Dance Lessons: Slaves no More!
Galatians 3:26-4:11
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
04-05-2020
Freedom!
In 1838 the British government sent word to Jamaica that slavery was at an end and that therefore those who were slaves were now free. On that night of emancipation, a mahogany coffin was made. Former slaves filled the coffin with whips, branding irons, coarse clothing, handcuffs, and other tools and symbols used during their years of bondage.
The coffin lid was bolted shut and at midnight the coffin was lowered into a grave, dug especially for the occasion. Then the thousands gathered celebrated their new freedom by singing the doxology!
They had gone from slaves to free. Can you imagine the joy these people experienced. Paul makes the point that as Christians, we have made the same journey and can experience the same joy!
If you haven’t watched the sermons in this series, please go to our FB page.
Let me remind you how the section we studied last time ended:
“Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.” (Gal 3:23-25)
We learned last week, that the Law acted as a guardian until the time of grace was to come. Once the New Covenant was established by Jesus’ perfect life, death, and resurrection, then we were set free from the law’s tyranny.
The law took us by the hand and showed us our hopelessness and helplessness and led us to Christ.
Or put another way…
The law puts us in jail and the Gospel is the key that opens the door and gives us freedom.
Remember, that those who dance are thought crazy by those who can not hear the music.
Remember, that Paul was teaching Jesus + Nothing = Everything and the Judaizers didn’t like that.
But through the first three chapters of Galatians, we have learned that we are saved through grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.
Turn with me to Galatians 3 and we will start in verse 26.
Prayer
In keeping with the theme of promise from last week, I want use to look at four promises from these verses.
New Car Smell
We love new things. Or at least, I love new things.
I remember going to a job interview and everything article of clothing I had on was new, including socks and underwear. I just knew I would get the job because I felt so good in my new clothes. (I didn’t get the job)
I love the combination of 50-60 VOC (volatile organic compounds) off-gassing. You do to. That’s what “new car smell” is. It’s actually quite terrible for you.
We are looking forward to a new heaven and new earth where God will make all things new.
If you love new things, I’ve got absolutely amazing news for you today.
Promise # 1: A New Identity
"So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith…” (Gal 3:26)
On April 29, 2011, Kate Middleton got married. It wasn’t just any wedding, but a royal wedding watched world-wide. On the day she married Prince William, she went from being just Kate to the Duchess of Cambridge.
Talk about a change in identity!
Paul likens our transition from children under the guardian of the law to sons of God to Kate’s passage from commoner to a member of the royal family.
It is “in Christ Jesus” that makes all the difference. Believers in Christ are united with Him, participate in Him, and are incorporated into Him.
Thank of that term incorporated as walking by a table in a restaurant and being asked to pull up a chair. Or sitting on the sidelines of a gym and being asked to join a pick-up game.
Our relationship with God is established by our union with Jesus and that union is secured by our faith.
John Stott explains:
“God is no longer our Judge, who through the law has condemned and imprisoned us. Gos is no longer our Tutor who through the law restrains and chastises us. God is now our Father, who in Christ has accepted and and forgiven us.”
How many get this new identity? All who put their faith in Christ.
Two things we need to be clear on this morning. While every human on earth is a creation of God, only those who put their faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins can rightfully call God their Father.
John writes at the beginning of his gospel:
“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1:12-13)
Also, it might be tempting to say “sons and daughters of God” when reading these verse. But you would miss out on something very important. Only first-born sons received inheritances in that culture. Paul is saying that by the Gospel, they are all “sons” (including females) and heirs of the Father.
John wrote in his first letter:
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (I John 1:3)
This is an incredible promise. We get a new identity:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor 5:17)
When I was in college, for just a little while I went by J. Michael Williams. J. Michael was not a good guy and I don’t like remembering him. But when I became a Christian, I had a whole new identity.
For some of you, that is very good news because you are feeling like it's time for things to change in your life.
Promise #2 - A New Wardrobe
“… for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Gal 3:27) ]
Paul points now to a new relationship with Jesus. He writes that “all of you were baptized into Christ.”
Baptism is the public sign of one’s faith in Christ. There is nothing magical about the water. It is an outward expression of an inward reality. And in Paul’s day, like ours, it was simply the next step in a person’s faith journey once they were born again.
At Chenoa Baptist Church, we practice baptism by immersion because we believe that it is a beautiful picture of identifying with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom 6:1-3)
If you haven’t yet follow the Lord in believers baptism, please let me know and when we start meeting again we will get you dunked! :)
Those who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have “clothed themselves with Christ.”
My oldest son Josh used to care less about his clothes. But then he got into the corporate world and all of sudden he became a sharp dressed man!
Paul loves the clothing metaphor and uses it many other places:
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” (Col 3:12)
Tim Keller writes that this clothing implies four amazing things:
Our primary identity in Christ. We can usually tell from someone’s clothing what they are or do. Now, we don’t rely on our our old clothes to define us but our relationship with Christ defines us.
The Closeness of our relationship with Christ Christ now clothes us. He is as close has our shirt we have on right now.
The Imitation of Christ As we put on his virtues and characteristics, we literally dress up like Jesus.
"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph 4:22-24)
* Our acceptability to God. When God looks at us, he sees us as sons because He sees us clothed in His Son’s righteous robes.
In Roman society, a youth coming of age would trade in his toga that had a purple lining for an adult toga without the lining.
Now that the faith as come, we are no longer children, under tutors and guardians (the law), but we are clothed with Christ and are sons of the Father.
There are companies such as Trunk Club that will literally dress you in a whole new wardrobe. You fill out a survey, they pick the clothes and send them to you, and you keep what you like and send the rest back.
God is so much better at this than TrunkClub!
This is such a good promise. Some of you feel like you need to change your spiritual clothes. You feel dirty and not worthy of God’s love. Let God give you a new wardrobe to wear.
Promise # 3 - A New Acceptance
Paul has written to the Galatians about their new identity in Christ and their new wardrobe in Christ. Now, he is about to make one of the most explosive claims in the entire letter:
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (v. 28)
In one sentence, Paul abolishes generations of barriers that had separated people from God.
The culture barrier There is neither Jew or Gentile, or your translation may say Greek. Jews divided the world into two - those who were Jews and had the law and worshipped God and everyone else.
This is what the Judaizers were telling the Galatian Gentiles - you’re not good enough just with your faith in Christ, you have to become Jewish.
Paul writes that being a Jew or a Gentile no longer matters. It doesn’t matter what culture you come from, or what color your skin is, or what neighborhood you live in, or what language you speak.
The Gospel looks past all of that. This would have been earth shattering for his hearers. In Christ, those cultural barriers have been broken down.
But there are still cultural barriers in the church today. It been said that 11:00 am on Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America.
That’s why we support missions in South East Asia, in India, and in Mexico. Because those people are loved by God just as much as we are and those churches are our sister churches in Christ. It’s a start…
The Class Barrier
Roman society was divided into slave and free. To say that that distinction was no longer in effect was on of the first steps toward slavery being eradicated in that part of the world.
In the Church, the rich and the poor sat side by side and it didn’t matter if you lived in a big house or the servant house.
Many of the early Christians were slaves. What an interesting dynamic for a slave to be the Sunday school teacher of their master.
It’s important to note that slavery as mentioned in the Bible was not like the slavery of the 18-19th centuries here in America.
In America, slavery was almost 100% based on race and it was for life. They were not considered people but property, including their wives and children.
In Paul’s day, every ethnic group owned slaves or servants and most of those people were set free by their 30th birthday. You could become a slave by going into debt or even by choice.
Paul’s attitude toward slavery was extraordinary.
He wrote a short letter that is included in the Scriptures called, “Philemon.” Philemon was friend of Paul’s that had come to Christ under Paul’s ministry and led a house church in Colossae.
Philemon had a slave named Onesimus who had stolen money from him and run away. Somewhere in his journey, Onesimus meets Paul and is led to Christ.
Paul writes to Philemon to welcome Onesimus back not as a slave but as something better, a brother!
Onesimus went on to become a leader in the church at Ephesus.
In Jesus, the old ways were being challenged and the barriers were being broken down in amazing ways.
The Gender Barrier
There is neither male nor female. Well, isn’t that what our culture has been trying to tell us?!
That is not what Paul is getting at here. Paul is not saying that the Gospel doesn’t recognize gender. Of course, it does.
What he is saying was that in a culture that treated women as little more than property, the Gospel puts them on equal footing with males as far as salvation went.
Women could be saved by faith just as men could be. Are they were.
Paul went to Philippi and on the Sabbath went outside the city gate to the river to the place of prayer and started talking to the women gathered there. Then something amazing happened:
“One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home.” (Acts 16:14-15)
She was Paul’s first convert in Philippi and the first Christian convert in Europe.
What breaks down these barriers? Being in one in Christ. Christ is the common denominator not matter the differences.
This was, and still is, one of the most amazing things about the Gospel. It doesn’t matter who you are, what your accent is like, what your skin color is, what neighborhood you are from, what school or you did or didn’t graduate from.
If God is your Father and Jesus your big brother, then you are my family!
“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all it’s many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” (I Cor 12:12-13)
John Stott writes:
“When we say that Christ has abolished these distinctions, we do not mean not that they don’t exist, but that they don’t matter. They are still there, but they no longer create any barriers to fellowship. We recognize each other as equals, brothers and sisters in Christ.”
This is good news for you. Maybe you are feeling like you don’t belong or that you won’t be accepted. The ground is level at the foot of the cross.
Promise #4: A New Inheritance
As the infomercial would say, “But wait, there’s more!”
You get a new identity, a new wardrobe, a new acceptance, and you get a whole new inheritance.
“If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father.” (Gal 3:29-4:2)
Paul goes back and picks up on the theme of being a spiritual descendant of Abraham. If you are in Christ, the Seed of Abraham, then you are heirs according to the promises that God made to him in Genesis.
In Judaism, a boy passed from adolescence to manhood shortly after his 12th birthday. At the time of his bar mitzvah, he would become a “son of the law.”
In the Greek world, the son came of age later. When he was about 18 years old, at the festival of Apatouria, he passed from the care of the father to the state.
A Roman son became an adult at the sacred family festival known as the Liberalia. At that time, the son was formally adopted by the father and became his official heir.
I remember growing up in Memphis and saying to my mother that Lisa Marie Presley, who was my age, was so rich. My mom explained to me that although technically Lisa Marie was worth millions of dollars, she didn’t have access to it until she was a certain age, 25 years old according to Elvis’s will. Until that time, the money was handled by trustees. She owned everything but she couldn’t access until the time set by the King had come.
The Judaizers were telling the Galatians that Jesus + Nothing + Everything wasn’t good enough. They had to follow dietary rules, and the Mosaic Law, and be circumcised. They had to keep the law to be saved.
But the Galatians were already heirs of God’s promise to Abraham - the promise of justification by faith.
Ohhh…do you see where this is going?!! It’s getting good. But we are going to stop right now and leave the two best promises for next week, Easter Sunday.
