Title Then and Now/Galatians 4:8-11
Content Then and Now (Galatians 4:8-11) - Lecture 9
People have their own preferences. Whether it be friends, food, or atmosphere, you are bound to get what you like and stay away from it if it doesn't suit you. In other words, it doesn't suit my personality or taste if I don't pay attention to it and keep it away. Therefore, people live in the world and choose what suits them. They choose their own clothes and wear them, and they also choose and eat food. I also choose to make friends. When I say that I choose something, the first priority is whether it is in my interest. Clothes that stand out to me, friends who benefit me, everyone makes choices based on their own interests. And it is human nature to stay away from harm.
What comes out of this human instinct is that they always want to defend themselves and help them. If religion emerges from this instinct, we can guess what it will look like in advance. People want their religion to stand up for them. They want to help and protect themselves. But if the world were given such a principle to rebuke, expose shame, and accuse one's weakness, rather than defend oneself, how much would people prefer it? If it is one hundred, then all hundred are supposed to reject it.
But the principle of God that God left on this earth is just such a way. They do not defend people, do not defend them, but rather expose all their weaknesses and filthiness, and declare that they are sinners, even those who claim to be moralists and conscientious people. If you go to another place, you can be admired as a true believer, good, and like Jesus, but when you come before the word of God, everything disappears, leaving only a dirty image. How would people react to this? Naturally, you will shun those words. And I am looking for the Word that defends and protects me. This is what believers look like now.
The Bible, which contains the Word of God, contains the new heavenly law, which is completely separate from the rules of living in the world. Because only God is good in the world, and the earth is filthy, the good word of God has no choice but to denounce the filthiness of the world. Therefore, when we read the Bible, the error of thinking that we are living in the world regardless of how much God we have, and yet we believe in ourselves, will be exposed as it is. This is the function of the Word of God.
But human nature, which always favors self-defense and profit, keeps these words away. They say they want to know the gospel and want to learn the Bible, but the deeper they go into the gospel, the more they hate the gospel that breaks down their pride, which they thought they were good believers without any defense for themselves.
This is why churchgoers say they believe in God but are not interested in the Word and neglect to even read the Bible. Reading and studying the Bible doesn't help much in my life. Still, the reason he cannot stop going to church, donates hard, and shows diligence in church work is because he thinks that it will be a blessing to him.
However, when a believer does not read the Bible and does not know what God's will is, he or she will always go on to defend himself, and he will only live his life struggling to defend and defend himself. Therefore, whenever a believer sees the Word of God, he should view it as a word that reveals and rebukes me, not as a word that defends and defends my current situation.
The same is true of today's text. Verse 8 begins with a rebuke to us. “But you did not know God at that time, and you were slaves to those who were not by nature God,” he says. To be a slave to non-God means to fear the world more than God. In other words, God's power is in control of the whole world, but he ignored God's power and lived in obedience to the world. It's like when Abraham went down to Egypt because of a famine in the land of Canaan, the king of Egypt was afraid and deceived Sarah as his sister. God is in control of even the king of Egypt, but God could not be seen and only the powerful king of Egypt could be seen.
The reason believers look at the world, fear the world, and obey the world is because they believe that they can live while getting what they want only if they look good to the world. At the same time, I try to defend myself, thinking that I have no choice but to live. The Bible categorically rejects this self-defense. They say they are the servants of the world. But this is the time when we do not know God. Because we did not know God, we had no choice but to live as servants of the world, not God. That is the state at that time in verse 8. Up to this point, I can still feel that the Bible is defending me. However, when we move on to verse 9, that feeling is undoubtedly broken.
Verse 9 says, “Now that you have known God and have been known of God, then why are you returning to your weak and lowly elementary studies and wanting to become slaves to them again?” In other words, it is said that even if it is unavoidable by human nature to live as a servant of the world when you do not know God, do you still live as a servant of the world without departing from the way you were at that time, saying that you now know God? It is unacceptable to say that you know God and live as a servant of the world, claiming to be the Son of God.
Then and now, before knowing God and after knowing God. It is natural to live as a servant of the world before knowing God. But now, if you have become a person who knows God, you must take off your appearance. Becoming a person who knows God means becoming a son of God, and becoming a son of God means becoming a person who lives only according to the Word of God. It is the only way to follow the path the Lord has taken. There is no way we should go except the way the Lord has taken. Because the path the Lord took is introduced in the Word of God, those who want to live as God's servants cannot stay away from the Bible.
Then, what does it look like for a person who has come to know God to live in the world as a servant of God? Whatever circumstances and circumstances you are in right now, you are counting them as God's grace. At that time, when we did not know God, we only knew that living in a good environment was a blessing, and in order to obtain that blessing, we worked hard to keep the days, months, seasons, and years, and lived as a servant of the world while watching the world. Knowing that it is elementary education and that it leads to destruction, and now confessing that what God has given is grace and the greatest blessing is that I have come to know God, the life I live is the way in which someone who knows God lives as a servant of God. Such a person can draw near to the Word of God. The more we look at the Word, the more we realize the grace of God that we had not yet realized.
Do you live as you were back then? Are you living the way you are now? If you truly know God, you have to throw away the way you were when you were a servant of the world and live as you are now, enjoying and giving thanks to God's grace.