Today's message comes from Galatians
4 verse 19, My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains
of childbirth, until Christ is formed in you. Salvation is a
grand and glorious work, characteristic of the God who works it. It is
grand for the depths to which it goes to claim its subjects.
Paul wrote, This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation,
that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom
I am the chief. God's salvation is not for the
righteous, or the nearly righteous, or even the moderately righteous.
It is for sinners. God glorifies himself in taking
a people for himself from among the worst of men. Those doctors
most highly regarded among men are those who can restore to
health the ones whom all others have given up for lost. And so
it is with God. His work of salvation is a display
of His glory by saving those whom no one else could or would
save. God's gospel is glorious for
the heights to which it raises the wicked men it finds. I am
certain that heaven is a wonderful place full of beauties and glories
that a human mind cannot imagine no matter how hard it tries.
But heaven is not the ultimate blessing held out in God's gospel.
Paul wrote in Romans chapter 8 verse 29, For those God foreknew,
he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that
he, the Lord Jesus, might be the firstborn among many brothers. Predestination is not so much
a predetermination of our destination, but a predetermination of our
destiny. It is not so much concerned with where we shall be, but what
we shall be. The hope of the gospel is not
that we shall be in heaven, but that we shall be like God's Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. How God's grand gospel differs
from the gospels most often preached up in this day. The gospels of
men are suitable only for those who have not sinned so badly,
or who can turn away from their sins and walk a strictly laid-out
pattern of life. and the most the gospels of men
can offer is a happier life here and mansions and golden streets
in the sweet by and by. But God's gospel finds the very
worst and grants to them to have the very best and makes them
worthy of their inheritance by making them to be like the Lord
Jesus. Our hope is to be with and like the Lord Jesus. The
worst of men made like the best of men. That is God's glorious
gospel. And God does many other glorious
works of salvation, election, redemption, regeneration, and
preservation. All of these works are His works
alone and show Him to be glorious above all gods. Indeed, as He
Himself said, there is no God except Me, a just God and a Savior. When we step back and see all
of God's works of grace and panorama, it is comforting and it increases
our joy. When hearing the Gospel enables
us to see the whole work of salvation from beginning to end, peace
rules our thoughts and confidence fills our hearts. But our lives
are lived in the present moment, not in the panorama. And in our
experience, we cannot see the whole work of salvation. This
is what Paul meant when he said that we live by faith, not sight.
We have not witnessed election. We did not witness our redemption
at Calvary, and even those who did were unaware of what was
happening. Not even the new birth has any sensory experience tied
to it. It is an emotional experience
for some, but not all. Solomon wrote that God has put
a vanishing point in our minds, so that no man can find out the
work that God makes from the beginning to the end. We cannot
see into the future with any certainty, so we cannot see the
fulfillment of our salvation. As far as the eye of the flesh
can discern, believers are no different from anyone else. They
are born, live out their time on earth, then, just like everyone
else, they die. When believers look at themselves,
they see little to convince them that any good work has begun,
much less that it will ever be finished. Paul's position as
an apostle did not give him any special knowledge of whether
the members at Galatians Church had truly believed the gospel.
So he was in doubt of them, and there was only one thing that
would give him any comfort about them if he could detect that
Christ was formed in them. In this verse, Paul illustrates
his concern for the Galatians under three metaphors or illustrations
concerning parents and children. First, he addresses them as my
dear children, as though they were, in all reality, born into
the kingdom of God. For all of his doubts about them,
Paul was not ready to write them off as lost. Their troubles were
troubling indeed, but their condition was not beyond remedy. Let us
not be quick to write off those who have become subject to grievous
error. Their wandering may look like
that of a stubborn goat, but it may prove to be the wandering
of one of God's sheep. Because he was not ready to write
them off as lost, Paul was willing to expend himself as much as
possible to recover them. He steps back in time from the
position of a parent with children to the place of a woman about
to give birth. He travailed for them. A woman's
travail in giving birth provides a good illustration of what Paul
was going through. He labored hard for them in prayer,
preaching, and writing. He was a firm believer in the
power of God's grace to call and preserve his people. But
that did not prevent Paul from his own labors to bring that
salvation to fruition. Furthermore, Paul was focused
on this singular work. As a woman in hard labor is doing
nothing else, so Paul was consumed with the work of defending the
gospel to these people for the purpose of their rescue from
the heretics in the church. And the work was painful. The
fact of the Galatians' quick departure from the gospel he
preached was painful in itself. But added to this would be the
pain of lost friends. For never is the gospel preached
or defended but that the preacher risks the loss of relationships.
And what of the pain of care that his work would prove ineffective?
Then Paul takes one more step back in his illustration and
speaks like a friend, a loved one, or even a doctor who is
concerned about the progress of a pregnancy and can find no
comfort apart from some assurance that a human being had formed,
with all the proper parts, and without deformity. I will be
an agony of soul, says Paul, until I can see evidence that
Christ is formed in you. Now Paul's use of these three
metaphors, drawn from pregnancy and childbirth, give us a good
description of the nature and product of God's grand and glorious
salvation. These illustrations teach us
that salvation is the impartation of life. When a child is conceived,
there is created a brand new person, a brand new life that
was not there before. Conception does not reform or
improve upon a life that is already there, but initiates a life that
previously did not exist. God's salvation is the creation
of new life. If any man is in Christ, he is
a new creation. God's work does not merely reform
or improve on what is already there, but creates what did not
previously exist. God made man in His image. The
Lord Jesus taught us that God is Spirit, that is, His essential
nature. When God created man in His image,
He took the animal of man and infused him with this nature
called Spirit. This is the image of God in man.
It is spirit that separated Adam from all the rest of animal kind,
and it is spirit that enabled Adam to know, love, and fellowship
with God. When Adam sinned, that nature
of spirit died, and man lost his connection with God. The
new birth restores that nature, recreates it anew so that a man
can once again know, love, and fellowship with God. But just
as a new human life is not created in the womb fully formed, so
those newly born into the kingdom of God are not perfect, they
are not mature. There is no fault in their spirits,
but they have not fully matured. In fact, a person born of God's
Spirit may be so immature that none but God recognizes him as
his offspring. Just as it is well into the time
of pregnancy before the new life is recognizable as human, So
can it take a while to recognize the work of God for what it is.
A newly conceived child in the womb is fully human, but not
fully mature. And a newly conceived child of
God is fully a son of God, though not fully mature. This maturity
is described by Paul as Christ being formed in you. Paul does
not mean Christ formed in you personally, as though the very
person of Christ is forming in us. Christ is in and among His
people, but He is not forming in them, but is already fully
formed. Rather, Paul means a new person
with the same nature and attitude as Christ. The goal and perfection
of our salvation is that we be like Christ. It is what we were
predestined for. To have Christ formed in us is
the beginning of this likeness. Christ being formed in us is,
spiritually speaking, to have the mind of Christ settled in
our hearts. This could be applied in many
ways, but the chief point is this, that we relate to God the
same way Christ does. That is to say, that we relate
to God as a son to a father rather than a slave to a master. It
is written that the Spirit of God would take the things pertaining
to Christ and reveal it to His people. Galatians 4.6 describes
that in this way, Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit
of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, Abba, Father. All that the Spirit of God teaches
God's people is summed in the witness of the Spirit that we
are the sons of God. Romans 8 verses 15 and 16 say,
For you do not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again
to fear, but you receive the spirit of sonship, and by him
we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself testifies
with our spirit that we are God's children. The Lord Jesus constantly
referred to God as His Father, often using that tender Aramaic
expression, Abba. Abba denotes more than mere paternity,
and includes all the closeness and compassion a father has for
his child, and the trust a child has in his father. While in the
Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord prayed, Abba Father, everything
is possible for you. Take this cup from me, yet not
what I will, but what you will. There are three son-like attitudes
revealed in the Lord's Prayer. There is faith and trust. He
said all things are possible for you. Do you remember that
as a child you thought your father could do anything? As we grew
up we learned that our fathers indeed have limitations. But
no amount of spiritual growing up ever teaches us anything different
about our Heavenly Father. He can do anything. Therefore
all our hope is in Him and all our prayers are to Him, our Father,
who is in Heaven. There is the attitude of boldness.
Take this cup from me. Children are bold to ask their
fathers for anything. Since they believe their father
is capable of anything, they ask him for anything and everything
they desire. As we grow and learn the limitations
of our Father's resources and even their willingness to give,
we learn not to be so bold in our requests. But the children
of God never need learn any such caution in their prayers. It
is their all-powerful, all-wise, all-loving Father to whom they
pray. So no request do they withhold. Christ was praying for no small
thing, but that did not hinder Him from freely expressing His
desires to His Father. And maybe that is a good word
to use, free. There was a freeness between
Christ and the Father that bespoke the trust the Son had in the
Father. And then there was submission.
Not what I will, but you will. So great was the Lord's trust
in the Father that He could gladly subject all His requests to the
Father's will. These were not the words of a
servant who must submit, but of a son who gladly submits. But this sonship does not come
to us at no cost. When our Lord hung on Calvary's
cross, He spoke to God several times. He said, Father, forgive
them. Then, My God, My God, why have
You forsaken Me? And finally, Father into your
hands, I commend my spirit. Did you notice the change of
address in the middle quote? In that very hour when our Lord
Jesus bore the wrath of God for the sins laid on him, he could
not relate to God as a son to a father. Instead, he was as
a criminal before the judge, a rebellious slave in the presence
of his master. After Christ declared that all
was finished, that all the suffering necessary for putting away sin
was done, He once again said, Father. In that limited time,
when Christ could not act the part of a son, He purchased an
eternity of sonship for God's people. Well, that is what it
is to have Christ formed in you. to relate to God just as God's
Son did, to leave off the attitude of a slave who feels compelled
to work in order to gain the Master's favor and blessing,
and to take up the bearing of a son who is cherished by the
Father and an heir of the household. It is to relate to God by gospel
principles rather than law principles. Is Christ formed in you?