Warning Signs

In September of 1787 Benjamin Franklin was one of the participants in the United States Constitutional Convention that met in the old Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia. The story is told that when the Convention adjourned for the last time and the delegates were leaving the hall, a young woman named Eliza Powell called out, “Well, Doctor? What have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” And Franklin’s famous reply was, “A republic—if you can keep it!” (Convention and Ratification - Creating the United States | Exhibitions - Library of Congress. (n.d.). Retrieved September 19, 2019, from http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating-the-united-states/convention-and-ratification.html)

It seems to me that something similar could be said about the life of a church and its fellowship. What do we have here? What kind of group is this, here in this room? In 1 Timothy 3:5 Paul compares the church to a family. Are we a family here at Bethel? We are a family—if we can keep it. 1 Corinthians 12, Paul compares the church to a body. Are we a body here at Bethel? We are a body—if we can keep it.

You see, just like the federal republic that the framers of the US Constitution created, this fellowship that we live in today is not automatic. It must be looked after. In fact, we see in the Scriptures that it is indeed fragile. In the Scripture reading earlier from Revelation 2, we see that the church in Ephesus was in danger of being snuffed out because they had “forgotten their first love”. Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth was necessary in large part because they were fighting and arguing so badly that they were on the verge of flying apart at the seams. And the quarrels and personality conflicts between two women in the church at Philippi went so far as to force Paul to call them out in the pages of Scripture itself!

Philippians 4:2 ESV

I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.

(It makes me wonder—how bad was their fighting that their correction from the Apostle wound up being immortalized for two thousand years??)

The fact is that

We cannot take our church fellowship for granted.

Now, I believe that God has richly blessed us here at Bethel—that there is a real and growing sense that this is a family. That we are a body that loves one another, that ministers to one another, that looks out for one another and enjoys one another. But I also believe—from the teaching of Scripture and years of life and labor in local church ministry—that it really is true that at any given time, any given church is six months from a church split. Beloved, I am not being overdramatic to say to you that it is entirely possible that by March 29th, 2020 this church congregation could be reduced to a fraction of what it is today, our reputation and ministries in Sykesville in tatters, and in six months the people that you love dearly—people you looked forward to seeing and worshipping with today—will be people that you will try to avoid by ducking down a different aisle at WalMart so that you don’t have to talk to them.

If you have been a Christian long enough, you know the kind of pain and heartbreak I’m talking about, because you’ve been there. You know the kind of devastation and shame that can come out of a church that fights one another to the point where it splits up. And you might be saying to yourself right now, “No! There is no way I will let that happen again! This church is different! We cling to God’s Word, we feed on good, solid teaching and doctrine, we can’t fall apart like that!”

But when we look at our text this morning, we see that even the churches planted by Paul the Apostle himself were not immune to bitterness, divisions and broken relationships! In these verses we hear the pain in Paul’s voice as he pleads with the Galatians—pain that’s all too-familiar in our experience: “What happened to your blessedness (happiness)...? How have I become your enemy...?” (v. 16) . You hear his anxiety over what has happened to them: “I am afraid all the time and energy and love I’ve invested in you was a waste of time!” (v. 11). “I am at my wits’ end—I don’t know what to do!” (v. 20). And if this could happen to a church planted and taught and discipled and preached to by Paul the Apostle himself, then surely we cannot be arrogant about our ability to stand!

So what was going on in the Galatian churches that had caused such a change in them? Remember why Paul was writing this letter: They had abandoned their faith in Jesus alone to save them, and had begun to believe that they could win approval from God by their own good works. That it wasn’t enough just to believe the promise that God made to save them through Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection—they also had to keep the Ten Commandments and observed the kosher food laws and became circumcised as Jews so that they could earn their salvation.

This is what Paul is talking about in verses 8-10:

Galatians 4:8–10 ESV

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!

Paul is agonizing over the fact that they had begun to embrace legalism instead of grace for their salvation. And that legalism killed their fellowship with Paul (and with each other.)

That temptation to legalism exists for us as Christians today as well, doesn’t it? The temptation to be acceptable to God by means of “keeping the rules”. That legalism usually comes at the end of a sentence that begins, “You’re a bad Christian if you” [fill in the blank]. “go to movies… wear a beard… go dancing… take a drink… have been divorced… ” Or the other side of it is “You’re a good Christian if you [fill in the blank]. “A good Christian gets up early for personal devotions every day… Only reads the King James Version… never ever misses church… only watches Fox News… can find any reference in their Bible in 5 seconds or less…”

Those are the blatant ones—they’re like the big “E” on the eye-chart at the doctor’s office. But there are more subtle ways that legalism can sneak into our lives, ways that we drift away from resting in the grace of God and start trying to earn God’s favor. If left unchecked, those small, subtle, “reasonable” rules we put on ourselves and others will grow, taking up more and more room in our hearts until we eventually define our Christianity exclusively in terms of the rules that we keep. And when that happens in a church, fellowship dies.

What we see here in this passage this morning is that

Our only defense against church-splitting legalism is fellowship grounded in the grace of God.

So the question for us this morning is: How do we keep watch on our hearts to make sure that we are living in the grace of God, and not in the legalism of our own good deeds? How do we detect the subtle encroachments of legalistic tendencies in our lives?

Now, you’ll remember that Sykesville started out as a mining town—at one time we had a lot of mining families here at Bethel. One of the greatest dangers in the mines was the heavy, deadly carbon monoxide gas that settled in the shafts—odorless, colorless and invisible, it would suffocate anyone who breathed it. And so the miners would take songbirds in cages down in the shafts with them—their tiny systems would be overwhelmed quickly, giving the men warning that they were in danger. (That’s where we get the expression, “canary in the coal mine”).

I believe that this passage provides us with three “canaries”, as it were—three elements of a healthy church that will begin to suffer if legalism begins to seep in. And when we see these early warning signs in our fellowship it is a signal to run back to the grace of God.

The first warning sign that church-splitting legalism is creeping into our fellowship is in verses 12-15:

I. The Death of Compassion (Gal. 4:12-15)

Galatians 4:12–15 ESV

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.

We don’t know the exact nature of the “bodily ailment” that Paul was suffering—some say it was directly related to his weak eyes, some say he had some kind of illness like malaria, some say it was his scarred and battered and broken physical appearance from so many beatings and torturings he had suffered (such as his stoning in Iconium in southern Galatia in Acts 14). But Paul looks back on his first meeting with them and remembers how compassionate they were—they didn’t shun him for being weak and broken, but they treated him like an angel—they loved him the way they would love Jesus Himself! He says they were even willing to tear their own eyes out of their sockets and give them to him!

But now, he says, “What happened to all that blessedness?” That compassion that had once characterized them was gone. They didn’t love like that anymore—the legalism that was poisoning them had killed their compassion!

This is what happens when legalism begins to poison a church:

Legalism says “You pay for your own weakness!”

“You made your bed, you lie in it.” “That’s what you get for disobeying God!” “You clearly screwed up your life somewhere along the line, that’s why you’re suffering the way you are.” Legalism drains compassion out of your heart—and when we see that attitude begin to pervade our hearts, when we see that attitude begin to characterize our church life, then that is a sign that our church family is in danger of breaking up!

When legalism takes hold in a church, compassion dies. “You pay for your own weaknesses, your own failures.” But

Grace says “My strength for your weakness!” (v. 15)

Before their legalism took hold and the Galatians were living in the grace of God, they were willing to trade their sight for his blindness! “I will go blind, Paul, if it means that you will be able to see again!” Beloved, that is what it means to run back to grace in our fellowship. To look at the weaknesses that we each struggle with and say, “Let me help you—let me enter into your weakness, let me help you carry that burden. Let me join you in that mess, even if it means I get messy with you! I will trade my comfort for your distress—I will move out of my place of ease and security and take on your hardship and uncertainty!” Beloved, that is a church that loves the way Jesus does! And if we see that compassion beginning to suffer, then it is a warning sign that legalism is seeping in, and it means that we must fly back to the grace of God!

The second warning sign that we see here in this passage is in verses 16-20:

II. The Death of Unity (Gal. 4:16-20)

Galatians 4:16–20 ESV

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.

Paul looks back in the past and sees how much the Galatians loved him—caring for him and cherishing him as if he were Jesus Himself—and now he has become their “enemy” (v. 16). He sees that the false teachers are carrying out a classic strategy with the Galatians that we still see today in some religious circles:

Galatians 4:17 ESV

They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.

This is another sign that the fellowship of a church is in danger of breaking up:

Legalism creates an atmosphere of “us versus them”.

Thom Rainer, a church planter and pastor, once put out a survey on Twitter asking church leaders to share the silliest thing their church has ever fought over. He compiled the responses and picked his “Top 25 Silly Things Church Members Fight Over”. Among them were such deep and abiding issues as: The appropriate length of the worship pastor’s beard, whether the clock in the sanctuary should be removed or not, whether or not to serve devilled eggs at church dinners, whether or not people should be allowed to wear black t-shirts (since black is the color of the devil!), whether to serve gluten-free bread at communion, and a church that split because one member hid the vacuum cleaner from some of the other members! (Rainer, T. (2017, June 14). Twenty Five Silly Things Church Members Fight Over. Retrieved September 20, 2019, from https://thomrainer.com/2015/11/twenty-five-silly-things-church-members-fight-over/)

Now, it’s easy just to say, “Well, we ought to quit fighting over little things like that and focus on fulfilling the Great Commission!” But that’s like telling someone with undiagnosed lung cancer that they ought to just quit coughing—because what we see here in our passage is that the presence of that “us vs. them” mentality indicates that somewhere the poison gas of legalism is seeping into the body!

Paul says that “we used to work together in unity—but now I have become your enemy.” The false teachers in Galatia—like every false teacher before or since—had made their inroads into the church by creating an “us vs. them” mentality: They pull people aside and flatter them (“make much of them”): “Hey, you clearly have a much better grasp of theological and spiritual matters than everyone else here—let me show you some things about Christianity that they wouldn’t understand!” And as their victims move further and further into their works-righteousness, they begin to look down on those people in church who “aren’t as spiritual as we are!”

When legalism takes hold in a church, unity dies. But

Grace creates an atmosphere of “my life for yours” (vv. 18-20)

Look at what Paul says in verses 18-20

Galatians 4:18–20 ESV

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.

Paul uses the imagery of a mother giving birth—bearing the anguish and pain and labor of bringing forth their faith in Jesus for salvation. A mother’s love doesn’t look at her children in terms of “us versus them” (though there a few seasons of child-rearing—toddlers and teenagers—when you might be tempted to think so!) Paul says that his attitude towards the Galatians is not adversarial—he wants to give himself for them. Like a mom gives up her night’s sleep for her colicky baby, like a dad takes on extra work and goes without sleep to provide for his family, Paul isn’t using the Galatians to make much of him, he is giving his life to make much of them!

Beloved, that is a church that loves the way Jesus does! And if we see that "us versus them” mentality beginning to take root, if we begin to look at others not in terms of what we can do for them, but of how they can make much of us, then it is a warning sign that legalism is seeping in, and it means that we must fly back to the grace of God!

Legalism kills compassion in a church and leaves it cold-hearted. Legalism kills unity in a church and creates an “us vs. them” mentality. And the third warning sign that church-splitting legalism is seeping into our fellowship is found in verses 21-31:

III. The Death of Freedom (Gal. 4:21-31)

Galatians 4:21–22 ESV

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman.

In the last ten verses of the chapter, Paul uses the story of Sarah and Hagar to illustrate the difference between slavery to the Law and freedom in God’s promise. Back in Genesis we read the story of God’s promise to Abraham that he would have a son, and his son would produce an heir that would bless every family on earth. But Abraham did not trust God at first, and went in to his slave Hagar to have a son—Ishmael—by her (we find the story in Genesis 16-17, 21). Paul says that Ishmael was the “child of slavery” (v. 24).

But then God did keep His promise to Abraham, when his wife Sarah gave birth to their son, Isaac. (Paul calls Isaac the “child of promise” in verse 28.) But throughout their lives, Ishmael and Isaac never got along with each other—throughout the Old Testament, the Ishmaelites were a constant source of animosity and persecution for Israel, the descendants of Isaac.

That’s what Paul is driving at in verse 29:

Galatians 4:29 ESV

But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.

Paul tells the Galatians that their legalism shows that they are putting themselves under slavery—they are acting as though their spiritual father was Ishmael, the slave. Paul uses this example to show that

Legalism binds you in slavery over what you shouldn’t do

When a spirit of legalism begins to seep into a church, one of the effects is that you begin to second-guess everything that you do. “Oh—I better not ask this question, it will set so-and-so off!” “God’s been leading me into a new ministry idea, but when I presented it to the leadership all they did was tell me why it was a dumb idea!” “I’m struggling in my life with this depression, but if anyone at church finds out about it they’ll tell me it’s my fault for not having enough faith!” “My neighbor keeps asking when she can come to church with me, but I daresen’t bring her, because she has gauges in her ears and a pierced tongue, and the people at church will never go for that!”

A spirit of legalism will bind you up—there’s always a reason why you shouldn’t do this or why you can’t do that. Church becomes a drudgery, worship becomes an exercise in putting up the right appearances to “look like a good Christian”. It kills initiative, it deadens your excitement for spiritual things, it smothers your joy. A church that is suffering under a spirit of legalism is a church where there isn’t a lot of laughter.

And it’s no coincidence that Abraham and Sarah’s son’s name—Isaac—means laughter! Because while legalism binds you in slavery to what you shouldn’t do,

Grace frees you in joy to what God leads you to do

The slavery of legalism can only say, “No—you can’t do that!” But the grace of God in Jesus Christ says “You are free!” Paul says,

Galatians 4:31 ESV

So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

A church that is grounded in the grace of God in Jesus Christ is the freest place in the world! Not freedom to sin, mind you—but freedom to live in Christ! Free to step out in obedience to God’s call to serve our neighbors, free to open up our brokenness to one another, free to love people that the world says we shouldn’t love, free to speak the truth in love to one another—as Paul will tell us next week in Galatians 5:1

Galatians 5:1 ESV

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Jesus did not die on the Cross so that you could be thrown under the chains of legalism—He did not suffer so that you would have to suffer the rest of your life under the lash of guilt and shame and “keeping all the rules!” He died to set you free from all of that! So beloved, let us make it our aim to live like that in our fellowship!

Our only defense against church-splitting legalism is fellowship grounded in the grace of God. And that grace was purchased for us by the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross! He did not look down on you and say, “You made your bed with your rebellion against God—now lie in it!” Instead, He is the one Whose compassion compelled Him to give up His purity and take on your filth! He tore away His own holiness and gave it to you so that you could live forever with Him!

He saw that you had been cast out from God’s holy presence by your sin—but He did not look at you with an “us vs. them” attitude, did He? No—He came to you in your isolation and your separation from God and said, “My life for yours”! And He became sin for you, suffering the agony of a lingering death under the holy wrath of God so that you could be reconciled to Him!

Listen—it doesn’t matter what kind of bondage you are under this morning. It doesn’t matter what kind of sin or rebellion has stained your past. It doesn’t matter how broken you are or how deeply you have offended His holiness. Jesus Christ died to reconcile you to God! He never broke the Law of God even once, but He suffered as a Lawbreaker and died as a criminal so that you could be free once and for all from the penalty and power of your sin! He was cut off from His Father for your sake so that you could live with Him forever in holiness!

Our only defense against church-splitting legalism is fellowship grounded in the grace of God. And our only defense against the wrath of God over our sin is grounded in the compassionate, sacrificial, freeing work of Jesus—there is no place else to put your hope, there is no one else that can change you from a child of slavery to legalism to a child of freedom in grace! So call on Him today, and be free in Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Hebrews 13:20–21 ESV

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Questions For Reflection:

Where are you most likely to struggle with a cold-hearted response towards the weakness of others? How does legalism cause us to look down on others who should have our compassion?

What are some of the ways a legalistic mindset creates an “us versus them” attitude in our hearts? In what ways might differences of opinion (about doctrine, about politics, about parenting, etc) cause us to be suspicious of one another? How does God’s grace to you in the Gospel enable you to tear down those walls?

The sermon this morning shows from Galatians 4 that “A church that is grounded in the grace of Jesus Christ is the freest place in the world.” What role can you play in making our fellowship here at Bethel a place that frees people to do what God is calling them to do?

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