Galatians chapter 4. Galatians chapter 4, verse 17
through 20, we'll be looking at this morning. And the title of the message
this morning is, A Pastor's Zeal. A Pastor's Zeal. Paul in verse 17 speaks of a
zeal of false prophets. He says they zealously affect
you, but not well. And here's why they do it. They
would exclude you that you might affect them. Self-promotion. That's the goal of false religion
is to court you. to seduce you by worldly wisdom,
by legalistic means of justification, seduce the flesh so that, not
that you would be affected for good, but that they should rule
over you. You should affect them. But it is good to be zealously
affected always in a good thing. and not only when I am present
with you." Paul here now desires to tell them that there is a
good zeal. There is an evil zeal, but there
is also a good zeal. I desire that you be zealously
affected for good. Not for my good, but for your
good, for your benefit, in a good thing. And that good thing we
know is the gospel of God's grace. And not only when I'm present
with you. I don't want this to happen only when I'm here. I
want this to happen all the time. I want this to be your lot, that
everything be done for good, that you should hear this gospel
when I am present and when I am absent from you. And he gives this term, my little
children, of whom I travail in birth again till Christ be formed
in you. Here it is, I desire to be present
with you. Oh, and to change my voice, for
I stand in doubt of you. Now, as we have seen in our study
of this book, the church of Galatia was under attack. It was not
under attack of the bloodthirsty Romans. It was not under the
attack of those who crucified our Lord. It was under attack
by a very seductive means. A very attractive means. And
that was the legalists, the Judaizers, had come into this church. Those
who would believe that justification comes both by faith in Christ
and obedience to the law. Yet Paul, being a pastor of this
church in love, he desired to turn them from these false teachers
so that they should return to their first love. That they should
turn to Christ again, that they should be restored. They return to the gospel that
was first preached to them, that they professed to believe. What
gospel is that? The gospel of justification by
the faith of Christ. and justification applied by
the Spirit through faith in Christ." That's the gospel he desires
them to return. He said, that's the gospel you
first believed. That's the gospel you first professed. How then should you return or
go to those weak and beggarly elements again? Return to them. He said, so with a pastor's heart, with a pastor's heart, love. He comes to these and rebukes
them in verses 8 through 12. He said, Howbeit when you knew
not God, you did service to them which by nature know God's. But
now, after that you have known God, or rather are known of God. He's calling them to remembrance. This is a loving pastor's tool,
an instrument by which to call back those who have erred and
strayed is causing them to remember. You remember what you were. Remember
how God found you in the waste-howling wilderness. Remember your depravity. Remember your idolatry. Remember
your sin. And how God revealed Himself
to you so that you now know Him, or rather, known of Him. This
is altogether more important, is it, than my knowledge of God
is His knowledge of me. His electing love, His sovereign
mercy. Remember how you gladly received
Him. Remember how you Paul said you
remember you would have plucked out your own eyes You didn't
even need eyes anymore. Your faith was sufficient for
you that you would have plucked out your own eyes You trusted in the his justification
you received it with great great joy And he says now then how am I
your enemy for telling you the truth And then in verse 17, He tells
them, He said, these men who come to you, they don't love
you. They don't love you. They zealously court you, only
that you should zealously affect them. That's the only reason
they came in, is that you might elevate them. He says, verse
17, they zealously affect you, but not well, yea, they would
exclude you that you might affect Listen, false religion never
lacks zeal. I want you to understand that.
Because zeal is attractive. Isn't it? When someone is fervent
about something, it gets people excited. It really doesn't have
to... You see one man over there and
he's doing something very busily and he is excited about whatever
it is. He can draw a crowd, friends,
and I don't care what it is. He can draw a crowd. Because
false religion never lacks zeal. You know why? Because they're
dependent on it. They're trusting in it for their
salvation. They're dependent upon their
zealous religious works in order to be justified. That's why they're
so zealous. Now, who would argue that a Muslim
is not zealous? Anybody want to argue that point?
They are so zealous for their religion. They'll kill you to
convert you Now that's zeal And so our freewill works religion
is zealous They are busy folks. I Saw a church over there just
recently man. They were busy out there building
sheds for something I don't know what we're all busy. You had
hundreds of them out there just building something And no doubt
it served a good purpose. No one denies their good works,
that they're actually useful. Nobody denies that at all. They're
building houses, feeding the homeless, feeding the poor, raising
money for all kinds of good causes. Now who denies that? Anyone?
No. No one denies that all their
efforts affect men for good. Yet, listen, the problem is not
their good works, but their dependence on their good works to make them
acceptable to God. It matters not how many good
works they perform, no matter how zealous they are to perform
them. If they are dependent in any
measure upon their works to make themselves acceptable to God,
their works are iniquity. Isn't that what the Lord said
when those men came, when God separates Everyone, His sheep
and the goats. And He says to those on His right
hand, He said, Come, you blessed of My Father, when I was sick
and in prison, you visited Me. When I was hungry, you fed Me.
When I was naked, you clothed Me. And the righteous say, Lord,
when did we do any of this for You? Why? We didn't pay any attention to
what we were doing. As a matter of fact, we counted all our righteousness
as filthy rags. leaned only on Christ's righteousness
therefore his righteousness is counted as ours so when he did
it we did it but he said to the wicked Depart from me, you that
work iniquity. I never knew you. When I was
hungry, you didn't feed me. When I was naked, you didn't
clothe me. I was in prison, you didn't... And they said, Lord,
when did we not do those things unto you? Why? They were trusting
in their zeal, in their work, to make them acceptable in the
eyes of Christ. And He said, you that work iniquity. What was all their good work?
It was iniquity. It was iniquity. All their labor is vain then,
and they'll die in their sins. Paul said this about his own
brethren in the flesh, didn't he? Over in Romans chapter 10,
the apostle, he said of his own kinsmen, he said, I bear them
record, he said, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel
is that they might be saved. For I bear them record they have
a zeal of God. What was missing? They did not understand who God
was and who they were. Therefore, they go about to establish
their own righteousness. Being ignorant of God's righteousness,
they go about to establish their own righteousness and have not
submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end
of the law for what? Righteousness. To everyone that
believes it. To everyone that believes it. And it's the same love he has
for the church here in Galatia. He sees them following these
Judaizers, his own brethren in the flesh that were ignorant
of the righteousness of God. And he sees those who profess
faith in Christ going after them. And his heart is moved for them. His heart of love is moved for
these people. False religion, friend, has a
zeal. This zeal is attractive to men,
in that they seek to lift up your works. Who does not like
to hear, good job? Your boss, when you come and
you do your work, now he pays you for your work, doesn't he?
He already gives you a good salary, you suppose is a good salary,
yes you wouldn't be there. And you do your job, and Yet
he doesn't say anything to you. You feel guilty. He should say,
well, he's already paying you. What else do you want? You want
him to hear, good job. You want to hear some adoration.
You want to hear some praise. Why? That's our nature. We want
to hear that. Nothing wrong with that when
it comes to your job or your family. But friends, when it
comes to righteousness, what have you got? They lift up men's works. They
appeal to our fallen nature by teaching men that man has somewhat
to contribute to his salvation. Somewhat. Now listen, they all
may differ on what that is. Religion bases their names or
denominations on what work to perform. Church of Christ, what
is it? Baptism. That's their niche,
is that you've got to be baptized in order to be saved. Papists. Well, there's a whole
bunch of list of things you've got to do for them. They've got
a long list of things. But partaking of the Lord's Supper,
confession to the priests and to the mediators, bowing down
before altars, Freewill works religion. What
is it? Your decision. Your decision. What is it for the reformed church?
Law? Covenant theology? Returning
back to the law or disguising the law as something in New Testament
ordinances? Therefore it is up to you According
to them according to their doctrine. It is up to you to keep up your
salvation to keep up your salvation That you must be sanctified by
your obedience become holier By your obedience to the law
in some measure You see some more than others But they all
are dependent upon you But all of these promotions of
your works are merely a disguise for their own self-promotion. Let's use this for illustration.
Infant baptism, this thing that they have in Reformed or Presbyterian
churches usually. Infant baptism. Nowhere mentioned
in Scripture. Why did they do that? so that they can maintain power
and control over the people. So they can keep their churches
full. They baptize those children.
They say, well, you're part of this church. From your youth,
from the womb, you've been part of this church. And they try
to keep you in that church so that they can maintain power
over you. Still spout out there false doctrines. But true preachers, listen, they're
zealous. False preachers are zealous.
But listen to this, true preachers are too. We're zealous. We have
a zeal. Yet our zeal is not for promotion
of men. We do not promote you. We do not promote you. Nor do
we promote ourselves. But we promote Christ. We lift
up Christ. Our aim is to set forth the gospel
of Jesus Christ every time, always, clearly, plainly, and boldly
before you. This is our zeal, to preach the
Word, when, in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort
with all longsuffering and doctrine. We preach the Word. That's our
zeal. This is my zeal, to preach the
Word. Spurgeon once said, every time
I preach, I preach for conversion. So do I. So does every preacher. I preach for a verdict. And my hope is that everyone
that hears me is converted. Converted. This is always our
heart's desire that sinners be converted not to the church,
not to the preacher, but to Christ. I want you to turn to Christ
every time I preach. This time is no different. Turn
to Christ. Look to Christ. Believe on Christ. Follow Christ. Obey Christ. That's our message constantly. But what is the means of this
conversion? If we desire for men to be converted,
what is the means? As we're going to see in a minute,
these who profess to be converted had erred, and Paul desired their
conversion back. What was the means that he used? It was the same means of their
so-called first conversion, or whatever they believed to be
their conversion. If it was a conversion, He uses the same means preaching
the gospel preaching the word wine. This is God's only means
for conversion This is it Go to 1st Corinthians 1st Corinthians
chapter 1 Verse 17 For Christ sent me not
to baptize but what to preach the gospel Baptism is important. It is an obedience to the Lord
Jesus Christ. But how in the world could a
man be baptized if he didn't believe? Baptism is only a confession
of our faith. So what's more important, baptism
or preaching? Preaching is important because
preaching is the means by which one it believes, so that he may
be baptized. He sent me not to baptize, but
to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross
of Christ be made of none effect. If I were to preach to you earthly
wisdom instead of the cross, these two are opposite or opposed
to one another. Natural wisdom is opposed to
the cross. If I were to preach that, then
I would be an enemy of the cross. For the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness. Is that not evident? that what
we're doing is foolishness to others? They might not say it
to your face. That's exactly what they're saying
when they don't come. That's exactly. What you do is
ignorant. What you do is foolish. What
did He say? Preaching of the cross is to
them that perish foolishness. If this is foolishness to you,
I want you to understand, be very clear about this, it's because
you're perishing. Because you are under the wrath
of God because you are lost That's why it's foolish But to us What
is preaching to us? By experience, what is it to
us? It is the power of God Under salvation to everyone that believe
it Now why is that? Verse 21, for after the wisdom
of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. I've told
you this story before, a man went to a I think it was Darwin
Pruitt. Darwin preached the message of
the necessity of preaching. And he said, well, you know what?
I was saved without the hearing or preaching of the gospel. He
said, how do you justify that, pastor? He said, your salvation,
you justify it. God's Word says, God was pleased
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. This
is the means. Now what's the reason for this?
Why preaching? Why send a man to preach and
declare this gospel? Paul says it in chapter 2 of
1 Corinthians. He said in verse 2, I determined
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ Him crucified.
Now here's the reason, verse 5. that your faith should not
stand in the wisdom of men. The wisdom of men tells you that
preaching is unnecessary, outdated, and foolish. But my salvation doesn't lie
in the wisdom of men. Does yours? That your faith does not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. We do not desire
to convert men to a religion, or even to systematic theology,
or to Calvinism. That is a miserable lot, to try
to convert men to a system of theology. I want to convert you to Christ.
I want you to be converted to Christ. And when you are converted, systematic
theology is, well, of course. Well, that's right. When you hear it, that's exactly
what the man converted to Christ says. Total depravity? Absolutely. Unconventional election? Without a doubt. Limited atonement? For sure. Irresistible calling? That's my experience. Perseverance
and preservation of the saints? That's my only hope. We convert men to Christ. That's
our desire as a pastor. That's our zeal, is that men
believe on the Son of God. I want everyone under my voice
to believe. I don't want you to wait. I don't
want you to look for reasons within yourself or power within
yourself to do it. Do it. Believe. Trust in Him. He will save you. Friends, that's power, not from
the preacher. That's the power of God unto
salvation. My desire is you turn from everything
and everyone and turn to Christ. Turn from your family, turn from
your friends, turn from your religion, turn from yourself
and turn to Christ. Turn from your sin. This is always the work of the
Holy Spirit upon the redeemed. Those who are redeemed by Christ
is conversion. How do you know if you're an
elect child of God? How do you know if you are redeemed
by the blood of the Son? Have you turned? Have you believed? It's the only evidence of election
and redemption. So we preach, repent. Repent
ye therefore. and be converted that your sins
may be blotted out all how much he would it take
to blot out my city yet it wasn't blotted out with the was blotted
out with blood be converted. What is it? It is a radical change of mind.
Isn't it? It's a total... The world is
turned upside down and backwards. Everything we thought was right
was wrong. Everything we thought was wrong was absolutely what
God said was right. Let God be true and every man
a liar. It's a change of mind concerning God, concerning ourselves,
concerning His Son, concerning His blood, concerning our souls,
concerning eternal life. Everything changes. To be converted is to change
our minds concerning how our soul is recommended to God. That
totally changes. where once it was totally dependent
upon us, now it is absolutely dependent upon Christ. Change. That's a huge change. And such a true conversion is
a constant and perpetual turning, isn't it? Jesus said this, Whosoever
cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out."
You being scholars in the ETH, I've taught you several times
about this, the present perfect tense, it doesn't mean it just,
you came. Those who came to me, I will
in no wise cast out, although that's true. Those who have come
to me, I will no wise cast out but it also means present perfect
tense it means those who are now coming and those who will
always come to me. I will in no wise cast out. So
have you who have been converted stopped being converted? I am daily turning from me to
Him. I am daily turning from my works
to His. I am daily turning from self
to Christ. Daily turning from religion to
Christ. Constantly coming to Him. I need help. You need help? We constantly come to Him. Constantly
being converted. Looking to Christ. These Galatians,
they appeared to have a change. They appeared to receive Christ,
but now have turned backward. Turned backward to the law of
Moses. So Paul, in love, writes to these
with his own hand and from his heart that they
may know, that he may know they have changed. But when he writes to these out
of his own heart, he wants them to also know that because they
have changed, if they continue in this change, they have made
the cross of Christ of none effect. And so as a preacher, I must
faithfully declare this, that if you who profess faith in Christ
turn back, turn away from Christ, then the cross of Christ is of
none effect to you. If you continue in this, if you
continually turn away from Christ, it is because you have never
turned to Christ to begin with. Paul is fearful that their conversion
to Christ was only pretense. And so as their pastor who was
not present with them, he longed to be with them. He longs to
show them his zeal. that is only for their good.
So what does he say in verse 18? He says, But it is good to
be zealously affected always in a good thing. And not only
when I am present with you, my little children, of whom I travail
in birth again until Christ be formed in you. Paul labored in
the gospel. He travailed in their birth by
his faithful preaching of Christ, which message they professed
to receive Even so, with great pain in his
heart, he preaches it again so that they should be delivered
from this danger. To preach the gospel is a travail. It is a painful process, but
it is a good process. And Paul is liking it here to
being a father. To being a father, he said, little
children, I travail. You parents, do you not travail?
Is it not painful? Yet you rejoice in it. So is preaching. Preaching is
a travail. And what do we travail? That
Christ be formed in you. I do not and must not preach
or promote ourselves, but promote Christ and point you to follow
Christ. And only those who are born again
of the Holy Spirit have the nature of Christ formed in them. And
blessed thought is this, when Christ is formed in us, there
is no more room to be justified by anything else. Isn't that
what it is? I desire for there to be no more
room in you for anything else to justify you except Christ. That's what it is to have Christ
formed in us. When Christ is formed in a man, He fills him
from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, so that there
is no more room for law. There's no more room. Do you
desire to be justified by anything else? Is there any other rule of life
that you desire to follow except faith in Christ? When Christ
is formed in you, that's all there is. And I labor for that
daily. I labor to see you full of Christ
so that nothing else could fit. Faith in Christ alone is the
work of our justification. He alone is all our wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. I would have you know that all
those who hear my gospel and have been converted to Christ
alone that Christ is formed in you and He is all your salvation. Don't we need to be reminded
of that? We do. If I were to slack in my preaching
of justification by the faith of Christ, surely something else
would try to come in. But if we constantly are declaring
this, we are travailing in this so that there is nothing, nowhere
else to turn, nowhere else to go, nothing else to look to but Christ. And notice this, He said, My
little children, My little children, Paul was not their spiritual
father in the new birth. We know that's the work of the
Holy Spirit. In other words, Paul is not saying, I am giving
you spiritual life. He's saying this, that he as
a father has been given charge over you so as to protect you,
guide you, and feed you with this truth. And so we preach
the gospel who are used of the Holy Spirit. There becomes a
bond between us, isn't there? There's a bond between a pastor
and those who he preaches to, those who he fathers in the faith. Now, I want us to see just a
couple of things of why Paul used this illustration, this
metaphor here, this my little children and his travail. First of all, Like parents, pastors
pity erring children. He pitied these children who
had erred. If you have a child that has
erred, made foolish choices and decisions, you know it's going
to be painful to them. Do you not pity them? You pity their choices. You pity
their errors. They're painful, and even so
it is with the preacher. We preach the gospel to you,
we constantly tell you to go to Christ, point you to Christ,
and yet we see men go away, and it hurts our souls, and we pity
them. As little children, we pity them.
And we as loving fathers desire them to come back. Isn't that
what you desire of your children? When they err, that they see
their error and come back? That's exactly how Paul is feeling.
That's exactly how a zealous preacher feels. He desires them
to come back. Secondly, just as a parent constantly
repeats himself. Anybody repeat themselves to
their children? Anybody repeat themselves? Because I do it,
maybe I'm doing it wrong, and you do it right. And you only
have to say it one time, and your children just fall in line.
Because mine don't. As a loving parent should repeat
himself. Even so should a loving pastor
constantly, fervently repeat the same gospel to you. I've been here ten years, a little
over ten years now. I ask you, bear me record, have
I said anything but the gospel to you? Have I preached anything
but the gospel to you? Have I pointed you to anything
but Christ? And if I, Lord, give me any more
years to preach the Gospel, it should be the same as the first. To preach the Gospel, to remind
you. And the Gospel itself warns you. The Gospel itself instructs you.
The Gospel itself draws you back. That's why Paul is preaching
the Gospel to these. Because in love for them, he
longed for their return. And the only way for them to
return is the Gospel. There was a man, I know, who
professed faith in Christ. And yet, he rarely attends worship,
rarely shows any love for the gospel or God's people. On occasion,
and I talked to his mother. His mother was a faithful woman.
She was concerned about her son, and she called me. And I promised
to do this one thing. I promised her that I would always
preach the gospel. Because if he is converted, that's
the only thing that'll draw him back is the gospel. And she agreed. And she said
of a truth, if he is God's, he will return by the gospel. So as a loving parent, we constantly
repeat the same things over and over. And we feed our children.
This is what we're here to do, feed. Just as a parent is responsible
to feed and care and nourish their children, so is a pastor
responsible to feed you. With what? One food. There's
only one thing that comforts the soul of the believer. One
thing that encourages the believer. One thing that strengthens the
believer. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Always pointing
you to Him. Always encouraging you to Him. We feed you with the Word of
God. And we defend you. We defend
you. Paul said, I want to be present
with you. He said, I want to confront these
guys face to face. I want to be there. And I want
you to tell me what these men have told you. And I will show
you a lie. We may expose that lie. We do the defend you by
exposing the lies. We expose the lies not by concentrating
on the lies, but on the truth. The truth is what exposes the
lie And so by doing this we defend
you But listen With all the love
of a parent with all the encouragement of a parent how much power have
you over your children? The same with the pastor. I can
tell you, I can warn you, but I can't make it affectionate. This is very painful. It's very
painful. To feel the helplessness. But yet, I travail in birth again
until Christ be formed in me. and I will prevail. This is my
zeal, that you be converted. If you've not been converted,
what's stopping you? Come to Christ now. If you are
converted, keep coming to Christ now. If you've erred, to Christ now. This is my message,
my zeal. This was Paul's message and his
zeal. I pray that it would be for your good. And that's the
difference between a false preacher and a true preacher. I'm not
here to promote myself. I'm not here to promote this
Redeemer's Grace Church. I'm here to promote Christ. I'm
here to point men to Christ. If you want to hear about Him,
this is the place to be. If you don't, you'll have to
go somewhere else. I pray God bless you.