This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to Day 3 of our look through Galatians chapter 4. We're looking at what
God says about growth in these chapters, Galatians chapter 3 and Galatians
chapter 4. And as we come to Paul's sixth argument, we're going to review him
again at the end of the week.

His sixth argument is a personal argument. It's almost as if when he reaches
verse 11, he says, "Forget the logic. Forget the history.

Forget even your experience for a moment. Let me just tell you about my
experience. Let me tell you about how I feel about your growth.

" I want you to hear the passion in these words of Paul as I read for you
Galatians chapter 4, verses 11 to 20. "I fear for you. I am afraid that all my
hard work for you was worth nothing.

Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to live as I do in freedom from
these things, for I have become like you Galatians were, free from the law. You
did not mistreat me when I first preached to you. Surely you remember that I was
sick when I first brought you the good news of Christ.

But even though my sickness was revolting to you, you did not reject me and turn
me away. No, you took me in and cared for me as though I were an angel from God
or even Christ Jesus himself. Where is that joyful spirit we felt together then?

In those days, I know you would have gladly taken out your own eyes and given
them to me if it had been possible. Have I now become your enemy because I am
telling you the truth? Those false teachers who are so anxious to win your favor
are not doing it for your good.

They are trying to shut you off from me so that you will pay more attention to
them. Now it's wonderful if you're so eager to do good, and especially when I'm
not with you. But oh, my dear children, I feel as if I am going through labor
pains for you again.

And they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives. How I wish
that I were with you right now, so that I could be more gentle with you. But at
this distance, I frankly don't know what else to do.

In these verses that I just read, you hear the passion of Paul for their growth.
You see in these verses why God was so powerfully able to use a man like the
apostle Paul. He loved, he deeply cared, he wrote these Galatians, and it wasn't
just some theological argument for him.

He didn't want to just win an argument with the false teachers. He didn't want
to just prove himself to be right. No, he cared about their growth to the depth
of his heart.

And so because of that, you just walk through these verses and you hear what he
says. First he says, "I fear for you, I fear for you that they're turning from
the author of faith back to the elemental things of this world, observing days
and months rather than grace and faith. " And he says, "Honestly, I also fear
that all the time we spend together, all the labor that I put in, it's going to
be worth nothing because you're not going to build on that foundation of growth.

You're going to ignore that foundation and go over here and try to build on
something that doesn't have a foundation. " And Paul knew that one day it would
collapse. Any kind of growth I try to build into my own life, on my own effort,
it's going to collapse one day.

But Paul didn't want them to waste the time. He didn't want to see them go
through that. So he says, "I fear for you.

" And because of that, that fear, he says, "I plead with you, I beg of you. "
This is extremely personal. You can sense that Paul is getting down on his hands
and knees for these people, begging them not to go this direction.

As he begs of them, he says several things that show how personal an argument
this is. He says, "I've become as you are. " Here's Paul who was brought up as a
Hebrew of Hebrews, he says in the book of Philippians, as a Pharisee of
Pharisees, one who followed the whole law.

He'd given his whole life to that. And Paul says, "No, I don't want you to
become like me as I was before I became a Christian. I've actually become like
you.

You had it more right than I did because the law is not what leads us to Christ.
" And so he says, "I beg you to not turn to what I've already seen as the wrong
way to go. " He also in begging them says, "I want you to realize our
relationship.

" The false teachers are trying to drive a wedge in the relationship of Paul and
the Gentiles. And so he begs them to remember. He begs them to remember their
relationship.

"I bear you witness," he says, "you would have, because I was sick, you would
have taken out your own eyes and given them to me. " Now that goes to many
people wonder what the sickness of Paul is that he discusses several times in
Scripture. And we're not sure.

There's some people who think it was malaria, but most people think it had
something to do with his eyes. Why? Well, here's a verse like this that talks
about the fact that they would have taken out their own eyes and given them to
him.

So there was some sickness that had to do with his eyes. At the end of a couple
of Paul's letters, he says, "See with what large letters I'm writing with my own
hand. " He had to write with larger letters.

Maybe he couldn't see very well. There's something that's going on with Paul
with his eyes. And when he was with them, it sounds like there was something
even oozing from his eyes that was revolting to them.

We don't know exactly the sickness, but we do know that they cared for him in
that sickness. Paul says, "I want you to remember that. Remember our
relationship.

That has not changed. Remember," he says, "your sense of blessing that you had,
the joyful spirit that we felt together then. " Do you still have that now?

You're chasing after this new way of growth. What happened to the joy? Where has
the joy gone?

Oftentimes, I see people do this. They've lost a sense of joy in their Christian
life, so they begin to chase after other directions for growth. But there's no
joy there either.

But there's you there. There's depending on yourself there, so you think you can
control it more there. But there's no joy there.

Look for where the joy is, the genuine joy that can only come from Jesus Christ,
Paul says. Paul says as he talks in this very personal way, he says, "I beg you
to realize something. I don't want you just to remember.

I want you to realize something. I want you to realize that they are after you,
these false teachers, to satisfy their own pride, not to serve your growth. "
There are lots of people like that in life.

People who will teach you, people who will lead you, people who will guide you.
And the reason for the teaching and the leadership and guidance is to meet the
needs of their own life. The truth of the matter is, if I'm honest, if we're all
honest, we all have some of that in us.

We're human beings. We like it when people like our teaching. We like it when
people follow us.

There's something in all of us that is the seed of what Paul is talking about
here. But if you're a true follower of Christ, you're going to resist the
temptation to take that little sense of joy that you have when somebody says to
you, "Hey, that teaching helped me to get closer to Christ. " You're going to
resist the temptation to then put that all on you.

"I don't want Jesus involved. Let me just put it on me. Let me make it my idea.

" That's what these false teachers did. They wanted to win an argument with
Paul, and Jesus was the one who was going to lose in everybody's life. And so
Paul says here, "I want you to realize that there are people, they are wolves,
they're not shepherds.

Their whole goal in teaching you is to make their pocketbook a little bit more
full, to make themselves feel a little bit better about themselves, to be able
to see you as just sort of a spiritual notch on their arrow. " And because of
that, Paul says, "I want you to realize my true and deep love for you. " And
then he shares these verses, Galatians 4:19 is one of my life verses, one of my
favorite verses in all the Bible, because it talks about how growth happens and
my responsibility for growth.

"Oh, my dear children, I'm going through labor pains again for you, that you'll
continue. " And those labor pains are going to continue until Christ is fully
developed in your life. Paul compares his anguish for these people to the labor
pains of a mother bearing children.

Now obviously he's a man, he doesn't know exactly what that's like. I'm a man, I
don't know exactly what labor pains are like, but I was there for the birth of
my three children. I could tell there was a lot of pain involved.

And Paul in his day could understand there's a lot of pain involved, and it was
the only picture he could give of what it meant to labor for these Galatians to
come to growth in Christ. And Paul is saying, "I'm having to do this again. What
mother would like to go through labor pains again for a child to be born, should
only be born once, and then they should grow the rest of their life.

" But Paul says, "I'm going to go through it again and again if I need to,
because I'm going to give my all for your growth. " He talks about Christ being
fully developed in your life here. What he's talking about is Christian growth.

Some people call this spiritual formation. The idea here is that Jesus Christ
wants to be developed, his heart, his spirit in my life. It's the idea of
becoming more and more like Jesus.

We are meant, we are made to do that in this life, every day of this life, every
week, every year as a believer, and we're meant to complete that in heaven. That
is what God made us for. And Paul says, "I want you to live out what God made
you for.

I'm going to labor for what God made you for. " And in this, and what Paul says
about labor here, you and I hear the sixth principle of growth. Behind this
personal argument is this principle.

Growth is nurtured by personal concern. Growth is nurtured by personal
commitment. When someone else is committed to my growth as a believer, that
means that Jesus Christ can do something in my life.

Growth is not something I just do on my own. It's not I get saved and I'm sent
out there and I grow on my own. No, someone else needs to be committed to your
growth.

So my question is, who do you know that's committed to your growth? What pastor
do you know that you're connected to that's committed to your growth? What small
group are you involved in where you know the people and they're committed to
your growth?

Who do you have in your life that will labor for your growth as a believer in
Jesus Christ? If you think no one, then I say to you, get connected to a church.
Because this is a pastor's heart.

This is my heart to see that people grow in Jesus Christ. But this is the heart
of every pastor, a true pastor's heart. Get connected to a small group, whether
there are people in that group who are committed to seeing you grow in Christ.

Growth is not an individual project. It is a fellowshipping concern. It is
something we do together and it's something we labor for together in Christ.

So as we pray today, I want to invite you not to pray for your own growth. I
want to invite you to pray for somebody else's growth. It might be somebody in
your family, that would be good.

It might be somebody in a small group that you're a part of or somebody you're
concerned about right now or somebody that's growing by leaps and bounds and you
want to see them continue to grow. Bring someone to mind right now and pray for
their growth in Christ. Jesus, help them to grow.

Part of laboring for people's growth is praying for people's growth. Jesus, help
my friend, help my family member, help my small group member. Help them to grow
in you.

We pray this, Jesus, in your name. Amen. Well, join us tomorrow, we're going to
look at what for many people is the most confusing part of the book of Galatians
as Paul talks about his allegorical argument for our growth.