Introduction:

Paul’s Concern for the Galatians – Serving the Law: A Return to Slavery

1 Peter 5:8 NLT
⁸ Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

Galatians 4:8-11 NLT
⁸ Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist. ⁹ So now that you know God (or should I say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world? ¹⁰ You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years. ¹¹ I fear for you. Perhaps all my hard work with you was for nothing. 

Examine the scriptures:
Galatians 4:8-11 NLT
Paul’s Concern for the Galatians – Serving the Law: A Return to Slavery

⁸ Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist. 

• The Galatians had previously practiced pagan idolatry.

Prior to conversion the Galatians, in their ignorance of the one true God, were in bondage to false gods such as Zeus and Hermes.

Acts 14:11-13 NLT
¹¹ When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in their local dialect, “These men are gods in human form!” ¹² They decided that Barnabas was the Greek god Zeus and that Paul was Hermes, since he was the chief speaker. ¹³ Now the temple of Zeus was located just outside the town. So the priest of the temple and the crowd brought bulls and wreaths of flowers to the town gates, and they prepared to offer sacrifices to the apostles.

• The Galatians were once slaves to sin.

Romans 6:17 NLT
¹⁷ … Once you were slaves of sin …

The condition of all unbelievers:

• We were all slaves to sin.

1 Corinthians 12:2 NLT
² You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols.

Romans 3:23 NLT
²³ For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 

Romans 6:17 NLT
¹⁷ … Once you were slaves of sin … 

Romans 6:20 NLT
²⁰ When you were slaves to sin,

Romans 6:23 NLT
²³ For the wages of sin is death …

Romans 6:16 NLT
¹⁶ Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. 

⁹ So now that you know God

NOW:

Galatians 3:26-29 NLT
²⁶ For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁷ And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. ²⁸ There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.

• The Galatians came to know God.

Christians have a personal relationship with God that is like a child to a parent rather than a slave to a master.

Romans 6:18 NLT
¹⁸ Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.

(or should I say, now that God knows you),

• We can know God and we are known by God.

We are known by God. 

Psalm 139
For the choir director: A psalm of David.
¹ O Lord, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.
² You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
³ You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.
⁴ You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord.
⁵ You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too great for me to understand! 

Jeremiah 1:5 NLT
⁵ “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.
Before you were born I set you apart
and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.”

Psalm 139:13-16 NLT
¹³ You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
¹⁵ You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
¹⁶ You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.

Hebrews 4:12 NLT
¹² For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.

We are loved by God.

Romans 5:8 NLT
⁸ But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

1 John 4:19 NLT
¹⁹ We love each other because he loved us first. 

1 John 4:19
New International Version
¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:19
English Standard Version
¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:19
Common English Bible
¹⁹ We love because God first loved us.

We are chosen by God.

John 15:16 NLT
¹⁶ You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.

John 6:44 NLT
⁴⁴ For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up. 

We are children of God. 

Galatians 3:26-29 NLT
²⁶ For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁷ And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. ²⁸ There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you. 

• Our relationship with God starts with God.

The Galatians had been slaves to sin.

The Galatians came to know God and were now free from their slavery to sin.

The Galatians were known by God.

The Galatians were loved by God.

The Galatians were chosen by God.

The Galatians were children of God. 

why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world? 

The Gentiles are turning back!!!!

Review Galatians 1:6-7 NLT
⁶ I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News ⁷ but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.

• The Galatians were following a different way that pretends to be the Good News.

¹⁰ You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years. 

Judaizers were teaching that Gentile Christians had to be circumcised to be considered members if God’s family.

The Galatians were being led astray by the hypocrisy of others.

Not just circumcision.

Celebrating the Jewish festivals thinking it would make them more acceptable to God.

• The Galatians were “being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ”.

Requiring Christians to follow such OT laws is to forfeit the Gospel of justification by faith alone in Christ alone.

Either they did not understand, or had turned their backs on, the good news of God’s grace through Christ.

They did not understand:

Ephesians 2:8-9 NLT
⁸ God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. ⁹ Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

Practicing circumcision (and the law in general) would be a return to the same kind of slavery they had experienced before they knew God.

• The Galatians were trying to “earn” favor with God.

¹¹ I fear for you.

• Choosing to “become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world” is a very foolish and destructive choice.

Galatians 1:7 NLT
You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.

• The Galatians were “being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ”.

• The Galatians were in danger of turning away from Christ by relying upon the law.

The Galatians are in danger of forfeiting sonship and abandoning the true God.

Peter put some people in a similar position.

Galatians 2:11-13 NLT
Paul Confronts Peter
¹¹ But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. ¹² When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. ¹³ As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

Food for thought:

Hebrews 6:4-6 NLT
⁴ For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵ who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come— ⁶ and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame.

2 Peter 2:20-22 NLT
²⁰ And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. ²¹ It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. 

Perhaps all my hard work with you was for nothing. 

• Paul feels that all of his hard work may have been for nothing.

Review Paul’s message.

Galatians 2:16 NLT
¹⁶ Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.” 

Ephesians 2:8-9 NLT
⁸ God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. ⁹ Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.