Galatians 4:8-20 - Stay Firm In The Gospel

Title: Stay Firm In The Gospel
Speaker: Nate Holdridge
Text: Galatians 4:8-20

Galatians Theme: Galatians describes a life that is free. It is a life in flight. If we cling to the true gospel, if we accept it for what it is, we can fly. But Paul wrote Galatians because the Galatian believers—and all future believers—were in danger. If we adulterate the gospel, if we add to it in any way, we will not fly. Like a bird chained in a birdcage, we will (at best) hinder ourselves from flying into God's ideal for our lives or (at worst) hinder ourselves and others from true salvation.

Overview: We are still in the middle of Paul's theological case to the Galatian church. After he had gone to them with the full, true, and simple gospel, they had begun to drift from it. False teachers had arrived in their midst, telling them they needed to attach the practices of Judaism to their new faith in Christ. Soon, these brand-new Gentile Christians were acting out Old Testament practices in an attempt to become fully accepted in God's sight.

All this was abhorrent to Paul—he referred to it as a gospel contrary to the one they had received, a distorted gospel, a different gospel, one worthy of a curse on all who proclaim it (Galatians 1:6-9). Since the argument of the false teachers was that Paul did not know the true gospel, the first portion of the letter had to do with how widely Paul and his gospel were accepted in the early church—Paul's personal case for the gospel (Galatians 1-2). And since the argument of the false teachers was that Paul's gospel would produce a wild and sinful people who thought grace allowed them to follow their sinful impulses, the last portion of Paul's letter will cover the radical changes the gospel is meant to produce in us (Galatians 5-6). But the middle section of the letter is Paul's theological argument. The false teachers thought they had Scripture on their side, but they had wrongly divided the word, so Paul broke down the Old Testament in a demonstration that the simple gospel of grace and faith in Christ, not works and law, has always been God's plan.

But Paul is not a dry theologian. Today, amid his scriptural teaching, Paul made a loving appeal. This section is one of the most intimate in Galatians. He referred to the false teachers, but only twice. But he used personal words like I, me, and you forty-five times. With a bleeding heart, Paul begged the Galatians to stay firm in the gospel of grace. And, as he expressed his heart to them, it was the Spirit expressing his heart for all of us. This passage, in other words, shows us God's desire for us to stay firm in the gospel of grace. And, as I hope to show, he longs for us to stay simple in our relationship with him, free in Christ, and focused on Christ being formed in us.

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