Sermon Text:
Galatians 3:23-4:7
The good news of Jesus changes everything about our lives. Not only are we saved by grace, but even the way that we relate to God has changed. It was always part of the plan of God that those who trust in Jesus would be able to come to him as his children.
Sermon Transcript:
(transcribed with AI)
Amen. Now, I understand that it is your custom here to stand during the reading of the word and I'm gonna invite you to join me to do that, please also find Galatians, chapter 3 beginning at verse 23, and I'll read to chapter 4 verse 7. So brothers and sisters here now, this is the word of the living God.
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under guardian, for in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus, and if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father in the same way also when you were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God.
Thus far the reading of God's word, you may be seated.
Well, I've been given a mouthful. I think you can see that. Yikes. And so you're gonna have to put your thinking caps on and we're really gonna have to dive deeply into this because when Paul writes, he often is quite dense in the way he writes, and so every word kind of has a weight to it and it invites us to consider, and we're not going to be able to look at every detail here lest we be here till late in the afternoon, but we're gonna look at some of the things and one of the things I want to point out to you is I think that the theme of everything that we have just read is in verse 29.
Would you look at that again? Verse 29 says, and if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, and then it adds the words heirs according to promise. And this is really what we find here, and later on, we're gonna talk about adoption and everything else that was involved in this, but let me talk a little bit about inheritance.
I don't know how many of you have inherited stuff. And maybe, you know, I know many of you are younger, and I don't know whether you feel like you're vultures circling around your parents' heads, just waiting for that inheritance to come free, but I remember when my own dad passed away. And it was an interesting thing because he had basically dispersed his funds before that already, but when he passed away, we had all that, you know, the stuff that wasn't worth a whole awful lot left over and trying to decide what to do with that.
And Dad had a series of tapes. They were cassette tapes. How many of you actually are old enough to know what a cassette? Yes. We used to have these things called cassette tapes, and he had them organized very nicely, and he had, you know, little labels in the groupings where he had the cassettes, and they were all in German, you see that, and so one of the labels said shunt and the other said mist. And if you don't know what those words mean, shunt means garbage. So we had a whole bunch of them, they were labeled garbage. And then mist, well, I don't know, I mean, I know you're from Chilliwack around here, so you'll understand, it's manure.
And so I don't know the difference between the garbage tapes and the manure tapes, but somehow he had made a distinction between those two. And I remember thinking, what do we do with all this stuff? And somehow my siblings looked at me and said, John, you can deal with this. And I actually took them and I threw them all out. I didn't know what else to do, but, you know, that sometimes when we think about an inheritance, we might think about things that are not that meaningful or that worthwhile, but that's not what we're talking about here, are we?
We're talking about something that is enormously meaningful, and what you'll see later on in the text, and we'll get to the details, but I'm just gonna draw attention to the kind of the broad stuff that's there. And if you go to verse 6 of chapter 4, notice again, we said, because you are sons. And we might say sons and daughters, but sons is used for a reason, and I'll tell you why in just a little bit. God has sent the spirit of His Son into our hearts, and we cry Abba Father, and what's attached to that is the whole idea of adoption.
And I know that Jonathan and Korinna, they've given these two wonderful grandkids to me and they're adopted. And I know that sometimes when we read the word adoption, we think about, you know, words that ring something in our mind, but in the New Testament world, there really wasn't the kind of idea of adoption as we have today. Adoption really would mean that a very wealthy landowner would be an individual of political power who had considerable land holdings as well as considerable wealth, and that landowner, that lord of the area, had absolutely no son to give his property to when he died, so he went around and he looked for somebody who was worthy.
And then when he found an individual, he said, now that person could inherit everything. He would go to the parents, yeah, the parents of that person, they would make a deal between them. I want to adopt your son to be the heir of my land holdings. And if an agreement was reached, then he would adopt that son, and so that son would then move from his natural parents' house into the parents' house that now would become his adopted parents, and he would be trained to inherit everything that his new adopted father had.
So the idea of adoption and great wealth always went hand in hand. And that's really what we have here. We have here this idea that you and I are called upon to inherit the vast landowner's estate. Now, we know that God never dies, so, you know, not everything in an illustration works. I mean, you know that every illustration has limits to it, but nonetheless, that's the idea behind this. Our Heavenly Father owns everything. And he is in the process of giving to his children all of his land holdings.
Now, the oldest and the most prestigious of all his sons is the eternal son of the Father, who is Christ Himself, but here is the key. You and I have been brought into a relationship with Christ which results in our adoption. Now, one of the words that is repeated most commonly in the entire writings of Paul are this two-word series, and it's the words in Christ. Sometimes theologians call this union with Christ. We are united with Christ so that Christ and us are united in everything. Christ's future and our future are now joined together so that everything that belongs to Christ now belongs to us as well, with the exception of his deity. We do not become gods.
However, everything else, and you say, well, what is everything else? And the answer is the creation. There will in the coming days be a new heavens and a new earth. That is, the new heavens means there will be a universe that is recreated and that everything that is in the universe and all of the works of God's hands will be entrusted to those of us who have been adopted into the family of God so that we are called upon to rule and reign over the works of God for all of eternity.
No, I'm sorry to tell all of you that there will be no golf courses in heaven, so that you'll be golfing forever. Please don't think of heaven that way, but also don't think of heaven as a static event in which, you know, sometimes people say, well, I get to heaven, I'm gonna know everything. No, no, omniscience is a property of God alone. He alone knows all things. We are forever human, but we are called upon to live forever. We will be learning, we will be growing. We will be understanding how to exercise the rulership that we have.
In fact, what we're doing now in our life in Christ is we're learning how to rule and reign with Christ over all things. I noticed a part of Pastor Jonathan's prayer was you know, that we would, in fact, when our jobs, when we go to our work, that we would do that unto Christ because even in our work, in our families, whatever we do, we are learning to rule and reign with Christ. We are now in training so that we will be with him forever and rule over all the works of his hands as Adam was told, govern over the creation, we are told govern over the creation, which is also the universe itself. That is our destiny. That's what we're going to have one day. That's what Paul is addressing here.
So that's a mouthful. I hope you understand, it's a mouthful. I mean, your future is far grander than you had ever imagined when you first got onto your knees and said, Jesus, I confess my sins and surrender my life in your hands. You probably didn't know what the Father had prepared for you. It was more than you can imagine even now, but the more that we learn, the better off we are.
Now, that being said, let's see if we can get to the details of what's before us. Look again at verse 25, and I'm gonna look at verse 25 and verse 26, and I'm gonna try to bring those two together. I'm sorry, 23 and 24. Yes, 23 and 24, and please, that's in chapter 3, so please follow with me again and we're to try to get a sense of where Paul is going.
Now, before faith came, he says, now, please understand, I told you that Paul is dense in the way he writes. He uses sometimes very short phrases, and he means a lot by it. When he says before faith came, he means before faith in Christ came. He means before Christ came into this world. Before the fullness of time, when God sent His Son, born of a virgin who lived among us, did miracles, raised the dead, drove out the demons, died on the cross for our sins, rose from the dead, now seated at the right hand of the Father, and has given us this faith in Him that as we trust in Him, my sins are no longer counted against me.
And I'm now presented pure before him, before all of that happened, before the Christ event came, which is the faith that Paul is talking about. He says we were held, and the question is, we, who is we here? But just hang on there with we were held captive under the law. Now who's under the law? And the answer is the Jewish people are under the law. So at first he is addressing the Jewish people. Before faith came, before Christ came into the world, we, the Jewish people, the chosen people of God, were held captive under the law. We were imprisoned until the coming faith that is Christ would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.
It's a mouthful, and I'm not sure we're going to get a chance to deal with all of that. And I must say, son, you should have given me just those two verses alone. He gave me more. But please understand this, there is something about the law which is fascinating to me. The law of God can be divided. I would argue the reformers, and if you don't know this, divided the law into three categories, and we as believers, as we look at the law, we wonder what, you know, so let me help you out here.
There's a part of the law that the reformers call the ceremonial law, and it's the law that has to do with sacrifices and it has to do with offerings and everything that was done in the temple as sacrifices were continually offered. Now, when Jesus came, he ended the sacrificial system because by his one sacrifice, all of those, you know, blood of goats and bulls and lambs and everything else was no longer required. He fulfilled everything that looked forward to.
Then there's that part of the law which sometimes is called the civil law, and it's meant uniquely for Israel. And it had to do with stuff like, you know, only wearing clothing with one kind of fabric in it. It had to do with circumcision and it had to do with what you ate. I mean, pig is definitely out. I don't know how many hog farmers are here. You're OK because that part of the law is only for Israel. It was never intended for the Gentiles, but there is another part of the law which is called the moral law, which is summed up in the 10 Commandments.
I had this conversation with someone not long ago and he said to me, well, we're not under the law in any sense anymore. And I said, Oh, how so? He said, we don't have to do any of it. And I said, does that mean we can commit adultery now? He said, if you think you can still love Jesus and do that, you should go right ahead. I said, I know a lot of people who think they can love Jesus and do that, you see.
The reality is that we are under the moral law. The reality is that when God said you shall have no other gods before me, you must have no higher delight in your life than the Lord God. So you say, I'm really a Blue Jays fan and I'm not thinking about Jesus at all anymore, you know, you have another God in your life. I'm not saying you shouldn't rejoice in the world that God has given us and all the wonderful bounty that's here. We ought to find gladness in this, but there is no greater joy and there is no object of worship that dare have other than the one who has created us, who is worthy of all of our worship.
That is not only an appeal to our souls, but it is a command of the living God, and to not do that command is a violation of what he has given us. Now see, here's the thing, before Christ came, in some fashion, the law imprisoned us and you might say, well, I don't understand how are we imprisoned when God tells us how we are to live. And the answer is because there is a reaction in the sinful heart to receiving the law.
Now, you might know this whenever you drive your car on the freeway. Now, we're gonna have an altar time and we're gonna have for a confession of sins here in a little while, but how many of you when you are on the freeway, when it says 100 kilometers an hour, have on the odd occasion, I mean, I'm sure it's almost never, but on the odd occasion, managed to go 120. Yeah, look at that. See, and the rest of you are guilty of lying, right?
You see, this is, well, the reality is that there is a law that's there and there's something in the human heart that demands to break it. I mean, the law excites rebellion in the heart. You see, the problem with a law is not the law itself. The problem is in the human heart that is fallen and away from God, that whenever we see a law from God, we might say, yes, the law is good, the law is righteous, you know, everyone should do this thing because that's what's, you know, wrecking our whole culture. We're paying no attention to the way in which God wants us to live, and we shake our fist at others who do break the law. And sometimes we have to come to terms with the fact that there is something within myself that finds the law to be objectionable, it's deeply held within my soul.
See, here's the thing, the law imprisons. It imprisons in the sense that it draws out a rebellion against God, but notice that Paul goes further than that in verse 24, he also says the law was our guardian. Now the idea here is again going back to the idea of adoption and being made an heir, so while you're still a kid and you're not yet reached the age of maturity, where you can actually begin to function in your inheritance, so while you're a kid, the kid is being treated like a slave.
A lot of people who are going to inherit their father's estate, even, you know, the natural children, if you're the oldest son, you're going to inherit this. But when you're a kid, you probably have a slave who is your tutor who's teaching you your basic educational skills, and sometimes that slave would bat you over the back of the head for not acting properly. I mean, it's not like Canadian schools. I mean, you know, when I grew up, I mean, we had a very different kind of a school system than we do today.
Teachers thought nothing of nailing your heart. I mean, I sometimes remember you would have the chalk brush. It had always that hard edge to it and it would come whipping down because it left the teacher's head and was looking to hit somebody on the head. And nobody thought we'd take the teacher to task for that. In fact, everyone that was hit by their teacher back in those days was worried to tell their parents because the parents would hit them too, you know. It's how things used to be, and that's how they were then.
The tutor might treat you badly, but he was letting you know that if you don't learn the lessons, you can never be the proper heir to manage this estate. And there's this idea here that in Israel what the law was doing is showing them how unfit they were to inherit everything that the father had. And that was the problem. So, on the one hand, the law is, as has already been said here in verse 23, it's an imprisoner because it continually brings out this bad response on the other hand, the law is also your guardian because it's going to bring you to a place, it's teaching you that you can't live by the law.
If you haven't learned that yet, I mean, as a Christian, you should know that. Every once in a while I'll meet someone who says, you know, I haven't sinned for the last you know, 5 years For a while when my wife and I were living in California I remember being a part of a denomination. I only learned this later, but they actually believed in a doctrine called entire sanctification. Some of you might know what that is. And it meant that if you get, you know, completely filled with the Holy Spirit, you're never gonna sin in this life again.
I actually met a guy who had a 10-year pin on his lapel. It's been 10 years since he sinned last. It's called the sin of pride. He just blew it right there. 10 years gone, right out the door, back from square one. You see, the thing is how easy it is to deceive ourselves. I mean, the truth is that there's probably no one in this room that's even gone a minute and a half without sinning, and I don't mean something, you know, egregious as we might think of, but pride, arrogance, slighting others, living for myself and self-focused.
I mean, these are a part of our sins constantly. We live in this milieu of sinned, and we think it's so normal to live this way, but we have become abnormal since Adam. And all of this, the law highlights and shows up and everything else, and yet it's a guardian, it's a manager, and notice this in verse 24, the law was a guardian to Christ in order that we might be justified by faith. In other words, we know, I'm not getting right with God by lawkeeping. I need another system, and that's when Christ came and showed us. It was not by our own efforts. It was only by the effort of God. We can't be saved by ourselves.
See, every once in a while, someone will say to a Christian, so you're saying that unless you believe in Jesus, you're gonna go to hell. So that's what you're saying to everybody. And I say, no, that's not what we're saying. The reason we're all going to hell is because we've broken the law of God. We've lived immoral lives and God is righteous and just and will judge every single human being. That's what we're saying. God is incensed by unrighteousness. Now God sent His Son into the world as a savior to save us from our sins. We decide I don't want the savior, that's on us, you see. And so this is the point here that the law helped to highlight, brought this sense of desperation, recognized we could never make it on our own efforts. We need something else. We need the effort of God, and that's the faith that's being talked about here.
Now to verse 25. Now that faith has come, that is Christ has come and he's revealed what he has done for us. That's the idea behind faith has come. Now that when Christ has come and done what he has done on the cross to forgive us of our sins, now that that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. Now, we're gonna have to talk about that for a bit, but wait, let's keep reading. We are no longer under a guardian for in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.
Now, please stop there. How are we made sons and daughters of God? And again, the reason only sons is used because of the illustration of adoption, and it was the males that were being adopted, that was it. So to keep the illustration alive. But we know that we are sons and daughters of God, and how are we so? We are so through faith and through faith alone. This needs to be emphasized.
How are you doing between yourself and the Lord? And the answer is, well, yes, I'm growing in grace, but I know this. That all of my sins have been wiped out. And by the way, I love redemption stories the most. I don't so much like it when someone says, you know, I've been perfect throughout my whole life. I once heard a woman give her testimony. She is actually a converted Jehovah's Witness, but the spirit of Jehovah's Witnesses still lived in her.
And so when she gave her testimony, she called everyone to her house, and I was invited and I went and I heard her story, and her story was, you know, my father was such a terrible person. And the Jehovah's Witnesses were so terrible, and my sister treated me badly, and then I got married and that first husband was an abuser and he was bad, and she went through a whole bunch of different people in her life and every single one of them was bad, but she remained a calm in the middle of the storm, and at the end of the day she even did the right thing and gave her life to Jesus. You see all the good things she had done.
See what's happened when we think of our story that way is there's nothing redemptive in a story that way. Tell me the person whose life was a wreck. Tell me the person who came to recognize I did not keep the law of God. I got sexually broken when I was young, and I'm not saying that's a good thing, it's a bad thing. I got, you know, I got involved in things that began to highlight how desperately alienated I was from God. And the crushing weight of the judgment that lay before me was there, and I recognized that all my efforts could not save, and then I came to recognize there's only one way to be justified. And that way to be justified is my faith in God.
Now, if you don't know what justified means, it's a pregnant word. I'm gonna tell you that. It's a wonderful word. I love to tell the story of justification. Not one of my daughters here, I'm gonna ignore her for a minute, but it's a made up story anyway, but it's such a good story. In my mind, it happened just this way. I got 2 daughters and I want you to imagine that my wife is in the backyard, but she's made chocolate chip cookies, and she said to her 2 daughters don't eat these chocolate chip cookies, we're having people over tonight, it's for them, and you'll get some after that, but not now.
And then one of my daughters, as mum went out, looked at them and said, I'm sure mom would want us to at least report back to see if the cookies are any good. And the other one said, no, no, no, no, we shouldn't do that. And the first one said, oh, but I think mom would be so thankful. In fact, you should try them first. And by the time that mom came back in, the one who tried them first had chocolate all over herself. And mom said, didn't you hear what I said? And she said, my sister, whom you have given me, she's the one that led me into sin.
So what's that daughter doing? She's justifying herself. She's saying, yes, I've sinned, but there's a mitigating factor that takes away my sin. Do you see the point that I'm trying to make? And when you and I finally come to terms with the law and we see that our sins are spread out before God and there is nothing that we can say that might justify us, God sent His Son in the world to justify us. Jesus hanging on the cross is the justification for my sin. How do you account for yourself? And I point at the blood-stained cross of Christ, and I said, that accounts for me right there. He is all I need to say about everything that I've done to offend God. That is my justification.
I am not justified by my efforts. I'm justified by Him who bore my penalty for me and attributed to me his righteous record. I stand before God on the final day, and when he says, why should I let you into heaven, you look at Christ and you said, it's not my record, it's his that matters, and you'll be justified before the Father and you'll inherit everything that the Father has for you. I mean, that's the wonder of what's being said here and we need to come to terms with that.
And with that, verse 27 again, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ. Now, I understand that the word baptized here into Christ means that we are plunged into Christ and you know, I talk about being in Christ. Our life is hidden in Christ. We belong to Christ. We have union with Christ. Christ and us are going everywhere together. The word baptized is used here and, you know, in the ancient church, you know, nobody ever came to Christ without being baptized. We, you know, we need to fix that in today's church. And we sometimes have people that go for years and years and then, you know, I kind of like, I, you know, I love Jesus and I'm a Christian, but I'm just not ready for baptism.
And my response is, well, maybe you're not ready for Christ. See, baptism always means I belong to Christ. It's the public symbol that I belong to Jesus and I belong together and I am justified in him. OK, that being put aside, Paul comes to this conclusion. There is neither Jew nor Greek. See this, oh, by the way, this is, see, this is what made the gospel a global phenomenon.
In the time of Paul, there were a group of people, and you've probably heard about them already, and they were called Judaizers and they were running around and they were saying, look, if you're going to be justified by Christ, you need to add to that eating kosher diet and the entire civil law of Israel. Well, if that had been the case, I want you to imagine, now you're those of you who are older will remember an evangelist who was really known globally and his name was Billy Graham.
And when Billy Graham was known for at the end of when he finished preaching, then the choir would begin to sing the song just as I am without one plea, but that my thy blood was shed for me. And then he would tell people, come on, come forward, come and receive Christ as your savior and Lord. Now I want you to imagine if the Judaizers had won. Well, you can't come to Christ unless you've been circumcised, so Billy Graham would have said, come forward and men, circumcisors are standing ready right here. I promise you that line would have been a lot shorter.
See, this is a wonderful thing. It didn't matter whether you were circumcised or uncircumcised. It didn't matter whether you ate kosher or you just love pork sausages, see? And it didn't matter if you were male or female. And in fact, your economic status didn't matter either. Nothing mattered outside of this one fact about you. You had a strong savior and your life was united with him. You were adopted into his family and you became an heir of everything that was his because of his work which he had done on your behalf. You had done nothing to earn or deserve it. He adopted you into his family and you were his.
It's not that, you know, you become an immoral individual. I mean, Paul denies this over and over again in the text. He still demands that we keep the law of God, but we are not justified by the law. We are justified by faith and by faith alone. The law teaches us how to live, but Christ is the one whose life in us makes that possible. And that's the point that's being said here.
You see, this is why the gospel became global. I just got back from Malawi. And I gotta tell you no insult meant, but when those folks sing, you guys haven't even got an idea. And I remember saying to the Lord, man, if I die right here on this soil, I'm happy, you know, this was, and it was a wonderful time, especially of teaching 18 to 25 year olds. I was in the chapel teaching every day at a place called Africa Bible College, excellent Bible college. I was overwhelmed with how well they were doing things.
But I recognized as well how different culturally we are, but we don't demand that Africans become North Americans, nor that North Americans become Africans. We recognize that all that is required are not fixing the cultural distinctions, but all that is required is faith in Christ and in Him alone, and he is our justification. And because of that, there is unity between all believers.
I mean, can you imagine if this was done in the early church? Can you imagine that? I mean, you know, so you, you know, let's say you're Abraham and Sarah, you know, that's your names, I mean, I know there's, and you got your daughter Rachel right there, and you notice there's this gentile guy who's about your daughter's age, and he's eyeing her on the other side of the church and you think, my daughter could marry an uncircumcised Gentile. I don't know how I feel about that in the church.
And then they invite you over to their house, and as you get into their house, you recognize, oh, there's a barn out in the back, and they got a pig hanging there drying. And you're overwhelmed with this and you say, I don't know, we gotta get out of here, but you go inside the house and you've never as a Jew been inside a gentile house before, and then they invite you to supper and then they break the bread and they get the cup out and they said, my brother, my sister, the body of Jesus and the blood of our Lord and Savior, and suddenly all the animosity that the years had, that dividing wall of hostility is broken immediately because we have one justification and one alone.
It's what brings this world together. It's what makes the possibility of a global church here today. It's why in the true Church of Jesus Christ, all racial distinctions are gone, and they are wiped out, and the community of brotherhood and sisterhood is but one thing. Jesus Christ, who is our Lord and Savior. We who have been united with Him have not only individually been united with Him, but the entire family of God is made united with him. And therefore, it's the thing that matters.
You know, that brother or sister that I met in Malawi just this last month, no, it's this month yet, this month, I want to tell you this, I have more in common with that brother or sister than I do with a fellow Canadian who does not know Christ. The reality is there's a community of brotherhood and sisterhood that has been created by this very statement that we find in verse 28.
And then we come to verse 29, which I said that's our theme. If you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring. Oh, you need to think about that. You say, how is that even possible? But if you are doing your devotions regularly, let me suggest something that happens. You read about Abraham and you say, who is he? Well, he's not just the father of the Jewish people, he is my father in the faith. And all the saints that you read about in the Old Testament, they are in line with me as a child of God. How did that even happen?
Well, Paul explains that in Romans 10, doesn't he? We that are the wild branches were grafted into the natural vine, and suddenly we who don't belong, were made a part of this. We are Abraham's offspring. We are the community of God's people. We are the chosen ones. Through faith in Christ, that's who we have become. Paul is trying to help us to understand what all of this means.
And then of course, when we get to chapter 4, we have these wonderful words as you can see them there. I mean that the heir, I mean this, I'm summing up everything that I've been saying. I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, he's again speaking about, you know, Israel's experience before the faith has come, is no different than a slave, though he's the owner of everything. But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father, that's the illustration, in the same way for us believers, we also, when we were children, were enslaved, and notice what Paul says to the elementary principles of this world.
Suddenly he switches something on us, and I wonder if you noticed it. Up till now, he's been speaking to Jews, but now he speaks to Gentiles because the elementary principles of this world would be a phrase that Gentiles would understand in terms of the kinds of philosophies that were abundantly available during that time period. Whether it's the law of God, or whether it's Gentile philosophies that tell you how to live, everybody in some sense is under a law. How many of you know that's true today? Especially in today's cancel culture. There are certain laws that are at work among us, and if you violate these laws—sexual inclusiveness, environmentalism, and others—I'm not saying anything bad or good about them, but these are the laws, and if you don't acquiesce and bow at the right moment, you don't belong.
And so when he talks about the elementary principles of this world, he means all of these laws that make up the various cultures of the world, each one different, and you're enslaved to them. You think that your right standing before God is a result of doing the things that your culture demands of you.
Years ago, I remember being in a dialogue because I was pastoring a church and there was a high school right across the way. I don't remember how it happened, but I ended up in an email dialogue with a grade 12 female student. She was very upset. I think she made the first contact, but I thought I'd keep the conversation going. She was upset because of the sexual morality in the Bible.
"You people are haters," she said.
I responded back and tried to be as gracious as I could. Then she said,
"God wouldn't agree with that."
I said, "I understand that you're 17 years old and still have to mature, sweetheart, so you want to be careful, but are you actually saying that you know the mind of the Infinite One? And on what basis do you know that mind? Could you share that with me?" I tried to be gentle. She just said,
"I just know it."
Her culture had taught her what the elementary principles were, and if she wasn’t doing those principles, she would be forever damned in eternity and not belong. She was enslaved to those laws. Everybody has laws. Everybody does. And that's the uniqueness of the gospel.
But when the fullness of time had come—that great Christmas passage—in God's infinite wisdom, he sent forth his Son. He was born of a virgin. He was born under the law, yes, in keeping with the law of God, and he comes to redeem those who are under the law—Jewish people—so that we might receive adoption as sons. Because even the Jews needed adoption.
And then Paul writes that because you are sons, God has sent his Spirit into your hearts, and you cry, “Abba, Father.” Suddenly, the relationship with God is more than just with the transcendent God who created heaven and earth, whose wisdom is so vast we can't grasp it. None of us will ever get our mental arms around God and say, "That's God." In fact, God will always escape the highest view we ever have of Him. And yet still we call him Father. We call him Papa, Daddy.
Now I'm going to end with this because it's a story of my own dad. I remember I had just finished preaching one Sunday at the church where I was pastoring, and a man came to me and said, "Your dad was named John Neufeld, right?" You see, my dad was First John, I'm Second John, your pastor's Third John. I said, "Yeah, my dad's name was John."
He said, "Was your dad a carpenter?" I said yes. Then he put a couple of things together, and we realized we were talking about the same person. He said, "I'm going to tell you something about your dad. My own father had died and I was basically orphaned in this world. But I found a job and went to work, and your dad was like a second dad to me. He taught me how to live, he taught me how to make wise decisions, he spent time to pray with me, and he mentored me. Your dad’s my dad too."
I didn't know who this man was. And I came to realize that while I was growing up in Dad's house and thought I knew everything about him—surely I did, he's my dad, when he comes home, I run into his arms, he cares for me, he loves me—there was a part of my dad that was far greater than I could comprehend as a child. He had an outreach bigger than the one I knew. He had a life far beyond my ability to grasp.
And so it is with our Heavenly Father, the one we call Daddy. The one who rules the universe, whose wisdom is unsearchable, whose power is unstoppable, whose plans go throughout all eternity. We have hardly begun to grasp what He is about, and yet nonetheless, He, the One who loves us through faith in Christ, not only redeemed us but sent His Spirit into our hearts, which is a foretaste of what we are to receive. We now call the One who created all things Daddy. We are now intimate with Him. Yes, He will always be the one we fear, and yet at the same time, He will be the one we cherish and are intimate with.
This was accomplished. We who didn’t belong have been brought near. We who were condemned by the law have found that Christ, who kept the law, has done it on our behalf, and we are accepted in His presence. That, in a nutshell, is what Paul is explaining to us, and it is something rich that we must treasure.
Heavenly Father, I pray, Lord God, continue to bless this church. Watch over its worship and its life. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would give every single person who calls this church home and who calls Christ Lord and Savior a loving embrace of you. Help them to grow deeply and understand what it is they have become as they have been adopted into the family of God and have become the sons and daughters of the Holy One of Israel.
Heavenly Father, I pray that we would all continue to grow in this knowledge, deepen our ability to understand what has been accomplished on our behalf, and so, Heavenly Father, fit us for that which you have prepared us for, in Jesus' name. Amen.