Christians are Christians, but Christians are not yet Christians. What I mean is that we Christians do not yet act like Christians. Christ Himself is the standard, and no one yet equals Christ. And so, living inferior to our Excellent Standard, all of us who believe in Him, and who sincerely are following Him, are in one degree or another like Him, but full likeness, complete matching, is not the reality. Therefore, we can say in that sense, Christians are not yet “Christians.”
Yet here the distinction of position in Christ as something different than how well we practice likeness to Christ is important to note. By faith, we are considered equally righteous to Christ – this is because it is the very righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us! It is from that moment of first faith in our Savior that we begin a lifelong journey of growing. This journey has twists and turns, ups and downs, steps forward and sometimes steps sliding back. But we always remember as we fix our eyes on Christ, that He who began a good work in us will not quit (Php 1:6).
And so, while we are Christians, we are not yet Christians. While we are accounted as Christians by the God of all Creation, we are not yet Christians in our walk.
And here in Galatians we come to another famous phrase: “Christ formed in you.” In 2:20 Paul said famously, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me…” Christ lives in us. And, Christ is in another sense, being formed in us. Which is simply a way of saying that how we live is in the process of conforming to Christ, and being like Him.
The Galatians were becoming zealous for Judaizers and starting to follow the Law of Moses, and they were then seeing Paul as an enemy, just like the Judaizers wanted them to, because Paul opposed them following Moses. But Paul is standing on the truth and wants them to be zealous for the right reasons – Christ, the Gospel, God’s grace. He wants them to have zeal not just when he is there, but when he is not too. The point Paul is making in this passage is that Christ being formed in them – Christians sanctification and pleasing God with our lives – is not done through the Law of Moses. It is done by faith, by walking in the Spirit, and continuing in God’s grace – all of which is not compatible with the Law of Moses. He is perplexed by the Galatians because they had a great start, but now were turning away from that good start.
I’m going to go through 3 headings today related to Forming Christ in Us as Believers: 1) Commitment to Truth, 2) Community of Truth, 3) Captains of Truth
A COMMITMENT TO TRUTH (16)
First I want to point out the necessity for us as believers to have a commitment to truth. Biblical truth. Look at verse 16, “Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?” The Apostle Paul is addressing the attitude change in them whereby they once were his dear friends who sacrificed greatly to take care of him, and who took up the Gospel he preached to them with great zeal, BUT, now they apparently turned from that Gospel and as a result they’ve turned away from him. In other words, as they begin to despise the Gospel they will despise the man who preaches it to them.
There is an interesting point here about the Galatians to point out. They were impulsive and fickle as a people in general. Just like the Cretans were known to be liars and lazy (Titus 1:12), and just like the Corinthians had a reputation for sexual immorality, so the Galatians had a reputation of their own: they were fickle and unreliable. Julius Caesar, Polybius and more all point out that the Galatians as a people were faithless, quick to change and so on. Think about that when you read this letter and you come across verses like
- 1:6, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you…”
- Or 3:3, “Are you so foolish that after beginning by means of the Spirit are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?”
- Or 4:9, “How is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?”
- Or verse 15, “Where is your blessing of me now?…Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?”
- Or 5:1, ‘Do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery…”
- Or 5:7, “You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and is keeping you from obeying the truth?”
In a way, the Galatians tendency to NOT be firm in their decisions, and NOT be committed, and to be fickle, was what Paul was battling. They needed him to anchor them as they were so easily blown around here and there by the winds of false teachers.
APPLICATION: Stand firm! Do not be a Galatian and waffle on the Gospel, on Christ and on grace. Stand firm in Christ, in the Gospel and in grace.
A commitment to truth is fundamental to the Christian life. Paul said in 2:5 that he protected the truth from Judaizing false teachers. In 2:14 Paul described his confrontation of the Apostle Peter for his behavior that was contradicting the truth of the Gospel. In 5:7 Paul is going to put it direct to the Galatians and ask them, “You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?” In other words, who are these people telling you to turn from the grace of Jesus Christ and start following the law?
The Bible teaches the Christian life is fundamentally a commitment to the truth. The truth is first of all a Person – Jesus Christ, who declared, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” He told Pilate in John 18, “The reason I was born [Christmas] and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Earlier Jesus said those who listen to Him are His sheep, who belong to Him (Jn 10:27).
This brings up the important doctrine of revelation. The truth we are committed to is the revelation God has given us in the Scriptures. Revelation is what we know because God has spoken it to us. That’s the Bible. What did Paul say in Galatians 1:11-12…turn there with me….You see Paul’s Gospel message came directly from God, it did not come from any man. It was revelation from God to Paul to give to the world. And Paul gave it to the Galatians and they received it. But now, as Paul was pointing out, they were turning from that Gospel that was revealed, that true Gospel, and they were turning to a different Gospel (1:6), that wasn’t true. And in that process they were also turning away from their devotion to Paul.
APPLICATION: If you stand on the truth, people who reject the truth will reject you also. I know there is a saying out there that “They’re not rejecting you, they are rejecting Christ.” I get what it is saying, but I don’t agree with it. People who reject Jesus and the truth in Him are also rejecting me personally. Thats a reality. I have a choice to stand with Christ or with the world that rejects Him. Jesus said, if they hate YOU remember they hated me first. If they persecute YOU remember they persecuted me first. So the application is this: you are going to be rejected for standing with Christ – some rejecting isn’t going to hurt much, while some will hurt deeply.
APPLICATION to the APPLICATION: let your fellowship with Christ and with other believers deepen all the more as you experience rejection for standing with Christ.
COMMUNITY OF TRUTH (17)
The second point I want to make regarding forming Christ in us, is the importance of being part of a community of truth. Look at verse 17 and see how I get this point, “Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may have zeal for them.” The Galatians were following Paul and the Gospel of Jesus Christ he brought them. They were spread out in the Galatian region as several small communities of believers, believing in the truth of Jesus Christ. But now there was spiritual seduction, and social pressure, to splinter them away from Paul and what he taught, and lead those believers into a different community that followed the Mosaic Law. Let me pull a few things out of this verse for us:
First, false teachers have a tremendous amount of energy to gain disciples. The only people who came close to having as much zeal for the Galatians’ devotion as Paul were those false teachers who showed up in their towns. These are false teachers who are trying to Judaize the Christians by making them obey the Mosaic Law: circumcision (2:3-5; 5:2-3; 6:12-15), obeying Mosaic Calendar (4:9-10); racial segregation (2:11-14). Paul is not only battling the false teachers, but the willingness of the Galatians to go along with them. Paul is clearly not supporting their turning to the law when he says in 3:2-3 “I would like to learn just one thing from you: did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?” Or when he says in 4:21, “Tell me you who want to be under the law do you even know what the law says?”
These false teachers travelled everywhere to undo what Paul did, to tear apart what he put together, to lead astray those Paul gathered. The have a demonic energy, because they have the zeal of their father, Satan, driving them on.
APPLICATION: resist and reject false teachers.
Second, living for Christ is going to force you to make choices. There are going to be choices that will come with costs. Notice the “either/or” Paul conveys: the Galatians could either have allegiance to Paul and his Gospel or they could have allegiance to the Judaizing false teachers. They couldn’t have allegiance to both.
APPLICATION: Choose Christ every time. Decide to stand in the grace you have received from God through your faith in Jesus Christ – every time. Do not part ways with the Gospel you have received, but stand in it no matter the cost. The reward is too incredible to describe.
Third, be a zealous believer. Notice again verse 17-18……. Zeal is a quality of the Christian life Paul says to be zealous for the right reason, be zealous as a community, and be zealous individually.
- Be zealous for the right reason. Jesus said, “Zeal for your house consumes me” (Jn 2:17). Zeal for the Gospel, zeal for the honor of God’s name, zeal for teh Church, zeal for righteousness. But zeal can be misguided and channeled in the wrong direction, as the Galatians in all their inconstancy were demonstrating. One consistent area where zeal is misguided is in following the Law. “I can testify that the Jews that they are zealous for the law but their zeal is not based on knowledge.” Romans 10:2. Paul described his own former zeal for the law and for persecuting the church (Acts 22:3; Php 3:6).
APPLICATION: Focus your zeal on what the Bible focuses on. I see people with more political zeal than evangelistic zeal. I see people with more social helps zeal than evangelistic zeal. I see people with niche theology zeal more than evangelistic zeal. People need to be told the Gospel and the large masses of Christianity have all the zeal in the world for all other issues than the very message that can save souls. Focus your zeal on what the Bible focuses on: the Gospel of Jesus Christ that saves souls.
- Be zealous always. Paul says, its good to always be zealous, not just when he is there. On the one hand we need community for accountability and bolstering us in the right direction. But Paul is making the point that genuine zeal does not need him to be present. Otherwise its just borrowed zeal for the Galatians – zeal that is not really their own, they’re just swept up by Paul’s zeal, and moved for the moment by his zeal. Its not really their own.
APPLICATION: Make your zeal your own. The strength you get from this community of believers should make you stronger individually. Make your faith your own. Own your faith. Own your zeal. Learn from others, be strengthened by others, but your faith has to be yours and your zeal has to be yours. Otherwise its borrowed, and if its borrowed, why are you borrowing it?
CAPTAINS OF TRUTH (19-20)
To have Christ formed in us we need a commitment to truth, we need a community of truth, and finally we need Captains of Truth. Look at verses 19-20 with me….
First, ensure you are under leadership that ministers the truth of God. Paul was ministering the truth to the Galatians. Don’t be the kind of people 2 Timothy 4:3-4 describes, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine [truth]. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from truth and turn aside to myths.” In the same way, Paul was pressing the Galatians not to turn away from the truth and turn aside to the Law.
APPLICATION: Ensure that you turn your ears to the truth, and gather around you teachers who will give you the truth of God’s word.
Second, true captains of truth will be dedicated to the people they minister the truth to. Look at the language Paul uses to describe how he is working with them: childbirth. He evokes the imagery of a woman in labor and says that’s the kind of “labor,” that is the kind of pain he is in to “form CHrist in them,” to ground them in the truth. He uses this parenting language here, calling them his children, and in doing so he is bringing out the deep affection for the Galatians he has. He did this in 1 Thessalonians 2 also when he said, “Just as a nursing mother cares for her children so we cared for you….”
APPLICATION: Truth and love. Find yourself captains of truth who love not only ministering the truth, but the people they minister to.
CONCLUSION:
EFC, be dedicated to Christ being formed in you. As Christians, be dedicated to becoming Christians more completely each day. Be committed to truth, be an integral part of a community of truth, and ensure you have captains of truth leading you.