INTRO: I want to start the message with an excerpt of an email I received a few weeks ago where someone shared a brief glimpse of their spiritual maturation in regard to the topics we’ve been centered on for the last couple months. I enjoyed it very much then, and believe it could serve as a great introduction to today’s topic and this passage of Scripture.
After several paragraphs describing his growing understanding of justification and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and his identity in Christ, he mentioned how he used to view his relationship with God.
“Too often, I simply saw the call to grace as a call to recognize something that took place in the past – now get busy and work for God! My thinking was not transformed. I think that many must be like me. We are like the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son who is so wrapped up in his own sense of self-righteousness that he now views his relationship with his father in terms of master and slave.”
That last part really resonated with me because I think he is right. There are many that have been joyously and gloriously saved for years and yet still think of God as a boss rather than a Father. That may be seem like a small difference to you, but I aim today to show you from the Word of God how that is a very big difference.
Jesus Christ came to shatter that. The works of the law could never offer us a meaningful relationship. To be a slave your entire life is devastating and discouraging. To be under the guidance of a schoolmaster is frustrating and limiting. But to be a son or daughter, to have a Heavenly Father, that’s a relationship you can enjoy for eternity. Let’s explore this concept deeper today.
I. The Ancient Process (1-3)
– One of the keys to unlocking the beauty of what is being taught here lies in understanding the background of ancient culture. There is some debate over which culture’s customs are being alluded to here, whether Paul is referring to Jewish, Greek, or Romans customs concerning children, slaves, and guardians.
– Regardless which of these cultures is in view, each one had a time which a boy, even though he was an heir in the family, would basically be treated like a slave. At a certain age, the status would change, and he would take on the responsibilities of manhood. He would officially pass from being a child – like a servant – to a son.
– In Jewish culture, it took place at the age of 12 when a boy would celebrate his bar mitzvah and enter into the position of sonship. In Greek culture, a boy was under a tutor until age 18 when there was a special ceremony where his hair was cut and burned to the god Apollo symbolizing that the boy was now a man. In Rome, the event was called the togavirilis where a boy would get an adult toga and burn all his boyhood toys as an offering to the gods. Many believe this could be what Paul is referring to in 1 Corinthians 13:11 where he says, “when I became a man, I put away childish things.” The difference between a man and a boy is the price of his toys!
– That explanation unlocks what is being talked about in verse 1 that a child would be thought of and treated like a servant even though he was a part of the family and an heir. He was the heir or “owner of everything” (1), but he was under the care of guardians or managers until the father set a date to make him the legal owner (2). So one could be born Roman or Jewish or Greek, but until one had that ceremony, he was considered to be no different than a slave. In our culture, if a father dies, the child must wait until he is of age before he can get his inheritance. He may be an heir de jure (by right), but he is not an heir de facto (by fact) until he is of age.
– So Paul takes the illustration of what happens when someone receives the full rights of a son in adoption, and uses it to describe what God does in our lives by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This metaphor refers to the spiritual condition of the Galatians and the rest of us before salvation.
– But notice that there is an appointed time when all that changes! That’s just an exciting peek at something we’ll look at in a moment. But there is one more aspect to the analogy.
– Paul states that the Jews were, like little children, in bondage to "the elements of the world." What in the world does that mean? This word elements means the basic principles, the ABCs. For some fifteen centuries, Israel had been in kindergarten and grade school, learning their "spiritual ABCs," so that they would be ready when Christ would come. Jesus is referred to as the Alpha and Omega, the full revelation to man in Revelation 22:13. The phrase is used in Galatians 4:4 and Colossians 2:8 to describe the mechanics of religion.
– Sometimes we do spiritual things out of mechanics and other times out of love. Let’s go back to the schoolmaster illustration of the law. Very rarely do my kids do their homework because they love their teacher so much. They love their teachers, but they do their homework because it is a mechanical thing. They are forced to do it because of the consequences of not doing it. Let’s go to an orphanage illustration. An orphan doesn’t do the dishes or mop the floor because the orphanage supervisor is such a wonderful person. In the musical Annie, Miss Hannigan wasn’t loved at all. “It’s a hard knock life for us!” Similarly, an unsaved person who is involved in religion is doing things mechanically but he or she has no heart or love in their motivation for anything. They are wrapped up in the basic elements of this world.
– But when a person becomes saved by faith, he enters a family. When you move from slave to schoolmaster to son, you have a Father that loves you and you love Him and want to do those things that please Him. What a joy to live right – not because you have to – but because you want to!
II. The Adoption Provider (4-5)
– How do we go from slaves to sons? Jesus! These are some of the most beautiful verses in all of Scripture! If you want to adopt a child today, a whole bunch of conditions have to be just right. Jesus fulfilled all the conditions.
A. God sent Jesus at the right time. Anyone who has been through the adoption process knows the grueling pain of waiting and waiting. Many hopeful parents become very discouraged with the time element of adoption. Adoption agencies can be slower than Congress. When everything lines up, finally the time has come for the adoption to take place.
– In the same way, everything lined up in God’s timetable to send Jesus. It was the right time theologically – the Law had done its work, over 300 prophecies had been given, religious emptiness and spiritual hunger were at an all time high. It was the right time culturally – the Greek language was practically universal, thus allowing for the spread of the gospel across the known world. Rome had built roads that connected city with city. It was the right time politically – Roman laws protected the rights of citizens, and Roman soldiers guarded the peace.
– Christ’s birth in Bethlehem wasn’t an accident; it was an appointment! Jesus came in the fullness of the time, and He will come again when the time is ready! God is always on time, even in 2020. Are you waiting for His timing?
B. God sent Jesus with the right qualifications. In addition to the right timing, a modern day adoption requires screenings, fingerprint tests, background checks, home studies, and more. There are seemingly endless hoops to jump through and tons of forms to fill out. Only one person in history checked all the right boxes because He had a dual nature and a sinless character. – Jesus was fully divine as the Son of God. Jesus was not just a divine stand-in. He was fully righteous. He is God and as such can bear the infinite wrath of God.
– But Jesus was also fully human. He was born a Jew from a Jewish woman so He was subject to Jewish law and he fulfilled it perfectly so He could be the perfect sacrifice. There are certain laws that have to be fulfilled to complete an adoption and that’s why God sent His Son born of a woman, made under law.
C. God sent Jesus with the right price. The idea that Jesus came to redeem those of us who were under the law is that He bought us, ransomed us, and rescued us by paying all that was necessary to adopt us into the family of God. Earthly adoption today is often glamorized, even over-glamorized as we see pictures of sweet, innocent children just waiting to be loved and adopted by a family that wants them. The picture of spiritual adoption differs here. Those of us who have been adopted because of Jesus were filthy, dirty, guilty sinners. We were subjects of the wrath of God.
– There was an incredible news report several years ago about a family that adopted a man as their son after he had killed their daughter. It was an unbelievable show of love and forgiveness from a human standpoint that they would bring this man into their own family. But when we consider what God does in adoption, it makes this act weak in comparison. For He has adopted a whole race of God-hating enemies into His family!
– What if you went to adopt a child and as you read their profile, it said things like “rebellious tendencies, full of sensual thoughts, given to harmful habits, violence and anger are major problems, doesn’t play well with others, etc.?” Would you take your chances on that kid or wait for someone more angelic? Do you understand? There was nothing innocent or lovely about us. Yet God loved us and sent Jesus to redeem us from the orphanage of sin and death and welcome us into the family of God. God spent the most precious thing He had for unwanted outcasts like you and me. But wait, there’s more!
III. The Amazing Privileges (6-7)
– The entire Trinity is involved in our spiritual experience: God the Father sent the Son to die for us, and God the Son sent His Spirit to live in us.
A. Relationship – The law could never really provide a relationship. The law could never put the Holy Spirit and the nature of God inside a person’s heart.
– Abba is the first word a Hebrew child learns to say and it means “daddy.” God sent His Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we can call Him “Father.” It’s easy to misunderstand this word and over-sentimentalize it so it seems like baby talk. But that’s not the idea really. It’s a son, when he is scared, and he grabs tight to his father’s neck, and cries out, “Daddy!” It’s when you as a daughter hear the news you feared, or get the diagnosis you dreaded most, or experience something you never could have imagined and you fall on your knees and cry out, “Abba Father!”
– God has not given you the spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind because you have the Holy Spirit inside you that reassures you that you are not a slave but rather have received the spirit of sonship. Do you realize what a privilege this is? Have you used this in 2020?
B. Resources – If I have one of my children’s friends to my house, they are a guest and they call me Mr. Powell and are uncertain what they can and can’t do and what they have access to. It’s not that way with my kids. To them, I am “Dad” and they walk around like they own the place.
– As a slave, I’m on pins and needles around my master, but as a son, I have access to everything my Father offers. Under Roman law, an adopted child was guaranteed all legal rights to his father’s property. I am an heir of God through Christ. How rich is Christ? If you are saved, you are a joint heir. By the way, Romans 8:15-17 is a fantastic companion passage to this one.
– The servant has a master, but the son has a father. The servant obeys out of fear, the son obeys out of love. The servant is poor, but the son is rich.
– Jesus Christ paid full price to make you a son Don’t you dare go back to bondage. Quit viewing your relationship with God as master and slave. Enjoy the full privileges of being a son or daughter of God, adopted and welcomed into the family by virtue of Jesus Christ.
– Do you think and speak as a slave of sin, or as a son made free? If Sunday worship is something you do to check a box, rather than a privilege, you’re a slave. If the Lord’s Supper is a religious feast you have to keep or else God won’t forgive you, rather than a privilege, you’re a slave! If the privilege of spending time in God’s Word is a requirement you have to meet or God will strike you down, you’re a slave!
– The Judaizers were missing it and many Christians today are missing it. They have the religious routine down, but they have no intimacy with God!
