Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Galatians: A Grace-full Life

The Grace of Adoption (Pt2)

Sermon Series: Galatians: A Grace-full Life

Title: : The Grace of Adoption (Pt2) Text: Galatians 4:1-7

Introduction: Christmas is just 286 days away...and is one of the two times a year that many people think about Jesus...what’s the other time? Right, Easter, just 21 days away. But I wonder if in the midst of the garland, bows and extravagantly decorated homes, people understand the significance of the Christmas story.

As they sit comfortably in front of their Martha Stewart Christmas tree, they listen to ‘O Holy Night’ and ‘Away in a Manger.’ In their minds eye, the image they see is of the baby Jesus wrapped in an oversized diaper lying in manger in that stable in Bethlehem with shepherds and wise men there adoring the newborn baby.  (OK, I know the wise men weren’t there but that’s another message.)

My question is...does the average person at Christmas truly grasp the significance of that event? Let me sharpen the focus on the Christmas image a bit.

Read: Matthew 1:18-23

Do we understand the significance of that event?

·       Jesus is ‘God with us.’

·       He is God-in-the-flesh!

A few years ago there was a song on the radio that asked the question: ‘What if God were one of us?’ Here are some of the words:

What if God was one of us,

just a slob like one of us.
Just a stranger on the bus,

trying to make his way home.

If God had a face what would it look like.
And would you want to see. If seeing

meant that you would have to believe,

in things like heaven and in Jesus

and the saints and all the prophets.

What if God was one of us,

just a slob like one of us.
Just a stranger on the bus,

trying to make his way home.

I believe the song was done by Joan Osborn and her question isn’t bad. She just didn’t understand the significance of the Christmas event. Because her question was answered in that stable in Bethlehem.

God did become one of us! In the person of Jesus Christ, God Almighty left the throne of Heaven, wrapped himself up in skin and bones and became a human being!  Immanuel....God with us!

And here’s the best part...because He loves us.

Read: 1 John 3:1a ‘How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!’

This week and next we will be looking at Galatians 4:4-7...It’s a clear and concise description of what God the Father has done for us...His adopted children, whom He loves dearly.

Transition: Open your Bibles to Galatians 4:4 (pg 888 in the Bibles under the chair in front of you.) For it’s there we will continue to examine the grace of adoption.

II. Galatians 4:4-7      But God...

Read: Galatians 4:4-5

I will be examining one phrase at a time.

    ‘When the fullness of time had come’

Last week we looked at 8 reasons why Jesus was born at the right time in history. This morning we will continue to examine God’s work in history to make us His adopted children.

    ‘God sent His Son’

Think about this...The world God created and the people made in His image, were moving further and further away from Him with countless distractions, never ending busyness, and sin without repentance. But God stepped in, He intervened. How?  

God sent Himself, the Second person of the Trinity...I know that’s hard to understand...but Jesus the man, was God.

Read: Colossians 1:15, 19 ‘He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, ...For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.’

The signifance of Christimas is not just the baby in the manger...it’s who the baby in the manger was...Almighty God, Himself. And He was there on purpose...and for a purpose.

Read: 1 Jn 4:9-10  ‘This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.’

Read: 1 Jn. 4:14 ‘And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of

the world.’

·       Jesus was here....on purpose: God sent Him.

·       Jesus was here ...for a purpose: To save us from our sin.

‘God sent His son.’ Jesus’ birth was predetermined, planned by God from before the foundation of the world.......to save YOU, so He could adopt YOU as His child.

Do you know what that means? You are not an afterthought. You were in God’s mind and heart from the foundation of the world...let that sink in for a moment. You are loved by God in ways that you will never comprehend this side of heaven.

Transition: ‘God sent His Son.’  Paul continues by telling us how.

    ‘Born of a woman’

When we hear that we naturally think of Mary and the virgin birth and to some extent that’s right. There was a miracle involved in Jesus’ birth...

Mary gave birth by the Holy Spirit, without Joseph’s help. But I don’t think that’s Paul’s point here.

Jesus entered the world just like everyone else, through the womb of a woman. Paul’s main idea here is that Jesus was human.

By becoming a man, Jesus identified with humanity. He came to live among us... as one of us. There is nothing about the human condition that He hasn’t personally experienced.

Read: Hebrews 4:14-16 ‘Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.’

He was God who had come to live among us. But He came to us in the vulnerable human condition.

·       If He was tempted, He felt the pull.

·       If He was cut, He bled.

·       If He was hit, He bruised.

·       If He fell, He got hurt.

·       If He was sad, He cried.

Because Jesus was  ‘born of a woman’, because He was like us, we know he understands us..

Transition: Jesus was not only ‘Born of a woman’ so that He could identify with our humanity, He was ‘Born under the law’ so that He could identify with our struggle.

    ‘Born under law’

Imagine how you would feel if you moved out of your parents home only to move back in and live by their rules. Well, Jesus did something like that. The Law in our text, is the Law of Moses, and it enslaved humanity.

Everyone is born under the law, just like, everyone is born of a woman. Jesus too. What does being ‘born under the Law’ mean?

Read: Romans 3:10-20

Jesus was born under the requirements of the Law so that He could identify with our struggle to keep it and our consistent propensity to break it.

Read: Galatians 3:10

He understood that we are heading for an eternity apart from God in Hell...yes, everlasting fire, pain and torment, I believe that...so did Jesus, that’s

why He came, that’s whay He lived as a human.

Jesus was born under the Law, to fulfill the Law, to do that which we are unable to do...keep the requirements of the Law...perfectly.

Transition: Why? Why did He do that?

   ‘To redeem those under the law’

The law has many demands.

·       Don’t eat that.

·       Don’t covet/desire your neighbor’s wife

·       Don’t covet/desire your neighbor’s house.

·       Don’t hate.

·       Don’t lust.

And if you do - you deserve to die and go to hell. That’s what the law had done to the Israelites,

·       it beat them down and enslaved them

·       it kept them captive to their own sins.

But God intervened because it was the perfect time for a change! ‘In the fullness of time, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law...to redeem those under the law.’  That means Jesus bought us back from our slavery to the law.

If I can elaborate on what Jesus would say to us, it would go something like this:

·       I’ll follow every part of the Law for you.

·       And, because you have failed to keep the Law, I’ll take your  punishment.

·       I’ll do that for you because I love you.

·       In that way God’s justice and holiness are kept intact...the law gets kept and payment is made for your failure to keep the requirements of the Law.

Here it is....

·       Through Jesus, we are able to live in our Heavenly Fathers house, without relying on keeping the rules to stay there.

·       Instead, we rely on the grace of God’s adoption of us as His children,

·       By faith in Jesus’ death on the cross to redeem or remove us from the burden of the Law....make sense?

Conclusion

As I see it, we have one of two choices:

·       Either we can choose to live our lives in our own strength and ability, taking our chances that we can live good enough to earn our way to heaven.

·       Or we can accept God’s offer of salvation by faith, by believing in the finished work of His Son, Jesus Christ.

The problem is, Scripture teaches that unless our good life is perfect, we have no hope of going to heaven. If we keep the law and stumble on only one point, we become lawbreakers....and if we’re honest, we know we have broken more than one of God’s Laws. So we stand guilty and condemned before God.

But, by God’s grace, Jesus was ‘born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law,’ He can stand before God in our place and we won’t be condemned. But for this to mean anything the ‘we’ here  needs to be replaced with a ‘me’.

Say YES to Jesus’ offer, admit your sin to Him,  ask for His forgiveness,  and ask Him to make you His child....and He will do it!

Read: John 6:37 ‘All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.’

I promise next Christmas, when you’re sitting comfortably in front of your Martha Stewart Christmas tree listening to ‘O Holy Night’ and ‘Away in a Manger’ you’ll see the image of the baby in the manger, it a completely new light...the light of God’s grace.