Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] When we decided to adopt two of our sons from Ethiopia, the very first thing that we did, I remember filling out the paperwork, signing my name, and then going directly to a sporting goods store and buying them Atlanta Braves hats that we immediately sent to the orphanage in Ethiopia.
[00:00:28] And you'll see a picture of those hats. And there's Isaac and there's Jonah in an orphanage in Ethiopia.
[00:00:34] But you also see in this picture a photo album to the right. And in that picture, there on that photo album is a picture of Danae and I.
[00:00:44] We sent along with these two hats a photo album of our family, where we live, things that we did, their soon to be siblings.
[00:00:54] And for nearly a year, the orphanage workers, the women in the orphanage, would take out this photo album and show them these pictures of their family to be of their mom and their dad and their siblings and even the house in which we lived. And they would walk them through this photo album.
[00:01:17] They were preparing them for the time we would arrive and bring them home.
[00:01:24] Which is a moment I will never forget. It is one of the greatest moments of my life. When we pulled up to this orphanage and I got out of this car and we walked in the front door and you had to go up steps, and the top of the building is where all of the kids were.
[00:01:45] I'll never forget walking up those steps, I couldn't see anything.
[00:01:51] But the orphanage workers, the ladies who had been preparing them for this moment, sent them down the steps to meet us, saying to them, ababa and Mama are here.
[00:02:05] And I couldn't see anything.
[00:02:07] I'm walking up the steps and I go to turn to where I hear the noise.
[00:02:12] And my son Isaac reached down and wrapped his arms around my neck and. And started screaming, ababa. Ababa, which is the Ethiopian word for dad.
[00:02:27] It's one of the greatest moments of my life. And I'll never forget trying to figure out how did he know who I was.
[00:02:35] Obviously, we knew who he was. We had pictures and we had updates. And it was because of that photo album.
[00:02:45] It was because of the ladies there preparing him, preparing them for that moment.
[00:02:52] And in that moment, it made all the sense in the world, all the anticipation to reach out for his father.
[00:03:02] It was a natural reaction for him.
[00:03:06] Paul is arguing in Galatians that the law is this orphanage worker.
[00:03:15] The law is preparing us to reach out to our Father in Christ, God, who becomes our Father in Christ.
[00:03:26] The law, as we talked about two weeks ago in Galatians, prepares us by revealing our sin.
[00:03:36] God's law that has been disclosed to us in the Ten Commandments that tells us there is a right and wrong in the universe, calls us to live according to God's standard, which we see is perfection.
[00:03:51] God is holy. God is righteous. To be like him, you have to be holy and you have to be righteous.
[00:03:57] But we can't.
[00:03:59] And so the purpose of the law was to say you can't.
[00:04:04] Jesus has.
[00:04:07] Jesus is perfect.
[00:04:11] Jesus is righteous. What you couldn't do, Jesus has done. It was this teacher, this worker that was preparing us to trust in Christ, but not just trust in Christ to reach out to God as our Father. We see beginning in verse one, before Christ, we were slaves, we were sinners, we were estranged from God. Notice verse one.
[00:04:39] I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is owner over everything.
[00:04:48] Remember, God's promise comes to us in Christ.
[00:04:52] The promise he made in Genesis 3, the promises he made to Abraham, that life and blessing will come into the world through Abraham.
[00:05:02] All of those promises are given to Jesus.
[00:05:05] All of those promises are ultimately fulfilled in Jesus. And we get those promises by believing in Him.
[00:05:13] Well, he says here specifically to the Jew, you received this promise firsthand.
[00:05:20] But even though you were an heir to the promise until the promise came, you were no different than a slave.
[00:05:29] And we see this is what the law was proving to us, that we were slaves to sin. Even though the promise in the Old Testament was coming, before the promise comes, there is still an estrangement from God. You just have the promise out there that one day you're going to have everything. But your status in the home is the same as a slave. You have no rights to the promise until verse two.
[00:05:58] But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the Father.
[00:06:05] What Paul is saying here is until the promise came, you were apart from God. Even if you were a Jew and you had the law and you had the promises and you had these great traditions, who you were, even according to the flesh, pointed to what God was going to do one day in the promise.
[00:06:24] But your status in the home was no different from the Gentile because you could not inherit the things of God. Until Jesus came, you had the same status even though you were a child.
[00:06:37] When it comes to status, you had the same as a slave. Notice until the date set by the Father.
[00:06:45] These verses point to the fact that it is God who does all of this.
[00:06:51] It is the Father's grace.
[00:06:53] You can't change your status. It is God's goodness that must change your status in the home. No matter who you are, Jew or Gentile. Look at verse three.
[00:07:06] In the same way. We also pointing to the Jews, Paul, who is a Jew, when we were children, ethnic Jews, we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world, as we've said. Paul is saying all we had was the law, the abcs of spirituality, meaning there's a right and a wrong, the most basic things that we know. When it comes to God's law, there's right and there's wrong. You had the law. That's all you had. But he uses this term, elementary principles to bring in the Gentiles in the church.
[00:07:43] Remember, they're struggling. Do we fit in God's family? We know the Jews are religious by nature. It's who they are. They have this great heritage. But we're Gentiles and we're going to see next week. All we have is this pagan idolatry. That's what we were a part of. And Paul's going to talk about those things being base or elementary principles of the world.
[00:08:09] The point he's making here is he loops everybody in and he's saying, whether you are a Jew or a Gentile, you had no rights to the promise until God decided to give the promise.
[00:08:21] You couldn't claim, according to your ethnicity, that you deserved the promise.
[00:08:29] And if you're a Gentile, you're apart from God, you're enslaved to the elementary bondage principles, idolatry of the world. You couldn't claim the promise.
[00:08:42] The point being made here is we get the promise by God's grace until the date set by the Father, until the date the Father decides to give us the inheritance. That's good news for us.
[00:08:56] You may be religious here today and you think about your life before God and just something you always did, you always went to church, you were born and raised in all of this. It was similar to being a Cats fan. It's just what you did from the moment of birth until now. And now you're really excited, right?
[00:09:20] Couple of weeks, we'll see.
[00:09:24] But it's just a part of who you are, your religion, going to church every Sunday, you don't know anything different.
[00:09:33] Or maybe you're here today and your life is marked by rebellion.
[00:09:39] All of this Christianity thing, this church thing, you're just trying to figure it out.
[00:09:47] You know, you got friends who are Christians, they invite you to church with them.
[00:09:53] You come in here and we're singing these songs and we're putting people in a cattle trough.
[00:10:00] What in the world is going on none of this makes sense to me.
[00:10:03] I got good news for you.
[00:10:06] You don't get the promise because you were born and raised around church.
[00:10:11] No, you get the promise because the Father is gracious and decides to give it to you.
[00:10:16] Until the date set by the Father. And until then we are no different.
[00:10:22] We are guilty sinners. Whether we are religious or rebellious, Jew or Gentile, we are enslaved to the law. We are estranged from God until the Father showers His grace upon us in the gospel which we see next.
[00:10:40] We see we are slaves apart from Christ.
[00:10:44] But then we see the promise is secured by Christ.
[00:10:49] We see in this next section that we become sons of God by Christ. He secures our sonship. Notice verse 4.
[00:10:59] But when the fullness of time had come.
[00:11:03] So we're all apart from God.
[00:11:06] When we're apart from Jesus, we have no rights to God. His blessings, his goodness, the privilege of being called children of God. We don't have that. We are orphans. We are slaves.
[00:11:20] But when the fullness of time had come, until the date set by the Father.
[00:11:28] And then verse four. But when the fullness of time had come. The picture here is that human history was pregnant, ready to give birth to God's plan and promise in Jesus.
[00:11:42] The law had adequately prepared us, showing our sin and helplessness apart from God's grace.
[00:11:54] Human history was ready to bring forth the Son through the Father's plan.
[00:12:01] When the fullness of time had come. God had sovereignly orchestrated human history to give birth to the promise that he was waiting to give to us.
[00:12:15] From Genesis forward, we read of this glorious promise.
[00:12:22] It's behind the scenes. We don't see it as clearly as we want to, but it's there.
[00:12:28] And behind the curtain. The Father is waiting for the day to give us the promise.
[00:12:36] I can't wait for you to have the promise.
[00:12:41] I can't wait for you to see the promise.
[00:12:46] There was a peasant girl and a carpenter in the line of David who were sorting out wedding plans.
[00:12:57] The Romans were ruling.
[00:13:00] The Jews were influential.
[00:13:05] There was a man named Judas being born.
[00:13:11] Everything was ready to send forth the promise.
[00:13:16] Even culture.
[00:13:19] The Romans had prepared the world for a time in which the gospel would move forward.
[00:13:27] There was language, there was trade.
[00:13:32] All of those things seem to make sense. But ultimately it was the date. The Father decided the time. The Father decided to send forth the promise.
[00:13:45] And notice how he sends it.
[00:13:48] The verse continues.
[00:13:50] God sent forth His Son.
[00:13:55] It's not in abstract promise.
[00:14:01] It's not just some mystical force that comes into the world.
[00:14:06] Notice the words God sent forth his Son.
[00:14:11] Again, he initiates all of this, the plan, the promise. It's his. And he decides to give it. And it comes forth in his Son.
[00:14:20] Now, the phrase here implies rescue.
[00:14:24] We were enslaved in bondage, condemned to judgment because of the law. But here, God sends forth His Son to rescue us.
[00:14:35] And this word sent forth means that the Son was sent forth from God.
[00:14:42] The Son had always been with God the Father.
[00:14:47] In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.
[00:14:53] Throughout eternity, the Father and Son were perfectly content. They loved one another.
[00:15:00] The joy of the Spirit was there.
[00:15:03] And in this moment, the Father sends forth the Son to rescue us into time, space, history, at his determined date.
[00:15:16] Notice, the Son comes forth, born of woman.
[00:15:20] We see here the miracle of the virgin birth.
[00:15:23] Spirit overwhelms the womb of Mary.
[00:15:26] The sin nature that every man had known until that moment moves over what goes on in her womb so that 100% God, the Son, would take on flesh and become 100% man.
[00:15:48] Notice. Next, born under the law, was born as a man, comes into the world as a man.
[00:15:56] Eternal Son becomes flesh and blood man. But notice, under the law, the law that condemned you, he is born under meaning. He takes on the requirements of the law.
[00:16:10] The demands of the law were placed upon him as a human, as a Jew.
[00:16:16] Every aspect of God's law was placed upon Jesus.
[00:16:21] And God demanded that he live a perfect life. Under the law, the Law, you couldn't live.
[00:16:30] God sends forth His Son to live in your place.
[00:16:34] And notice the purpose, verse 5.
[00:16:39] To redeem those under the law.
[00:16:44] It wasn't as though God were saying, you can't do it. I can.
[00:16:49] Look.
[00:16:52] No, he was doing it for you. Because you can't.
[00:16:56] Here's the Son living a perfect life in your place. To redeem.
[00:17:01] The word redeem means to purchase back.
[00:17:05] And it's the image of buying a slave from their debt.
[00:17:11] You often worked for folks because you owed them a debt. You'd go to work for them to pay off the debt.
[00:17:18] Here the Son lives under the law.
[00:17:21] The debt that you inquired by the law that had condemned you.
[00:17:27] He lives under the law to purchase you back to pay your debt. The debt of a perfect life that the law demanded that you couldn't live.
[00:17:36] You see, the law demands perfection. And because we can't be perfect, the Law condemns us.
[00:17:43] And that debt hung over your head.
[00:17:48] Perfection.
[00:17:49] You lack it.
[00:17:52] So then you are condemned.
[00:17:54] The law demanded something. You could not pay it.
[00:18:00] Jesus takes on flesh as a Man and says, I will pay it for you, to redeem you, to purchase you back from the sin and judgment that you had earned yourself.
[00:18:13] You see, up until this point, the law was a master that had gone out and captured you and put you in prison and you were helpless to get out. You could do nothing about it.
[00:18:26] And that was God's design because he was going to send forth the Son to pay the price, to bail you out in this moment in time, taking on flesh under the law. This is exactly what Jesus does.
[00:18:41] But notice why he does it. This is glorious.
[00:18:45] He does it to free you from sin.
[00:18:49] So that in him, through faith in him, you might be declared forgiven and righteous.
[00:18:56] But there's more.
[00:18:58] We often stop there.
[00:19:01] We often stop.
[00:19:03] I am forgiven and I am righteous in Christ. I have peace with God. And that is glorious.
[00:19:08] We can't get to this part without that.
[00:19:12] But notice the benefit of being justified by faith in Christ, declared righteous in Christ. Notice, benefit. Notice the purpose of God here so that we might receive adoption as sons. That's why that is the purpose. So that you might have the right and blessing to call yourself a son of God through adoption. Once again, we see our standing before God doesn't come through DNA or flesh.
[00:19:49] It comes through adoption.
[00:19:53] This legal declaration that one who was once an orphan is now a child in the home with every right and every privilege of any other child in the home.
[00:20:06] And God is saying, this is the way Jew or Gentile or any human inherits his blessing, becomes a part of his family, is through adoption.
[00:20:18] Now why does he say as sons?
[00:20:22] This is just our.
[00:20:25] Why not daughters?
[00:20:28] Why not make it children?
[00:20:32] The Bible does call us children of God.
[00:20:35] Why sons? It's very important.
[00:20:40] The firstborn son got the inheritance.
[00:20:44] Jesus is the firstborn son who gets the inheritance, who gets all the promises.
[00:20:50] And in him we become sons, we get his inheritance. We have the status of firstborn son in Christ.
[00:21:00] That is the privilege. We get all of God's promises in Christ in the Son. We are sons. That's our status.
[00:21:08] Male, female.
[00:21:10] Our status is firstborn son.
[00:21:15] What this means is in Him, God did not adopt you to just be second class children. No, your firstborn sons in the Son, meaning you get everything Jesus gets.
[00:21:31] Meaning you have the same status before God that Jesus does in his righteousness and his cross. And you have everything, even the love and affection of the Father that he has. You get it all in Christ.
[00:21:45] Children of God who have the status of sons.
[00:21:49] I just want to take a moment and review our definition of the gospel as we go through Galatians, because we're seeing it unfold here. We're seeing an important point in that definition. Remember, the Gospel is the announcement that Jesus has sufficiently fulfilled all of God's demands through his perfect sacrifice and sacrificial death under God's wrath for our sin, so that through faith in him, we might be united to him by the Spirit, declared righteous, freed from condemnation, and accepted by his Father, the same way he is welcomed and loved by the Father to inherit the promise of eternal life.
[00:22:32] All of this comes through faith in Christ, but it culminates in adoption.
[00:22:38] This is why JI Packer is known for saying adoption is the highest privilege of the gospel. And he would say this even higher than justification. That doesn't mean justification isn't important. Justification is at the heart, to be declared by faith in Christ, righteous and forgiven.
[00:22:57] That's at the heart.
[00:22:59] That's the truth. That's a reality for those who believe in Jesus. But the privilege you get through that, the blessing you get through that is now you have been adopted, and you as sons can call God your father.
[00:23:13] Adoption is based on God's goodness and grace to us. We see that in the passage, how did this happen in my life?
[00:23:21] Well, you were an orphan.
[00:23:24] You had no home.
[00:23:27] The Bible even says because of your sin, Satan was your father.
[00:23:32] That's who you were.
[00:23:34] You were a slave to sin and you could do nothing about your status. No, God sent his son into the world to change your status.
[00:23:43] It's his grace and his mercy that you've been rescued in Christ.
[00:23:48] This is all his plan. These are all his purposes, and it's based on justification.
[00:23:56] God has taken us to the courtroom and as judge, God has looked upon his son and your faith in his son and said, not guilty.
[00:24:07] But he doesn't leave us there.
[00:24:09] He brings us home from the courthouse and takes us to the dinner table and takes us to the family room.
[00:24:18] And he says, because what happened at the courthouse is real and it's fact. And I said it. I said that you're a son in the son now. You get to delight in all of the goodness of this family in which I'm a father and Jesus is now your brother.
[00:24:39] And look around all these other spiritual orphans who didn't have a home, they are your family.
[00:24:46] This is the beauty of adoption, and it's the truth of the gospel.
[00:24:50] The gospel culminates where these rites where we are called children of God. And I want to tell you today it is an irrevocable Reality in your life. If you believed in Jesus, irrevocable meaning can't change. When you believe in Jesus, you are declared justified in Jesus. God said it. It's not you saying it's not me saying it.
[00:25:13] God says you are righteous and forgiven.
[00:25:18] This is a statement that he's making about you. And if you're in Christ, adoption is a reality that doesn't change in Christ.
[00:25:27] It's true. It's real.
[00:25:31] Adoption doesn't make you fake kids of God.
[00:25:37] If you tell me, you come up to my kids and you can tell there's six of them, some of them look different.
[00:25:44] And you say, are all these yours?
[00:25:47] I will say yes.
[00:25:50] And then if you begin a conversation with me where you slip up, I will show you grace and mercy. But in my heart, I'm very angry.
[00:25:59] And you say, well, what about your real kids?
[00:26:05] Why do we do that?
[00:26:07] We don't think adoption is real.
[00:26:12] We believe it's flesh and blood that makes us children. It's not. It's God. Even this statement here is a greater reality from the word of God that you are forgiven and that you are sons than even flesh DNA.
[00:26:29] God says you are real kids.
[00:26:33] God is not debating if you are a child of God.
[00:26:37] He's not. He's already said it.
[00:26:41] The Father, Son and Holy Spirit have gone at great pains to make you a child of God.
[00:26:48] The Father has decided to set his love upon you. The Son died for you. The Spirit is wrapping you into the love of the Father and the Son. And the Spirit is begging you to see the this is true. This is real. Believe it. It's a reality.
[00:27:05] First John, chapter three, verse one. See what kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God.
[00:27:13] God has loved us in calling us children of God. And I love what the apostle John does next because he knows, okay, that's truth. That's a reality. Yeah, we're going to check the box. He goes even further, that you should be called children of God. And so we are reality. It's true. It's real. It's not just something God said to say it. No. He's made it real through his son. I want to ask you today, how do you perceive yourself before God? Do you believe this promise? Do you believe this reality that you have been adopted in Christ?
[00:27:52] Or do you live before God as an orphan still searching for a home?
[00:27:57] Or do you live before God as a slave still working for acceptance? How do you right now, in flesh and blood, in these seats, in this Moment as you think about God and you think about the reality of his existence and you think about his presence in this room, how do you, in this moment think of yourself before Him?
[00:28:23] How do you see yourself right now before God?
[00:28:27] As an orphan man, I wish you would give me a home, a slave. I wish you would be happy with me.
[00:28:36] Or as a child of God who has a father.
[00:28:40] I'll never forget when we met a man from Ethiopia whose spoke Amharic, which was the language of our two sons.
[00:28:51] We were talking to him and he looked at Jonah, who was 2, and Dene and I encouraged this man to talk to him in his native language.
[00:29:05] We wanted to see if he remembered any words.
[00:29:08] And the man got down in his face and started talking.
[00:29:12] And there was some anxiety there with us. We were like, what is he going to say back?
[00:29:18] Is he going to remember this language? Is he going to start rattling off this language?
[00:29:24] And he just looked at the man in the eyes and said, my name's Jonah.
[00:29:32] In five months he had forgotten his former life and the language. Now he tells a lot of crazy stories he doesn't know.
[00:29:40] He don't remember anything.
[00:29:44] He had forgotten within five months about where he was from.
[00:29:51] I wonder if you have or do you still live in your former life as a slave and an orphan or now. It is natural for you to live before God is your father. He says it's true, it's real, it's a reality. Here you can live before God, wanted and welcomed. It's okay. God says it's okay. He says that's real, that's a reality for you.
[00:30:21] Have you forgotten when God was this far and distant concept in your mind and you didn't understand it all, where church and this stuff was just religion and distant spirituality? Have you forgotten that time?
[00:30:37] That's good and that's right, because now you have a father that you are to live before that you see your life before you are welcomed and notice to drive the point home, what God does in verse 6, the Son secures our status, but then the Spirit confirms our status. Notice. And because you are sons, because you have the right status, privilege in Jesus, God has sent the spirit of His Son into your hearts.
[00:31:18] He sends the Son into the world to secure your sonship and adoption.
[00:31:25] And then he sends the Spirit into your heart, into your life.
[00:31:30] We have the objective reality that we are sons of God in the gospel. And then we have the subjective experience of the Spirit, that we are sons of God, that we are children of God, that we have this Status.
[00:31:46] When you believe the gospel, this is a supernatural work that happens in your heart.
[00:31:51] The very spirit of God comes to live within you.
[00:31:55] The spirit that rested upon Christ at his baptism.
[00:32:01] When the Father says, behold, this is my son in whom I am well pleased has come to rest upon your life in your heart.
[00:32:14] And he's saying something to you.
[00:32:18] He's declaring a truth to you.
[00:32:22] If you the words of God aren't enough, then here is an experience, a witness of the spirit. Notice crying.
[00:32:36] This is a loud, intense scream.
[00:32:42] Some people have talked about this in being some kind of coo dada. That's not what's going on here.
[00:32:48] This is a scream for help to the Father.
[00:32:54] Before you didn't have a father to call out to.
[00:32:58] Now you do and you cry out abba Father. Now what's important here is that Paul uses the Aramaic term.
[00:33:11] He does in Romans and he does here in Galatians.
[00:33:15] He doesn't translate it to Greek.
[00:33:19] Mark does the same thing. Three places in the New Testament this word is used Mark does. So when Jesus is in the garden praying to the Father and he screams out, father, take this cup from me.
[00:33:42] Not my will, but your will.
[00:33:46] Paul uses the word very carefully to drive something home in our hearts. Here you have the right and privilege to cry out to God as your Father in the same way Jesus does.
[00:34:04] You call him Father. The same term Jesus used for Father. Abba, Father, this is your right as a son in the sun.
[00:34:17] You've got to understand this.
[00:34:19] This is the sermon may be long today. Sorry, we got fall fest tonight. We'll have fun, relax there. But let's do some. Let's do some work here.
[00:34:32] That subjective response, abba, Father is based on an objective truth of what God has done for you in the gospel. What we want. When we think about the Spirit, we think, I need a feeling.
[00:34:47] I need a mystical experience.
[00:34:50] And we talk about things that are undefined. The move of the Spirit and all the Spirit's work in your life is to say, look to your father.
[00:35:03] Call out to your father, you're in need. The Spirit comes in and says abba. Even when you can't, Paul says, the spirit groans within you.
[00:35:14] What is the Spirit groaning for your Father? It's not just some undefined ecstatic behavior. No, the behavior of a Christian essential to their life by the power of the Spirit is to say, based upon what Jesus has done, God is my father.
[00:35:33] Help me, Father.
[00:35:39] That's what it means to walk in the Spirit.
[00:35:41] That's what it means to worship. In spirit and truth.
[00:35:45] That's why you must be in the Word of God. It is an objective reality. The Gospel is true. The Spirit, by the way, the Spirit wrote the Bible, the Spirit wrote the Bible to say to you, this is objective. Your relationship with God as father is objective.
[00:36:04] And so you're in the Word and you're having this word prayer conversation with God at all times. The Spirit says, it's true. Look to the word of God. It's true. You are a son in the Son. The Spirit is saying, look to the Word of God. I wrote the Word of God. Look at that word right there. Abba, abba. That's the Spirit is saying to you, look at it and say it.
[00:36:29] God is your father.
[00:36:34] It's true, it's objective.
[00:36:38] And that objective reality is to stir up in your heart.
[00:36:42] Help me, help me, Father, help me.
[00:36:48] I need your help.
[00:36:52] Just like Jesus. Take this cup from me, Abba. Father, I need your help. And I want to invite you this week based on the word of God.
[00:37:05] Permission from the Spirit to. To start praying and saying, father, it's fine to pray to Jesus at times, to talk with Jesus, to call on the Spirit.
[00:37:24] When you're talking to God as your Father, use the word Father.
[00:37:29] It's important to remind yourself it's the work of the Spirit in your heart. It's the way Jesus taught us to pray. Our Father in Heaven. My Father's your Father now. Talk to him. Say, father, when you are struggling, suffering, understand it's not judgment. You have a good Father. Cry out to him, father, I trust you. I trust you, Father. Take this cup from me. If you don't, I trust you. When you're enjoying God's goodness, look to the Father and say, thank you, Father.
[00:38:02] Tennessee beat Alabama yesterday.
[00:38:04] First thing I said was, thank you, Father.
[00:38:12] But when you enjoy God's goodness, you should turn to your Father and say thank you. The same way your kids turn to you and say thank you.
[00:38:20] And when they need your help, dad, I need your help.
[00:38:30] And notice what the Spirit does here in verse 7.
[00:38:33] This objective truth that you are a son just is driven home again by the Spirit. Remember, the Spirit's writing these words so you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God.
[00:38:48] So you're not a slave. Don't act like a slave. That's what the Spirit's saying to you. Don't act like a slave.
[00:38:55] You're a son.
[00:38:56] And if you're a son in the Son, then an heir through God. Now, I think the word through here is not interpreted correctly.
[00:39:08] You can actually interpret this, translate it. An heir of God.
[00:39:14] We see that in this passage in Romans, and I think it fits with the context. He's saying, if you're a son, you're an heir. You're going to get the kingdom of Christ. But notice the focal point of the inheritance. You get an heir of God, you get God.
[00:39:34] That's what you get in the gospel is God. We get eternal life, and it's a kingdom that's going to come and make all things new and there will be glorious blessings there. But what is the culmination of the promise that we get God forever and we live in his presence forever? And. And he's saying, this is the culmination of the gospel. You're justified, you're adopted. The Spirit is saying, please believe this. And at the end of the day, you get God forever. Not generic God, not abstract God as we see in context. God is your father. And this goes all the way back to the promises to Abraham. We think about land, seed, blessing, the physical promises which are there.
[00:40:15] But remember the things that God would say to Abraham as he's making these promises.
[00:40:20] I will be your God.
[00:40:23] I will be with you.
[00:40:25] I will be your shield. I will be your reward.
[00:40:30] At the heart of all of those promises is God is going to be with us. And not with us generically, but as Father.
[00:40:39] You see, the promise of the gospel is you do get the kingdom of Christ. That defeats sin and death. But the ultimate reward that you get in the kingdom is God is your father. Father, for some of us in the room, that causes our hearts to soar because we had a really bad dad.
[00:41:00] And you know what it's like to long for a father, to have good affection for you and to take care that that makes sense to you in the gospel.
[00:41:14] And even if it doesn't make sense, even if that skews your view of fatherhood, God as your father is the most glorious privilege you could ever think of or imagine. And all of the experiences, good or bad, in this life here are redeemed in the fact that God will be your Father forever.
[00:41:34] And what Paul is getting at here is that the Spirit has replaced the law in our relationship with God. That's going to be important as we finish Galatians.
[00:41:46] The Spirit replaces the law in our relationship with God. Doesn't make the law irrelevant. The Spirit's going to help us obey the law.
[00:41:55] But now we don't relate to God as orphans or slaves, but sons that's why we have the spirit.
[00:42:03] Instead of working like a slave, we call out like a son the same way Jesus does.
[00:42:10] This is how we relate to the Father.
[00:42:15] So this week, when you're betrayed, people don't come through for you.
[00:42:22] You look to the Father.
[00:42:24] Thank you, Father, for always being faithful and always doing everything that you say you will do.
[00:42:32] This week, when you're tempted to turn away from the Father towards sin, look to the Father. Father, what you offer. Fellowship with you is better than the phone, than distractions, than anything else.
[00:42:47] When you're depressed, when you doubt his love. This week, Father, he's your father. You have permission to do it.
[00:42:54] I believe what your word says. But help my unbelief.
[00:43:00] When you sin this week and you feel like an orphan and you feel like a slave, turn to your Father, who sent the Son to die for that sin. He will forgive you based upon the cross.
[00:43:17] Father, help me do what is good and right.
[00:43:20] One of the things that I'm learning as a father in this stage of our life, we are in empty nest season. After six kids.
[00:43:30] It's, it's. It's quite different in our home these days.
[00:43:37] We.
[00:43:38] We miss the full house, the sounds.
[00:43:46] One of the things I miss the most, though, and I delight in still, is when my kids ask for help, When their name comes up on the phone, it's not, oh, gosh, what does Jonah want now?
[00:44:11] Jonah's the only one that calls me. Moses dying.
[00:44:16] And this week he calls me and says, dad, there is smoke coming out of my engine of my car. And I said, yes, I got in the car, and here we go.
[00:44:32] I love that. Delight in that.
[00:44:36] The Father delights in it, too.
[00:44:40] When you need help, he's begging, you call out. He delights in it.
[00:44:47] You see, on that day, if I had entered that orphanage and my son hugged me, Ababa, and then turned and went back up the stairs and said, but I want to stay here.
[00:44:59] But it broke my heart if he'd have said, you know what? I'd rather have these pictures of you than the real thing.
[00:45:08] That would have been foolish.
[00:45:11] But some of you are doing the same in your relationship with God.
[00:45:16] You believe the gospel. You trusted in Christ, you received the grace of God, but now you've turned back to act like an orphan or a slave.
[00:45:28] You're before God today as some distant tyrant waiting for you to mess up, begging you to do something that's just right for once in your life. And that's not true. Based on the Gospel, you have a father who pursued you and has welcomed you into his home.
[00:45:46] Don't go back to the orphanage.
