Turn, if you will, to Galatians chapter 4.
So if you have a black church Bible, it's page 974.
And if you want to grab one, they're just by the door.
If you've come wanting a Christmas sermon,
you're going to be very, very disappointed.
But we're in Galatians,
and I need to get to the end of Galatians by the end of January,
and I'm struggling to get out of Galatians.
So I think I've got something,
well, I have got something to say tonight,
and it'll be a good sermon,
I hope, for the end of the year.
Galatians is pretty lively, isn't it?
It's pretty fiery.
And the Apostle Paul is giving a biblical
and a theological argument, step by step by step.
And what you find with the Apostle Paul
is his logic is unanswerable.
Relentlessly logical.
And I think, very often, when we think of the Apostle Paul,
we think of this kind of cerebral, stern, logical man,
and we can ask the question,
does anything get beyond his mind and reason?
People might ask that of churches like ours.
Do they feel anything?
Seem like stones sometimes.
The Apostle Paul, did anything move him?
Did he feel?
Well, look with me at verses 8 to 20.
Look at verse 11.
There he's saying this,
I'm afraid about you.
He's saying to the church in Galatia,
I'm afraid that my whole work amongst you
has gone down the drain.
Verses 15 to 16,
he's saying,
I'm disappointed in you.
I'm really disappointed in you.
I've told you the truth,
and now you see me as your enemy.
And in verse 19,
he says,
it's as if I'm like a mother suffering birth pains.
And I've not suffered birth pains,
but neither is the Apostle Paul.
But there's certainly feeling, isn't there,
in birth pains.
He says,
I'm like a mother suffering birth pains.
And he ensures his aim
until Christ is formed in you.
He says,
I'm in agony.
I'm like an apostle with birth pains.
That's what he felt for the Galatian Christians
on three things tonight.
As he speaks to them,
he says to the church in Galatia,
do not forfeit the freedom of Christ.
Don't forfeit the freedom of Christ.
He begins by saying,
before you came to know the Lord Jesus Christ,
you were in bondage.
You were in chains.
You were enslaved.
It was the bondage of paganism.
And he's saying that not knowing God
isn't actually freedom.
It is slavery.
When you didn't know God,
you weren't slaves.
And that's what they were
in their paganism and their idols.
And then he says,
that changed, didn't it?
You came to the Lord Jesus Christ
and you've had a taste of freedom.
Verse nine,
when you came to know God.
And then he corrects himself.
And he says,
when you came to know God,
or rather,
when you came to be known by God.
He's saying,
you came to know God,
but the fact that you came to know God
was not because of something that you did.
It was not because of an action that you did,
but you were known by God first.
And that is why you came to know God.
That's true, isn't it?
It's always his initiative that comes first.
You came to know God.
And that is freedom and wonderful,
but it is an even more wonderful thing
to be known by God.
It is God's initiative.
You love God because he first loved you.
But he said to the Galatians,
you've known that freedom.
You've known a taste of freedom.
And you've known a genuine,
living relationship with God.
And you are known by him.
But now you are regressing back into bondage.
He says in verses 9 and 10,
how is that?
How is it that you're turning your back
on freedom?
How is it that you're turning back
to the weak and powerless,
elementary principles of the world?
Why is it having a taste of freedom
you want to go back into slavery?
You're observing days and months
and seasons and years.
Why are you going back to bondage?
And so what's going on?
What are these days and months
and seasons and years?
They are days of special celebration
in the Jewish calendar.
Holidays, Jewish religious festivals.
Some of them were Sabbaths,
but then there were months.
Every new month,
there was a new moon festival
at the start of each month.
Seasons would be more prolonged festivals
like perhaps Pentecost
or the Feast of Tabernacles.
Some of the feasts and the years,
the year of Jubilee.
And they were commemorated
throughout the Jewish calendar.
And these teachers who've come to Galatia,
they're invading the church
and they're saying to these new believers,
if you really want to be part of the people of God,
if you really want to belong
and to know God,
you've got to keep the Jewish observances.
Paul is not anti-Jew.
He was one.
He wasn't against observances as such.
As long as they were an expression,
a voluntary expression.
But what he was upset by
was these teachers were saying,
this is essential.
That if you want to be one of the people of God,
you've got to keep these observances.
That they try to impose on the Galatians
as necessary to salvation.
He is saying,
it's not like the paganism you've come from
in one sense,
but it is the same bondage.
It is the same principle
in thinking that outward observance
is what really matters.
It's a form of legalism.
As if by doing,
keeping certain days,
that is going to claim you credit with God.
I wonder how,
whether you realise how barren that is.
I'm John Wesley,
the founder of Methodism,
the kind of great 18th century preacher.
In his early days,
he graduated from Oxford University.
And he and his friends
formed something like a holy club.
Well, that's what it was called.
Wesley was the son of a clergyman.
And John himself was already ordained.
He was quite sound and orthodox in his belief.
He was religious in his practice.
He was upright in his conduct.
He was moral.
He was full,
overflowing of good works.
He and his friends
visited inmates
in the prison and workhouses
around Oxford.
John Wesley took pity
on slum children.
He provided them with food
and clothing and education.
In the holy club,
they not only observed the Sabbath,
but they observed Saturday
as all hell.
They went to church.
They had holy communion.
They gave alms.
They searched the scripture.
They did lots of Bible studies.
They fasted.
They prayed.
But they were enslaved
by the shackles of religion.
And they were trusting
in their religious observances
and their procedures
and not in Jesus Christ alone.
And that is barren.
That is a dead end street.
When you are trusting
in that stuff,
it is barren
and it is a dead end.
Can you see the difference here?
Freedom,
Paul says,
is knowing God
and being known by him.
Bondages,
you observe days
and months
and seasons
and years.
There is a difference.
There is all the world
of difference
between having
a genuine relationship
with God
and keeping
external
religious
observances.
You can carefully
be in church
and keep the days
and keep the seasons
and keep the months
and keep the years
and not know God at all.
25 years ago,
we just got married
and we went
to Northern Ireland
for Christmas.
I was running a youth group
and the youth group
gave me a present
for Christmas
and they said,
don't open it
until you get
to Northern Ireland.
We were getting
the earliest flight
from Newton Airport
a couple of days
before Christmas
and we arrived
at Newton Airport.
It was absolutely rammed,
easy jet,
overbooking flights
and all that,
absolutely packed.
We put our bag
through the security
and the security
alarm went off
and started flashing.
our bag went through.
They took our bag away.
They took it to the side.
He looked at me
and he said,
you've got a gun
in your bag.
I said to him,
I've got a gun
in my bag.
He said,
you've got a gun
in your bag.
Two other men arrived.
The bag is there.
They say,
you've got a gun
in your bag.
I said,
I haven't got a gun
in my bag.
I haven't got a gun.
They opened it up
very, very carefully
and there in the wrapping paper
is a potato gun
from the young people.
I could have killed them.
I could have absolutely killed them.
On the x-ray,
it looked like a real gun.
On the x-ray,
you look at it
and you say,
you've got a gun
in your bag
but it wasn't a proper gun.
It wasn't a real gun.
There was the shape
and there was the form
but there was no reality.
And religious practice,
even tonight,
even coming to church
on the last,
on graveyard Sunday,
Sunday night,
it can look real
but there'd be no reality to it.
And we need to be
very careful as a church.
Do I really know
the freedom
of being known by God?
The reality of a relationship
of really knowing God.
We can say that.
Or am I caught up
in the practice of religion?
Why is it that
formal religiosity,
if I put it like that,
is so attractive to some people?
Well, for one thing,
it's flattering, isn't it?
Because we think to ourselves,
if I can throw myself
into religious observance,
then it probably earns me credit with God.
God will see how much
I'm doing for him.
But I think I can do something
to earn God's favour.
But it's also safe, isn't it?
There are some people out there,
maybe you tonight,
and you are afraid
of the language
of an intimate relationship
with God.
You don't want God
to get too close to you.
And religious observances
and practices
and formal
kind of occasions
provide just the right form
of structured insulation
to keep us away
from meeting
with the living God.
And we have to be careful,
don't we,
and examine ourselves.
Do I know tonight,
at the end of this year,
the freedom of knowing God,
or more accurately
and more wonderfully,
of being known by him?
Or am I merely
practising religion?
Secondly,
Paul appeals to the church,
don't forfeit
the freedom of Christ,
but he says to them,
hold on to the truth of Christ.
That's verses 12 to 16.
He goes back in his memory
and he says,
can't you remember,
don't you remember
how you first received me?
When I came to Galatia,
don't you remember?
The reason I came
was because of
a bodily ailment.
I was unwell.
That's how I preached
the gospel first to you.
What does he mean by that?
What is this bodily ailment?
We don't know.
It was some
physical condition
that he had.
It may well have been
because he was persecuted.
That had bloodied him
and disfigured him.
The Apostle Paul
wasn't an attractive guy at all.
Or it could be
that there's something
physical that he suffers with
that's alluded to
in 2 Corinthians 12
with a thorn in the flesh.
We know that there's
loads of different views
on this.
Did Paul have problems
with his eyes?
Did he have a squint?
There's all sorts of theories
out there.
No one knows.
But Paul says here
in verses 13 and 14
that although my condition
was a trial to you,
you did not scorn me
or despise me.
The word literally there
is you did not spit at me.
There was something
about my physical condition
that was repulsive to you.
But in spite of that,
you received me.
How did they receive him?
As an angel of God.
It's a beautiful description
of a preacher.
As an angel of God,
a messenger of God,
as though I were Christ,
Jesus himself.
And you held on
to the truth of the gospel
that I brought to you
and you were not turned off
and you were not discouraged
because of the package
in which it came.
Because the package
in which the gospel
came to Galatia
was not very attractive,
was it?
And we live in a culture,
don't we,
that values the packaging
more than what's in the package.
Where appearance
really matters.
Where personality
really matters.
You think of
advertising.
You think of the popular people
in our culture.
You think of the social commentators.
It's very rare
there's a bald one,
isn't there?
Bald men get a very,
very hard time
in our culture.
There'll never be another
bald prime minister
or president
because the packaging matters,
doesn't it?
The packaging matters.
The church can begin
to operate that way.
Be very anti-bold men.
There's very few
bald men are asked
to speak at conferences.
I'm kidding, alright?
But we look for the minister,
don't we,
who's omnicompetent,
socially adept,
an executive,
somebody who gives off
positivity.
And if the truth
of the gospel
relies primarily
on personality
and packaging,
well,
oftentimes it would not
be accepted
because Jesus Christ
does not use
smooth operators.
Let me give you,
I've given this
illustration this year
at the lunchtime talk.
I've given it
every other year
on a Sunday
but I don't think
I've given it
this year on a Sunday.
It's the testimony
of Charles Hamilton Spurgeon.
Alright?
I love the story.
He's 15 years old.
Spurgeon says,
I was thinking about
salvation one day.
He was exercised
about his soul.
He realised there was
a God in heaven
he wasn't right with.
And one Sunday morning
he goes to a particular chapel.
He wants to go
to one particular church
and congregation
but it's snowing so hard
that it forced him
to turn down a side street
and go into a primitive
little Methodist chapel.
Spurgeon didn't know
anything about
the primitive Methodists,
he says,
apart from he did
that they sung so loud
it made you a headache.
But he said he didn't care
if only he could learn
how to be saved
and get into the kingdom of God.
He went in there
but the minister
hadn't come that morning
because of the snow.
He was probably snowed in.
It came to the sermon time
and a rather thin looking fellow
who must have been
a shoemaker
or a tailor
made his way to the pulpit
and Spurgeon said
it is well for ministers
to be instructed
and educated
but he said
this man was really stupid.
He said,
he took his text
from Isaiah 45
which says
look unto me
and be saved
all the ends of the earth.
And Spurgeon said
that the man
had to stick to his text
closely
because he didn't have
much else to say.
He said he didn't even
pronounce the words
of the text properly
but he said
that didn't matter
if only I could get
a gleam of hope
from it.
Spurgeon said
he went on
don't take a great deal
of pain to look
even a child can look.
It's not lifting a finger
or a toe
it's just look.
That's all the text says
look unto me.
Jesus Christ
went on and says
look to me.
Look at me sweating
drops of blood
in the garden.
Look at me hanging
on the cross.
Look at me dead
and buried.
Look at me
risen again
and so on.
After ten minutes
Spurgeon said
he came to the end
of his tether
and he had nothing
else to say.
He turned
and looked at
fifteen year old
Spurgeon sitting
under the gallery
and said
young man
you look very miserable
and you will be
very miserable
in life
and miserable in death
unless you obey
the words of my text.
And then Spurgeon said
he lifted his hands
and he yelled
as only a primitive
Methodist could
look to Jesus Christ
young man
look to Jesus Christ
look look.
Spurgeon said
even though the
packaging was
offensive and
repulsive and
not refined at all
I went out of that
primitive Methodist
chapel having
entered the
kingdom of God.
Now come back to
our text.
Paul is saying
hold on to the
truth of Jesus Christ.
There was that time
when the Galatians
in spite of the
packaging
in spite of how
repulsive the
apostle Paul was
received the
gospel.
you nevertheless
received the
truth of it
and now he says
we're in another
situation.
Look at verse 16
it shouldn't be a
question mark there
it should be an
exclamation mark.
So then have I
become your enemy
by telling you the
truth?
What does he mean
by that?
He's saying they've
come now to another
situation
in which I've
conveyed the
truth to you
and the truth
is unattractive
to you.
This time it's not
the packaging so
much it's what he
said.
I brought you a
chastening word.
I brought you a
correcting word, a
rebuking word.
I've rebuked you
for that tendency
to depart and
drift from the
good news of the
Lord Jesus.
And so now you
regard me as your
enemy?
The truth again is
unattractive.
But Galatians
remember how you
originally received
it when there
was nothing to
commend it as
far as beauty or
attraction or
glitz.
Am I your
enemy?
Am I your
enemy because I
put you under the
criticism of the
word of God?
He's saying hold
on to the truth of
Jesus Christ even
when it criticises
you.
And that's a
great challenge
to us, isn't
it?
Do we hold on to
the truth of
Christ, the word
of God, even
when that word
rebukes you or
criticises you or
corrects you?
Are we willing to
receive that?
Are we willing to
receive the word of
Christ when it
comes to us in an
unattractive form?
When it doesn't
comfort but it
corrects?
When it wounds and
when it bruises, do
we still receive it as
Christ's truth?
Proverbs 27, 6
famously says,
doesn't it?
Faithful are the
wounds of a
friend.
And so for us as a
church family, do we
hold on to the truth
of Christ even when
it corrects us?
When it cuts us?
When it pulls us up
short?
Do you submit to it?
Thirdly, there's
something else that
you must do and
this is what's
helped me this week
is you must evaluate
the servants of
Christ.
That's verses 17, 20.
You must evaluate the
servants of Christ.
You've heard this
before.
The pastor, the
vicar, the minister,
whatever we call him,
it's still a tough
job.
If he visits the
flock, he's nosy.
If he doesn't, he's
a snob.
If he preaches
longer than 10
minutes, it's too
long.
If he preaches
less than 10
minutes, then he
can't have prepared
his sermons and
what are we paying
for?
If he runs a
car, he's
worldly.
If he doesn't, he's
always late for
appointments.
If he tells a joke,
he's flippant.
If he doesn't, he's
far too serious.
If he starts the
service on time, his
watch must be fast.
If he's a minute
late, he's keeping
the congregation
waiting.
If he takes a
holiday, he's never
in the parish.
If he doesn't, he's
a stick in the mud.
If he runs a gala
or a bazaar, he's
money mad.
If he doesn't, there's
no social life in the
parish.
If he has the
church painted and
redecorated, he's
extravagant.
And if he doesn't,
the church is
shabby.
If he's young, he's
inexperienced.
If he's getting old, he
ought to retire.
But when he dies, there's
no one like him.
Well, Paul speaks
about himself here, and
he speaks about the
difficulties of
ministry.
And he contrasts
himself with these
false teachers.
And I find this very,
very helpful.
Look what he says in
verses 17 and 18.
He says, they make
much of you.
And they zealously
seek you.
Not out of a good
motive.
Why do they make
much of you?
Why do they make a
fuss of you?
Why do they seek you
in order to shut you
off and shut you
out?
And that's what they
want to do.
They want to shut you
out from me, says the
Apostle Paul.
They want to shut you
out in order that you
might zealously seek
them.
So verse 17, evaluate
these teachers.
Evaluate those who
come to you.
Evaluate those people
who aren't seeking you
out of a proper
motive.
But they're seeking
you that you would be
zealous after them.
And their ministry.
And they are seeking
you for their own
reputation.
And for their own
ego.
And they are seeking
your loyalty.
And I think this is
something really, really
subtle.
And it can happen in
churches like ours.
And we can fall for it
so easily.
And it happens in our
constituency, if that's
the right word.
that we can be made
to feel special
by Christian leaders.
C.S. Lewis has got
this beautiful article
about the inner ring.
And all of us want
to be made to feel
special.
To be made as if
we're one of the
favourites.
And in doing so,
what happens when
Christian leaders do
that is they are
demanding loyalty.
And Paul says,
in contrast,
he says,
let me show you,
in contrast,
the heart of a
genuine apostle.
And so in our
constituency,
in churches like us,
how's it been done?
It's been done on
special trips.
It's been done by
giving cards.
It's been done by
lots of things where
people are made to
feel,
I'm in.
I'm in with the
minister.
But Paul says,
let me show you
the heart of a
genuine apostle.
And it's as if he
rips open.
He throws up his
hands and he
pleads for them.
And look what it
says.
It's an incredible
thing.
It says,
my little children,
for whom I'm
again in the
anguish of
childbirth until
Christ is formed
in you.
That's what we're
about.
That's what he's
saying.
And so you
want to know if
you're a genuine
servant of Christ
or not,
or whether you
yourself are
genuine.
Then you ask in
the case of a
minister, for
instance, Calvin
says this,
if ministers
wish to do
anything, let
them labour to
form Christ,
not to form
themselves in
their hearers.
themselves.
It's a remarkable
phrase.
Let them labour
to form Christ,
not to form
themselves in
their hearers.
So the
apostle Paul,
he's not
content that
Christ should
just dwell in
their hearts.
That's a
wonderful truth.
That Christ
dwells in their
hearts by faith.
That is a
glorious truth.
But he's not
content with
that.
He wants to
see Christ
formed in
them.
He wants
to see Christ
formed in
his hearers so
that they take
on maturity
and wisdom
and his
likeness.
He wants
them to be
growing into
the shape of
Jesus Christ
and the
character of
Christ.
And he
says, I
have birth
pains over
that.
Until Christ
is formed
in you.
And that is
the motive
that must
dominate
Christ's
servants.
I think
many of
you here
know that.
If you
are a
Christian
parent here
tonight,
you know
what it's
like to
have birth
pains.
If you're a
Christian
parent or you
grew up in a
Christian home
and you had
Christian
parents,
let me tell
you, in
your home
your parents
had birth
pains.
All over
again, for
those you
love.
Isn't it
true that
there are
Christian
parents who
in one
sense, they
felt this,
they feel the
agony of it,
they feel the
birth pains.
We pray, like
we prayed
earlier, the
sex petition of
the Lord's
Prayer of the
Heidelberg
Catechism for
our children,
don't we?
We pray, lead
them not into
temptation, but
deliver them
from the evil
one.
And isn't
it true that
some of you
tonight, you
know, tonight
even, those
birth pains, that
you long for
Christ to be
formed in
them.
That they
would walk in
His wisdom and
in His maturity
and they'd show
His likeness.
And surely that
should be our
desire as a
church, isn't
it?
As individual
believers within
the church, what
are we aiming
at?
What are we
driving at?
What do we
want you
children and
young people to
grow up like?
that Christ
would be
formed in
you, and
me and
others?
And so as we
finish the
year, Galatians
I think for
us, some
really pointed
questions at
the end of
the year.
It asks you
tonight, do
you genuinely
know God?
Or are you
merely
practicing
religion?
them?
And then
secondly, Galatians
4 asks us,
when the
word of God
brings criticism
to you, which
it inevitably
does, do I
turn away from
it?
If you're like
me, you tend to
really welcome the
comfort of
scripture, but
refuse its
criticism.
baptism.
And can you
say that the
supreme yearning
of your own
life is that
Christ be
formed in
you?
Because that
was the
apostolic
priority.
Because the
Holy Spirit and
the Apostle and
his word and
his appeal leap
over the
centuries,
tonight,
shortly, to
the end of
2025.
And they
investigate our
hearts, that
Christ may be
formed in us.
Let's pray.