All God's Children Got A Robe

Title: “All God’s Children got a Robe”

Text: Galatians 3:23-29

CIT: The Galatians who “put on Christ” became God’s children.

Thesis: The people who “put on Christ” are God’s children.

Major Objective: Evangelistic

Specific Objective: That they will “put on Christ.”

Sermon Question: How?

Outline

Chase

How do we become children of God?

1. Is it through the law? – No!

2. Is it though our social position? – No!

3. Is it though our relationship with Christ? – Yes!

“All God’s Children got a Robe”

Galatians 3:23-29

Introduction

When I started in seminary, all of the first year students were required to go through a worship service in which any new staff was installed and the new students were consecrated to their new life in seminary. Several days before the service I had a fitting for a robe. We found the one that fit and my name was put on the hanger. Now I want you to know that I am not much for wearing robes. Whenever we sang in the church choir we would often wear a robe. Due to my size, I could never could find one that could fit right. Most of the time they were all way too short. The sleeves would end at my elbows, which were supposed to go to my wrists. So you can imagine my great happiness the day that I tried on that robe. It was good to have one that fit me and was long enough.

When the service happened several days later, all of the new students were gathered in a room near the sanctuary to organize our procession and pick up our robes. There was my name right there on the hanger, so I took the robe off the hanger and put it over my arm. We all were to carry the robes into the service, waiting until near the end of the service when we would all put them on to symbolize our new life in academia. A the start of the service the faculty processed into the room and down the aisle to their seats. All of them wore their beautiful robes with their academic colors of scarlet for theology and light blue for education, garnished by other colors of the rainbow. When the service had ended all of the new students got up put on their robes, so that we could then shake the hand of the seminary president and faculty members. I did the same, except….wait! This was not the robe that I had before. It was too short, and it didn’t fit around my mid- well you know. It had happened to me again. He had a robe, she had a robe, every one had a robe that fit them, ……except for me.

I wanted so bad to put on that robe and look good. I wanted to know what it was like to feel what it was like to be seminary student. It was a chance to be a part of a select group and community. In our world today how important it is to be accepted, to fit in. We want to be a part of something greater than we are. Just like my luck with robes.

How do we become children of God?

Most people want that feeling of being part of something greater. To be a part of a select group. This is the struggle that our text encounters today. Our text is written by Paul to the churches of Galatia, which would be modern day Turkey. This area was under Roman rule and considered a province. These very churches could have been founded by Paul and Barnabas in one of his trips trough the region.

We know that with in the congregations there were both Jews and Gentiles. There seemed to be a division between the two. Paul is having to write to them to defuse some heresies that had come into their midst. Many of the Jews in Galatia thought that their position as Jews made them of great. More so, they thought this is what made them the children of God. Paul teaches them that this is not correct. If they want to be the children of God that they were called to be they will need to put aside their past ways of thought.

Is it through the law? – No!

Illustration

Many of you might have seen the musical the King and I that stars Yul Brynner as the king of Siam, which is modern day Thailand. The story is actually based on the diaries of Anna Leonowens who was the widow of an officer in the Indian Army. Mrs. Leonowens came to Bangkok in 1862 to take up the position of governess in the royal court. For five-and-a-half years, she tutored the children of Rama IV, who was also known as King Mongkut. Anna’s duties as the governess were to educate and be primarily responsible for their upbringing. The king had 58 children that she had to teach.