This morning we are returning to our ongoing study of the teaching of Paul in the letter to the Galatians. So if you would take a Bible please and turn with me in it to Galatians chapter 4. We’re looking at verses 8 through 20. You can find that on page 974 in the church Bibles.
Now as you look at the passage, one feature that will stand out with particular clarity is how incredibly personal and impassioned the apostle Paul is being. In verse 11, for example, “I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.” Verse 12, “Brothers, I entreat you.” Verse 19, “My little children, for whom I am again in anguish.” Verse 20, “I am perplexed about you.” This is not an exercise in cold, disinterested theological reasoning. It is a heart-broken pastor’s earnest plea to backsliding Christians to return to the simplicity of Gospel truth. Backsliding is Paul’s central concern. You can see that if you look at verse 9. “How can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?” So the Galatians had once demonstrated a vibrant faith in Christ alone. They had embraced Paul’s gospel of free grace gladly and from their hearts. But now false teachers have come among them and found a hearing and all of that has changed. The Galatians were turning back again. They were backsliding. And Paul says it has him utterly perplexed. He is in anguish over them.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we may have to confess that 2022 was, perhaps for some of us at least, a year of backsliding. Certainly it hasn’t been dramatic, perhaps; not sudden, but slowly, unnoticed your heart grew colder, your fervor dulled, your head had been turned by the snares and temptations of the world. You found yourself looking for your deepest satisfaction, for your peace, not to Christ but more and more to workplace successes or to worldly pleasures or to the praises and approval of your peers. Perhaps you’ve not born up well under stress. The hot sun of suffering in 2022 that seems to have melted the hearts of some has only baked the clay of your heart until it has become hard and arid and lifeless. But now another year has dawned and you know you don’t want to be that person anymore. Well here in Galatians 4:8-20 is a broken-hearted pastor’s earnest call to backsliding Christians to repent and come back to Christ. May the Lord give us grace to answer that call today and today come home.
In a moment we are going to pray and then we’ll read the passage together, but first of all if you would just look at it with me briefly let me outline Paul’s teaching. First, in verses 8 through 11, we have the character of backsliding – what’s it’s like. The character of backsliding. Then 12 through 16, the tragedy of backsliding – why it is so very heartbreaking. Then 17 through 20, Paul calls out the agents of backsliding – the false teachers that caused this amongst the Galatians. Then finally we’ll go back to verse 12 and we’ll look again at verse 19 where we see the antidote to backsliding. Okay, so there’s the outline. Have you got it? The character, the tragedy, the agents and the antidote to backsliding.
Before we get to all of that, let’s bow our heads first of all and pray. Let us pray.
O Lord, You read our hearts more easily than we even could read the words on the page now before us. There is no corner of our lives that is not known altogether by You, and we pray that as Your Word and Spirit shines the light of Gospel truth upon all of those dark places that we may not flinch or turn away, but step into the light and come clean and turn from our self and our sin back to the Savior that we may obtain mercy from His gracious hand. Would You do that among us please, for Jesus’ sake? Amen.
Galatians chapter 4 at the eighth verse. This is the Word of God:
“Formerly, 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 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? 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. You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What 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. Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.”
Amen.
In verse 11, did you notice how Paul speaks to the Galatians as a laborer? Did you see that language? “I am afraid I have labored over you in vain.” The word implies toil; calluses on your hands and sweat on your brow; hard work. It’s the word Peter used back in Luke 5 when he had been fishing on the Sea of Galilee. Do you remember the scene? And Jesus told him to let down his nets and he said, “Master, we have toiled all night and took nothing.” That’s the same word that Paul is using here for his ministry towards the backsliding Galatians. He has toiled over them. He has labored for their eternal welfare like a fisherman working all night long in the hopes that he might secure a catch. And then look at verse 12 and notice he changes the image from a laborer, this time to a family metaphor. He is a brother. He, as a brother, he entreats them. That is, he begs them, he pleads with them with all the tenderness of a sibling who loves a prodigal brother or sister and desperately wants them to come home. And then in verse 19 he changes the image a third time. Do you see this? He goes so far now to compare himself to a mother in labor pains – “in anguish,” he says, until Christ is formed in them once more.
Now what is the point of piling up these intense metaphors like this? Well apparently they are designed to illustrate the depths of Paul’s investment in the Galatians’ spiritual wellbeing and the intensity of his emotion, as despite all his efforts to the contrary, he watches them now going astray. You see, nothing breaks a pastor’s heart like those who once shone brightly for Jesus but have now grown dim and indifferent to Christ and His claims. Now just take a look around you for a moment here and consider how many seats were once regularly filled in this sanctuary with friends and neighbors and family and loved ones who made clear professions of faith in Jesus, how many of them are now absent? How many of those seats now lie empty? Those familiar faces that now rarely ever darken our door. “Well we watch online,” they’ll say. “We’re just so busy these days,” they’ll tell you. But beneath all the excuses, in many cases, the truth is, they no longer care enough to actually be among the people of God on the Lord’s Day in the place where He has promised to meet them by His Word and Spirit.
And now given that, I think there’s a challenge here in Paul’s example that I find personally really very searching. Don’t you? He doesn’t shrug or furrow his brow or wring his hands and say, ‘Oh, isn’t that a shame, they’re backsliding,” and then he moves right along without a second thought. No, Paul is heartbroken and resolves to work to labor for the Galatians’ restoration. Brothers and sisters in Christ, elders and deacons of this church, pastors, Sunday school presidents, D-group leaders, do you know anything of the earnest longing of the apostle Paul for the restoration of backsliders? It is a mark of spiritual leadership, of real pastoral concern, that our hearts break for people who wander off. And I rather suspect the converse is also true. If you find yourself indifferent about the restoration of the backslider, unwilling to leave the 99 and go after the one lost sheep, it is likely already an indication that you yourself have begun to slide back into that same spiritual cul de sac that has trapped so many others. So this is a vital and incredibly practical issue to which this passage before us calls each of us to give renewed attention, both in our own lives and in the life of our church as we go into this new year. It is an earnest call to backsliding Christians to repent and to come back home.
The Character of Backsliding
But what are we really talking about when we speak about Christian backsliding exactly? What form did it take in Galatia? Look with me at verses 8 through 11 and notice first of all the character of backsliding. The character of backsliding. In verses 8 and 9 you will notice Paul reminding them of the great change their conversion to faith in Christ at first accomplished in their lives. “Formerly, 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 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?” They didn’t know it then, but before they were Christians they were actually slaves, Paul says, living in bondage to spiritual, demonic powers, worshiping and living according to gods that were no gods at all. As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 4:4, the god of this world had blinded their minds. That was their condition before they were Christians.
But then the apostle came to Galatia, and through his ministry in their midst, they heard the good news about Jesus and all of a sudden their blinded eyes were opened and they came to know God, or as Paul corrects himself, when they were converted, they came to be known by God. That is, before they had ever moved toward God, God moved toward them. Their conversion was not so much the fruit of their own intellectual discovery. It was not a knowledge they obtained by unaided reason, by mere calculation or deduction. It was, rather, that God called them into fellowship with Himself. The knowledge here is the knowledge of intimacy and communion. And all of that summarizes very well the lofty privileges of a Christian, doesn’t it? To be a Christian is to know God and be known by God. It is to be one with Him, to have fellowship with Him, to be beloved by Him, to be claimed as His own and adopted as His dear child through Jesus Christ our Lord.
And this is what the Galatians, Paul says, this is what the Galatians experienced as they responded in faith to Paul’s preaching. But now, as he writes this letter to them, it seems they are willing to turn back from these very great privileges. But notice carefully – and this is, I think, quite striking – it is not to their old paganism that they are backsliding, is it? Do you see that in verse 10? “You observe days and months and seasons and years.” That’s almost certainly a reference to the Jewish liturgical calendar of feast days. As it turns out, the weak, elementary principles, these spiritual powers that held them in bondage before they were Christians and to which Paul says they now wish to turn back, it turns out they have more than one face. They can have a non-Christian face, a pagan face, marked by all the superstitions of their old Greco-Roman idolatry before they were believers. But now this is really crucial for us to see. The strict, religious legalism of the Judaizers who had come to Galatia, Paul is telling here, isn’t really any different. It’s just another face of the same old slavery; just another form of backsliding.
Now remember, the Galatian false teachers preached what they claimed was a better way, a more rigorous, more consistent, more thoroughgoing way to be a Christian than Paul’s grace oriented Gospel could ever provide. That was their claim. They aimed to enforce all the rituals of the Law of Moses as necessary for anyone who wishes to follow Jesus. And so it purported to be more devoted to God, more exacting in legal obedience, more scrupulous in pursuit of a life that will please God, more exacting, more demanding. And so we can imagine the Galatians reading these words and rather scratching their heads at Paul in confusion when he says they’re backsliding, turning back. “How can that be backsliding, Paul? You don’t get it. We are tightening up. We’re not loosening off.” Oh but it is backsliding. They’re turning back again, Paul says, to the weak, elementary principles that once enslaved them. They’re just wearing a different mask this time. You see, you don’t have to fall into wild, prodigal living. You don’t have to succumb to scandalous sin or drift away into worldly indifference to qualify as a backslider. No, you can backslide into religion as well as away from religion. Do you see that possibility right here in the text? That’s what the Galatians were doing. They thought they were enhancing their Christianity, surpassing Paul’s gospel with a new and improved alternative. But in fact, they had just been returning to the same old bondage that once enslaved them, just under a different guise. It used to be a pagan form of self-salvation to which they looked, and now it is to religious legalism they were looking instead, but it’s still another form of self-salvation, of works righteousness, of self-reliance and not a form of dependence on the Lord Jesus alone for their rescue and deliverance.
Now I suppose most of us could name more than a few friends who have slipped back into their old, non-Christian ways and drifted off into worldliness over the years. But is it possible, while you run through the list of names in your mind, that you yourself have been backsliding too, albeit in a religious rather than in an irreligious direction? Have you been using your piety, your commitment to church, to the worship of God, do you lean on your self-discipline, your carefully maintained routine, as a mechanism of self-justification in the eyes of the Lord? “You’re backsliding too”, Paul is saying, and he could say over you as easily as he says here over the Galatians, “I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.” The character of backsliding. Do you see it? Far more subtle and insidious than we often realize. You can backslide into religion as well as away from it.
The Tragedy of Backsliding
And then look with me at verses 12 through 16 and notice the tragedy of backsliding, why it is so very heartbreaking. Paul begins by reminiscing on the early days of his ministry in Galatia and reminds them of the strange providence of God that brought him to them in the first place. Verse 13, “You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first.” We really don’t know what this sickness was, though verse 15 might suggest it had something to do with his eyesight. Paul says they would have gouged out their eyes and given them to him if it would have helped him. But whatever this illness was, we do know it was a real burden on the Galatians. “My condition,” he says, “was a trial to you.” It was not easy to deal with – not for him and not for them. And yet, verse 11, “You did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.” Now doesn’t that tell you something about what Paul calls in verse 15 their “blessedness”? The norms of their own culture almost certainly would have found in this pathetic figure of a man, so needy and dependent on their charity, abundant reason to reject both him and his message. How could anything from so wretched a specimen as the apostle Paul must have been, be worth giving the time of day to? But as they listened to him wheeze out the good news about Jesus with what feeble strength he had left, they heard in his voice, in his words, the message of heaven. They heard in the broken, cracking voice of the apostle’s preaching, the voice of Jesus Christ. And so out of reverence for Christ who, in the preaching of the Gospel brought them out of darkness into light, they were willing, it seems, to do almost anything to care for Paul, Christ’s messenger, who to them was like an angel of God. It’s a lovely glimpse into this sweet, sacred bond between this pastor and his people, isn’t it? They loved him and he loved them.
And now Paul wonders, “What has become of your blessedness?” He’s asking them – if I can paraphrase the words of Cowper’s famous hymn, “Where is the blessedness you knew when first you saw the Lord? Where is the soul refreshing views of Jesus and His Word? What peaceful hours we once enjoyed, how sweet their memories still, but they’ve left an aching void the world can never fill.” Backsliding is heartbreaking to Paul, isn’t it? It’s a tragedy. And one of the consequences of backsliding is that it ruptures the bonds of Christian fellowship. It breaks your pastors’ hearts and the hearts of God’s people. “Have I then,” Paul asks, “Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? I told you the truth before and you received it gladly, as if it was an angel, or as if it was even Jesus Himself speaking these words to you, even though you had every outward reason to reject this message. And I’m still telling you the truth, the same truth, and now you’ve turned on me like an enemy.” That illustrates the tragedy of backsliding pretty clearly, doesn’t it? The same truth that once made you repent and rejoice, that once cut you to the heart and healed your soul, that same truth now makes you angry and bitter, you resent hearing it, you don’t like having your conscience pricked, and you resent those who dare to remind you of it. That, by the way, is a classic mark of a guilty conscience – fleeing the gaze of God when you hear the truth and your conscience is stirred. You find all sorts of arguments that are filled with venom, rising in your heart almost unbidden. What a tragedy.
The Agents of Backsliding
The character. The tragedy. Thirdly, verses 17 through 20, the agents of backsliding. Paul goes after the agents of backsliding. How were the Galatians so easily led astray? Verse 17 sums it up in a single phrase. “They made much of you.” It was flattery. It’s a classic tool of manipulation, isn’t it? There was an article in The Economist called, “Will to Power” that analyzed strategies, the strategies of those who rose to influence in the workplace. The ambitious, it argued, should master “the art of flattery. Jennifer Chatman, of the University of California Berkeley, conducted experiments in which she tried to find the point at which flattery became ineffective. It turned out there wasn’t one.” Flattery really works. In 2017, the BBC reported on a telephone scam that was doing the rounds in which older people were targeted in particular and made to part with up to 32,000 pounds sterling. And the scammers were saying this to them – “You have been identified as a knowledgeable investor.” One authority in response said, “Be alert to the warning signs like being contacted out of the blue, promises of low risk or guaranteed above market returns, special deals just for you, time pressure, and very often flattery.” Flattery is a classic tool in the hands of manipulators.
And flattery seems to be a key strategy in the hands of the spiritual fraudsters in Galatia. “They made much of you,” Paul says, “but for no good purpose.” They wanted to shut you out that you might make much of them. The Galatians were being manipulated into abandoning the truth by false teachers whose final motivation was a desire to be made much of, not to have the spotlight fall on Christ but on themselves. One way to identify a false teacher – they use flattery rather than Biblical truth to sway their hearers. They seem to make much of you. It feels good to be with them. But they really want you to make much of them and that’s why they’re doing it.
The Antidote to Backsliding
The character of backsliding. The tragedy of backsliding. The agents of backsliding. Paul gives us some useful tools to be on our guard here, doesn’t he? And then finally and very quickly, notice the antidote to backsliding. What can we do? Is there a way back for the Galatians? Is there a way back for me? For you? Whatever the particular form of backsliding you’ve fallen into, whether you are sliding back into worldliness and open rebellion or sliding back into a trust in religious performance and self-righteousness rather than the Lord Jesus Christ; whether yours is religious or secular backsliding, there is still a way home for you from the far country.
Look at verse 12 first. “Brothers,” Paul says, “I entreat you, I’m begging you, become as I am for I also have become as you are.” At first glance that sounds positively egotistical, doesn’t it? I can’t imagine ever suggesting to you the best way back from backsliding is to copy David Strain. God forbid. But think a little bit more about what Paul is really saying here. He became as they are. That is, even though he was “a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to righteousness from works of the law, blameless” – even though that was Paul’s religious resume, he gave it all up and counted it all as rubbish because he realizes that righteousness before God, derived from works of the law, is impossible. And he realized that Christ now has rendered the Mosaic system obsolete by his life, death and resurrection. There is now no longer any need for circumcision or for animal sacrifice or for the complex, liturgical seasons of the Jewish calendar. Now in the simplicity of the Gospel, knowing himself accepted as righteous in the sight of God, on the grounds of nothing he has done or could do but on the grounds of the obedience and righteousness of Christ, he recognizes, “What’s the point of all that false religious effort to try and curry favor with God who accepts me freely by His grace?” And he turns to the Galatians and he says, “No, don’t do it. Don’t do it. Become like me in regard to all of that. Remember, rediscover the simplicity and freedom of Gospel Christianity. I jettisoned all of that and became as it were just like you are now, turning away from a reliance on legal obedience. And so I’m begging you not to turn back to legal obedience but become as I am and rest yourself wholly on Jesus Christ.”
Which is the point of verse 20, isn’t it? Look at verse 20. He writes to, “My little children, who I am again in the anguish of childbirth till Christ is formed in you.” The false teachers want to impose ritual requirements and traditions and legal obligations. They look to see the Galatians burdened by countless, new, extra biblical obligations. But Paul agonizes over the Galatians whom he so loves like a mother in labor pains with one objective in view alone. Only one – he wants Christ to be formed in them once more. He wants to call them back to Jesus.
You’ve been drifting away. You find yourself today in a far country. And maybe this morning you are beginning to feel now is the moment to come home. What should you do? Well you mustn’t say, “I’ll double down on my efforts to do all the right things. I will pray. I will read my Bible. I will go to church and give money and serve on a committee and that will fix it.” You must do those things, but don’t think for a moment that doing any of them on their own simply in the doing will put things right. They will not. If that’s how you’re thinking, you’ll just be swapping one form of backsliding for another. No, you need to get back to Christ Himself who is the One to whom we pray, who is the center of the message of the Scriptures, who is the heart of the preaching of the Gospel, and who is seen most clearly here at the Lord’s Table. It’s not more stuff; it’s more Christ that your heart so urgently needs. “Come back to Him,” Paul is saying, “and cry, ‘My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground – religious and irreligious ground – all other ground is sinking sand.’” You must turn today from trusting yourself, your religion, or indulging in your irreligion. Repent and turn to Jesus.
And let me say as we close that the Lord’s Table to which we now turn is a Table for backsliders coming home. Here in the bread and in the cup are the emblems of Christ’s great love for backsliders. His body broken; His blood shed. “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” “All we like sheep have gone astray and turned each of us to our own way.” Come home and be shepherded back into His fold. That’s what this Table is preaching to you today. Christ died to restore backsliders, to restore you. So do not look at your wayward heart and refuse to come to the Table. Rather, look at your backsliding heart and life and now here this morning, before the Lord, repent, believe the Gospel, and come to the Table with all urgency. It’s the best place for you. Jesus has promised to meet you here and restore you here by His mighty grace. Let’s pray together.
Lord Jesus, You have indeed promised to meet Your people. Like the father in that glorious parable, You come running as we begin the journey home and embrace and welcome us in. Help us, all of us, as we are searched by Your Word now before You to repent – to repent of our repentance, to repent of our religion, to repent of our works righteousness, to repent of our wayward hearts, of our worldliness, to repent of all our backslidings and to come home. Would You work that greatest of miracles in the hearts of some and bring them out of death into life? And in the hearts of others, would You bring the prodigal home? Strengthen all of us as we come now to this Table. Nourish us, we pray, on Your body and blood, for the praise of Your great name. Amen.