Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Galatians: A Grace-full Life
The Grace of Adoption (Pt1)
Sermon Series: Galatians: A Grace-full Life
Title: : The Grace of Adoption (Pt1) Text: Galatians 4:1-7
Introduction: There was a billboard on Rt. 85S as you head from Gastonia to Charlotte, NC. All it said was ‘Who’s your Father?’ I was curious, so I did some internet investigation. It seems the billboard is an advertisement for a company that does DNA testing for paternity issues. For those who don’t know who their father is, this company will help them find him.
At first I thought this was a cool idea...but later it made me sad. Are there really that many people in the Charlotte area who don’t know who their father is? So many that a company can pay for the billboard and stay in business?
Being a product of a broken home is hard...but growing up not knowing who your father is...is quite another thing.
There are thousands of children today who don’t know their father. They don’t know what he looks like, they don’t even know his name...let that sink in for a moment.
Every one of these children are growing up, missing part of their identity...as a son or daughter of their father. And it’s sad. But it got me thinking...people who have not embraced Christianity by placing their faith in Jesus as their Savior, are in a similar situation.
· They don’t know, that they can be part of a spiritual family.
· They don’t know, that who they are, can be so much more, if they knew their Heavenly Father.
The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, will speak of this issue and he will say the answer to our need for a Spiritual Father...is adoption.
Background
When God wanted to describe the type of relationship He wanted
to offer us, He used the illustration of adoption. We don’t talk much about adoption but it is a significant doctrine in Scripture.
Perhaps no where is God’s plan for our adoption stated more clearly, than in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:
Read: Ephesians 1:3-6 ‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.’
ILL: In the book In Mommy’s Heart, Dr. Jean Garton writes about a first-grade teacher who was discussing a picture of a family with her class. One of the children in the picture had a different hair color than did the other family members. A little girl in the class said maybe that was because the boy had been adopted. ‘I know all about adoptions,’ she said, ‘because I was adopted.’ A little boy asked her, ‘What does it mean that you’re adopted?’ ‘It means,’ she said, ‘that you grew in your mommy’s heart, instead of her tummy.’ (Mark Magee)
Spiritually speaking, our adoption grew in the heart of God. It’s the result of God’s Grace! But why do we have to be adopted in the first place?
Read: John 8:42ff ‘Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil,
He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.’
Let’s be honest, we don’t like to hear that do we? And we don’t want to believe it. But for our spiritual adoption to have the significance God wants it to have for us, and so that we may see a clear picture of God’s grace, we need to know why we needed to be adopted. OK?
Transition: Open your Bibles to Galatians 4:1 (pg. 888 in the Bibles under the chair in front of you.) For it’s there we’ll find the grace of adoption.
I. Galatians 4:1-3 We were children
Read: Galatians 4:1-3
Paul uses an illustration from his everyday world. Wealthy Roman households had well educated slaves who served as father figures to teach and guide the sons in the house. Paul is using irony here. The son will one day grow up and inherit his fathers possessions, including being the slaves master. But while the son is a child, the slave is master over him. The slave tells the son:
· When to go to bed
· What to eat
· How to dress
· And how to act
So Paul is saying that for the child, there is very little difference between being an infant and being a slave....that is, until the child matures.
There are many points to be considered here but I will briefly address just two.
· First: Only the immature stay under the burden of the Law. Mature Christians are free from the bondage of the Law and are called to lives of grace.
· Second: God has set a time, so that the child will no longer be confined by the restrictions of the Law. That time is the time of grace...the time of Jesus the Savior...not just from sin, but from the shackles of the Law.
These restrictions of the Law, Paul calls ‘the basic principles of the world.’ The Greek word for ‘basic principles’ means inadequate, immature, weak, powerless. Paul was saying the Law = ‘the basic principles of the world’ in that it is inadequate and powerless to make us sons of God. God had a better way planned...and planned is the operative word.
Transition: We were children, but God wanted us to grow up, to mature, to be his sons and daughters, by adoption. Let’s see how He made that possible.
II. Galatians 4:4-5 But God...
Read: Galatians 4:4-5
‘...when the time had fully come.’
I had someone e-mail me and ask why God sent Jesus when He did in time....What made that period in human history, as Paul puts it, ‘...when the time had fully come.’? I figured if one person was bold enough to ask, then perhaps others were thinking the very same thing. I hope my answer will do justice to God’s Word and to your question.
ILL: I suppose that everyone here knows what it’s like to be late. And being late doesn’t seem to bother some people. There are cultures in which being late is the rule of the day. I’ve even heard that Baptists incorporate lateness into their theology: It is said that Baptist believe in
· Justification
· Regeneration
· Sanctification
· And Procrastination
Some have said that the reason God has not revealed the time of Jesus’ return is because some Baptist would be late. (Stephen Boldin)
God, however, has perfect timing. He is never early or late. Sometimes we want God to act a little faster than He does, but His timing is always perfect, it’s always the right time when God acts.
‘...when the time had fully come.’ Isn’t that an amazing statement? Have you ever considered that there was, in fact, a perfect time for Jesus to be born? Does this mean that there was one time in human history where everything was perfectly in place for Jesus to be born? Yes! That’s exactly what Paul is saying. Jesus came at just the right time...and if I can add...He will come again at just the right time.
OK...but what made it the right time? I’m certain that was the heart of the e-mail I received about this text. So for the rest of this message, I want to lay out all that I found to support Paul assertion that Jesus came ‘...when the time had fully come.’
1. Language: It was the first time since Babel that there was a relative universal language ‘Greek’. Most people spoke and read a little Greek and it was the language of the legal and trade systems. It was also the language of the NT and the OT was translated into the Greek. For those in the adult SS class...what is the Greek translation of the OT called? Septuagint.
2. Peace: The ‘Pax Romana’ as it was called, spoke of the peace that existed throughout the known world. When the Romans took over the world there was 1 government...no need for passports...the early disciples were free to travel as they wished...to spread the Gospel.
3. Travel: The Romans build roads that would rival some we have today and they extended throughout the known world. You’ve heard the phrase ‘All roads lead to Rome?’ It’s because one way or another, they did. And many of the roads were protected by Romans soldiers...traveling was safe.
4. Monotheism: The dispersion of the Jews and the vast number of synagogues in most cities provided the vehicle for the spread of the Gospel. And for the concept of ‘One God’ to spread across a pagan world of ‘many gods.’
5. Eager: God has been silent for 400yrs...there were no prophets speaking for God. The godly Jews were intently waiting for God to speak to them once again.
6. Census: Caesar Augustus called for a census that would fulfill an 800yr old prophesy about where Jesus would be born. And it was the census that took Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.
7. Legal Exemption: Everyone had to call Caesar Lord...everyone. Thousands of Jews had been killed for refusing to call Caesar Lord. The Roman government finally gave in and exempted them...and the early Church as well.
8. Philosophy: The Greek philosophers were great at questioning life and existence but gave few answers. This opened up the door for questioning ones religious beliefs and for Christianity to give them the answers they sought.
While I am certain there are more reasons why the time Jesus was born, was the perfect time in history, I hope these 8 answers will help.
Conclusion
As Americans, we are by nature, impatient people. Because we live in an ‘instant’ society:
· TV, Radio, Internet give us the news and weather the instant it happens.
· Microwave ovens make what once took an hour to cook, 10 minutes or less.
· We have instant oatmeal, instant breakfast, even instant drive through meals.
· We have medicines we take once to cure us, where it would have taken many applications before to heal us.
· We have 3rd day, next day and same day shipping on the items we buy and want right away.
· We have digital cameras so that we can see and print our shots without delay.
You get the idea, we are so the product of our ‘instant’ environment. And it has brainwashed us to think that our spiritual lives should be the same way.
· We expect God to answer our prayers right now.
· We expect God to heal our illnesses, right now.
· We expect God to mend our strained relationships, right now.
· We expect God to provide for us right now.
When difficulties exist or when we do not see God moving fast enough, we become impatient and often... we begin to doubt God and His intentions for us.
ILL: Charles Spurgeon once said ‘There are no loose threads in the providence of God...The great clock of the universe keeps perfect time.’
While you may be struggling with that thought in your own life, you must remember that God’s timing is always perfect and right for you...always, even when you can’t understand His delays.
‘...when the time had fully come.’ Is not just speaking of the birth of Jesus. It’s speaking of God’s everyday activity in your life.
He knows your hurts, your fears and your struggles. He knows you are impatient. But He is asking you to trust Him with His timing.
I started off talking about adoption but didn’t get to the relevance to our text this week. I am sorry, there is just so much in this passage we need to grasp. But our adoption as sons and daughters of God is the bottom line.
To understand how it happened, we need to be reminded that God is never late and that His plan to adopt us was right on time.
Because we are adopted by God
· we can call Him daddy
· and can expect to receive the inheritance our Heavenly Father has put aside for us.
How can we be so certain? Because He has given us His Spirit as a deposit of what is to come.
That’s what we’ll look at next Sunday. I hope you’ll be back...and be on time.