voice of the Spirit in the gospel through other faithful leaders?

There is also another observation about imitation that I think is helpful here. It is not just the voices we allow into our lives, but it is also the voices we reject that we need to evaluate. One commentator notes that we oftentimes reject biblical voices because they offend some kind of cultural preference we have; they do not dress the way we like, they do not use the words we like, they do not relate in a way that we like, or they do not espouse the secondary doctrines we like.4

I am convinced, after nearly 20 years in the ministry, that the broad majority of the western culture would absolutely reject Jesus and his messengers if they were here in the flesh. Jesus was not much to look at and he was essentially homeless. The prophets of the Old Testament were classified as weirdos with unkept hair, weird eating habits, really rough language, filthy clothing, and some alarming ways of getting their message across (one laid on his side naked in the town square, another cooked his food over a fire of human feces, and another refused to mourn his wife’s death).

John the Baptist would be another good case study in whether our western sensibilities could handle biblical preachers or not; his clothing was rough, he preached fire and brimstone, he ate the nastiest of food, and I am pretty sure he did not shower very often. Here in our text, Paul reminds the Galatians that they accepted him at his worst instead of rejecting him because he offended their cultural sensibilities. Bottom line here… we all need to be very careful not to disqualify someone we should be imitating because of some unbiblical personal preference. We need to imitate other godly leaders!

#3: DO NOT BE EXPLOITED BY UNGODLY PEOPLE (VV. 15 – 18)

Motive is something that can be difficult to discern. Why does someone want to be your friend? Or why does that person keep flirting with you? Or why is that employer interested in hiring you? Sometimes the underlying motive is pure while at other times the underlying motive is selfish.

This is the dilemma that Paul sees the Galatians are in at this moment. He desperately wants to see Christ formed within them (he has pure motives) but there are other voices (with impure motives) competing with him for the Galatians affections. This is why he begs the Galatians to evaluate their “blessedness” or joy in verse 15.5 The Galatians were overjoyed to receive the gospel from him in the beginning; so much so, that they would have endured physical self-affliction on behalf of Paul if needed, according to the second half of verse 15.

Now, Paul wonders if they view him as their enemy for continuing to speak the truth to them (v. 16). If they see him as their enemy, it must be because they have begun to allow the heretics among them to exploit them for their own gain. This is why Paul says in verse 17 that “they make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out [of the blessed joy of the gospel], that you may make much of them”. It is not bad to make much of one another (to brag about each other) but it is especially good to do so when we are not together, according to Paul in verse 18.

This battle between Paul and the Judaizers had been waging since the moment of Paul’s conversion and he knew that they only wanted to exploit the Galatians as a notch on their belt to substantiate the validity of their own existence. It is possible to experience exploitation in many ways today, but probably the most applicable to our day today is in the realm of politics (since we are in a major election year).

Politics is not bad, and we need more Christians to be involved in our government. But we must be careful to discern the true intentions of those who would campaign for our support to ensure that they in fact are representing biblical values in their policies and that they are not merely using the language of Christianity to exploit us for a vote. We need to be careful not to be exploited by ungodly people.

APPLICATION…

When I thought about how all of this applies to our lives, I thought about this. If Christ is going to be fully formed within us, we will need to resist going back to the values, habits, and beliefs we possessed before we met Jesus. We will need to be intentional about having godly leaders in our lives that we can imitate. We will also need to be careful that we do not fall in line with ungodly people who only seek to exploit us.

All three of those things are vital to our becoming more and more like Christ but I also think there is a central posture we must take if we are going to even attempt to do those things as we resist all the competing voices around us. I think that central posture is the posture of a child.

#1: BECOME LIKE CHILDREN…

When Paul refers to the Galatians as “my little children” in the closing of our text today, I think it is a reminder to be like children in our pursuit of Christlikeness. The false teachers in Galatia were fond of saying that Paul’s gospel was like the ABC’s of the Christian faith and that to become a more fully formed believer, all you needed to do was add the Mosaic Law to your daily regimen; then and only then would you be a fully matured Christian in right standing with God.

These false teachers thought much of themselves; they believed they were more mature as they looked down their noses at the Galatians. The reality though, is that Paul saw the Galatians (and most likely himself) primarily as children of God who were in desperate need of having Christ formed within them; they were not fully formed yet, they were a work in progress, and they needed God the Good Father to continue his work inside of them until the day of their completion (Philippians).

You and I will never fully rely upon God in desperation for his continued work of forming us into the image of Christ until we first see ourselves as needy children. We will not keep moving forward in our growth if we do not see ourselves as needy children. We will never seek to imitate Christ unless we see ourselves as needy children. We will continue to give ourselves over to the powers of Satan, Sin, and Death unless we begin to see ourselves as needy children.

The failure of the heretics in Galatia is that they actually believed they needed to bring their works of the law into their relationship with God so they could prove how deserving they were of God’s salvation. But the reality is that it is a broken and contrite heart that the Lord will not despise; in contrast, it is the proud heart (proud of all the “mature” law keeping) that God will despise.

#2: GOD DID NOT SAVE YOU TO PUT YOU BACK IN CHAINS…

In Matthew 11:28 – 30, in the ESV, Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Listen to how these verses sound in the Message Version, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Don’t these words sound inviting to you? Don’t they sound refreshing to you? Listen, the only reason the Galatians and we would ever think about going back and living in the chains of the past is because we do not have a proper view of the God who will never save us to put us in chains. Moving forward in becoming more and more like Christ requires that we leave the chains behind and live in the freedom of relationship with our crucified, risen, and returning Savior.

#3: GOD DID NOT SAVE YOU SO THAT YOU COULD BE A FAKE…

God saved you so that you could be an imitation of the real deal. When God saved you, he gave you his very own Spirit to take up residence inside you. As an imitation of Christ, you were not saved to be a fake because the one who saved you is not a fake.

This is why Paul in Ephesians would say things like this, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and [He] raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (2:4 – 6)… For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (2:10).”

God did not save you so that you could be a fake because God is not a fake; you are an exact representation of the God who created you and then paid the price to purchase you back from the clutches of Satan, Sin, and Death.

This also why Peter in his first letter says, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct (1:14 – 15)… you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (2:9 – 10).”

God did not save you to be a fake like imitation cheese is a fake representation of real cheese. God is not a fake and he gave himself to you so that you could be an exact image of him in this dying world we live in.

#4: GOD DID NOT SAVE YOU TO EXPLOIT YOU…

The God we serve is not an abusive, selfish, egotistical little boy who uses abuses and exploits other people for his own gain. It should be readily obvious from the passages we have looked at today, that God does not need you or me to add anything to his worth or his glory.

When God sent his Son Jesus to the cross, he did it because he, and the Spirit, and his Son agreed, long before the foundations of the earth were laid, that the cross and the empty tomb were the instruments by which he would save us, and then glorify himself through us in a world that is full of death, destruction, and abuse. When God saved you he did not save you to exploit you, he saved you so that you could join his eternal family in building the kingdom of God in this dark and twisted world.

CONCLUSION…

In conclusion, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, the room of the lawyer with all the books and policies of law is not the place where a relationship with God will flourish. Christlikeness can only be pursued in the living room of God’s mercy, grace, and love in the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus.

It is in that room, in the presence of our crucified, risen, and returning Savior, that we are invited, encouraged, and empowered to look forward to all that is ours in Christ, to imitate others who imitate Christ, to resist imposters whose only desire is their own fame.

In that room, with a bloody, empty cross, and a totally empty tomb, and the certain promise of heaven… in that room is where we can practice obedient holiness out of love for the God who loved us first. In that room is where we must remain… “until Christ be formed in us”. – Amen!!

1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).

2 Philip, Graham, Ryken, Galatians, Reformed Expository Commentary, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2005), 168 – 169.

3 Ibid., 169 – 170.

4 Ibid., 175.

5 Ibid., 172 – 173.