"SO YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO EGYPT?"
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You may be familiar with the biblical account of the nation of Israel’s exodus from Egypt and the wilderness wanderings that followed. Shortly after the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai the shekinah glory of God led the people to point of entrance into the Promised Land. Before entering the land they decided to send spies to look over and perhaps map-out the territory. They appointed twelve men to this task, one from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Ten of the men came back with a bad report, while two of the men, Joshua and Caleb, brought back an encouraging report. The nation chose to follow the recommendation of the faithless majority, rather than that of the faithful minority. In Numbers we read this:
All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!
Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”
So they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”
This account came to my mind this week as I was studying our passage in — please take your Bible and turn there with me. In this passage the Apostle Paul makes a two-fold appeal to the people of the churches that he and Barnabas had established during their first missionary journey. His first appeal is in regards to returning to their former manner of life, life before the coming of faith in Christ Jesus. His second appeal is in regards to these churches’ past relationship to Paul himself.
Let’s read our passage together.
APPEAL NUMBER 1 — DO NOT RETURN TO YOUR FORMER LIFE ()
APPEAL NUMBER 1 — DO NOT RETURN TO YOUR FORMER LIFE ()
A Return to Slavery —
Slaves to non-gods —
Turning back to our old life is not an option —
Paul equates Jewish observations with pagan idolatry —
Knowing God = Being Know by God —
Being Known by God is relational
Being Known by God is Eternal Life
This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
J.I. Packer wrote:
Preaching the Word: Galatians—Gospel-Rooted Living Turning Your Back on the One Who Truly Knows You
What matters supremely, therefore, is not in the last analysis the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it—the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hand. I am never out of his mind.… He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters.
Knowing Christ should be our motivation in life —
More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,
and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;
Fear of Wasted Ministry —
Paul was worried the Galatian believers
Paul was worried he had wasted valuable time
Paul DID NOT worry about loss of salvation
APPEAL NUMBER 2 — REMEMBER OUR PAST RELATIONSHIP ()
APPEAL NUMBER 2 — REMEMBER OUR PAST RELATIONSHIP ()
Imitate Me
Imitate my perseverance
Imitate my passion
Imitate my motive
Remember Why I Came
Paul’s weakness of the flesh
The Galatians’ trial
Paul’s reception
What Happened to the Blessing?
The Galatians’ expressed self-sacrificing love for Paul in the past
The false teachers have caused the Galatians to now treat Paul as if he were an enemy
A Parent’s Job is Never Finished
When Christ is formed in us we are no longer carried away by strange doctrine
until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.
Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.
But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head—Christ.
When Christ is formed in us we are rock-solid in our faith
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
As believers in Jesus Christ, as well as a church body we have been called to press on toward the goal for which Christ Jesus has called us. But it is very easy to look back to the way things used to be in the past.
Now remembering the past can be helpful to a certain extent. In September of 2014 our assembly remembered the rich history of this church by celebrating its 75 year anniversary. It was encouraging to see how God had used this little church to impact the lives of so many. But we cannot live in the past. Though we have been surrounded by a great cloud of witness, we are to look in front of us, and fix our eyes on Jesus.
At that celebration I sang a song that I had written for that occasion. In the “bridge section” of the song the lyrics went like this:
“Though the path before us may seem difficult to climb,
God had given us a promise He’ll be with us all the time;
The mission is before us, to point to the cross;
Will we be faithful to that mission at all cost?”
God is not honored when we as individual believers or as a corporate body of believers shrink back from the mission that He has given us. The author of Hebrews puts it this way:
But My righteous one shall live by faith; And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.
Believer, have you continued to press forward with the mission that Christ has given you? Or are you like the children of Israel who wanted to go back to Egypt? If you are shrinking back from your God-given task then I invite you to repent and return to your original journey. If you are pressing on toward the goal I encourage you to keep going. Don’t allow fear or uncertainty to sidetrack you. God has always been faithful to you. Rest in His faithfulness.
"Press On"
When the valley is deep
When the mountain is steep
When the body is weary
When we stumble and fall
When the choices are hard
When we're battered and scarred
When we've spent our resources
When we've given our all
In Jesus' name, we press on
In Jesus' name, we press on
Dear Lord, with the prize
Clear before our eyes
We find the strength to press on
In Jesus' name, we press on
In Jesus' name, we press on
Dear Lord, with the prize
Clear before our eyes
We find the strength to press on
To press on
Friend, if you have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior then you are still living in your own personal Egypt. You are in bondage to sin, and thus bound for an eternity in hell. I invite you to cry out to Jesus! He will save you — only He can save you.
Let’s pray.
Closing Song: No. 713 — Seek Ye First