Sermon Tone Analysis

Salvation in Galatians …

We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

That statement sums up what we’ve seen in Galatians.

We’re saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

God’s pleasure in us is not based on our performance for Him.

Remember the truth we saw in Galatians 1; God’s pleasure in you is not based on your performance for Him.

God’s pleasure in us is not based on our performance for Him.

It’s by grace alone.

God’s pleasure in us being based on our performance before Him, God’s pleasure in us is based on Christ’s performance for us and in us.

We saw in Galatians 2, saved by grace alone through faith alone.

Instead of God’s pleasure in us being based on our performance before Him, God’s pleasure in us is based on Christ’s performance for us and in us.

Christ alone

So, we avoid legalism in Galatians 1, thinking that we can perform for God; we avoid hypocrisy in Galatians 2, living lives that are out of step with the truth of the gospel, and they come together in Galatians 3, in Christ alone.

The doctrine of justification; the idea that we are right before God the Judge.

This idea is the doctrine of justification; the idea that we are right before God the Judge.

We’re right before God the Judge.

That God has declared us righteous before Him.

The doctrine of justification; the idea that we are right before God the Judge.

That righteousness is not earned; your righteousness before God is not based on how well your week goes, how much you pray this week, how much you study the Word this week, what you do this week.

The doctrine of justification; the idea that we are right before God the Judge.

You’re not trying to earn righteousness on a daily basis.

Your righteousness is based completely on the righteousness of Christ in heaven, and God looks at you through the lens of the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

This is an amazing truth, that God, a holy God, looks at us in our sin and pronounces, “Not guilty.

Not guilty.”

The doctrine of justification; the idea that we are right before God the Judge.

As amazing as that truth is I want to submit to you that there is an even higher truth in the gospel than that, an even greater truth in the gospel.

The doctrine of adoption. . .

we are loved by God the Father

Adoption builds on justification.

It’s good to be declared right before a judge.

It’s something even greater to be loved by God the Father.

What does it mean to have God as the Father?

What does it mean to have God as the Father?

How would you answer that?

A Christian is one who has God as Father.

If you want to know how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child and having God as his Father.

If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.

Look at what it says in verse 26.

Paul writes, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus…” That sentence right there sums up everything we’ve seen and will see today in the book of Galatians.

If that verse is not underlined in your Bible, let me encourage you to underline it.

The word son(s) is used not because the New Testament is chauvinistic.

It is used for cultural reasons.

In first century culture only the son received the inheritance in a family.

Look at verse 28

The Adoptive Father …

He’s saying, It doesn’t matter what your gender is, your socioeconomic status is, or your ethnic identity is.

You are, in Christ, a son.

You receive an inheritance.

The Adoptive Father …

Instead of being chauvinistic, the New Testament is being counter cultural.

It’s saying every female follower of Christ has the rights and privileges of a son.

The Adoptive Father …

I want to show you two simple actions that God takes to become our adoptive Father.

God sent His Son so that we might receive the position of sons.

This is Galatians 4:4-5

The picture is adoption.

Those of you who’ve been through the adoption process know that it’s not quite as simple as a process as you would like it to be.

There are all kinds of things that have to come together in order to make an adoption happen.

Adoption requires someone that comes at the right time.

Why did Christmas happen when Christmas happened?

It was the right time theologically.

It was the right time religiously.

There was spiritual hunger, not just among the Jewish people, but you look at first century culture, and you look at Roman paganism and Roman idolatry and the spiritual hunger that was created as a result of that, and you see this was the right time, not just theologically for Old Testament Jews, but religiously for the people who lived in the first century culture.

It was the right time culturally.

The Greek language was common among people.

It was the universal language of the people that made it possible for a method to be distributed to masses of people through one language.

It was the right time politically.

Politically, you had the Pax Romana, which was the peace of Rome; fancy term that, basically, describes how Rome had subdued all kinds of different nations and, in the process, had created an intricate system of roads for travel and commerce to take place.

So, what you had was all of these factors coming together in this moment in the landscape of human history.

Adoption requires someone who comes who possesses the right qualifications.

So, what does Jesus bring to the table that Muhammad doesn’t?

What does Jesus bring to the table that the Buddha doesn’t?

What does Jesus bring to the table that this teacher or that teacher in the landscape of human history does not bring to the table?

This is where Galatians 4:4 is just a theologically loaded verse.

What does He bring to the table?

First qualification: He is fully divine.

“When the time had fully come, God sent his Son…” Not created…His Son, God sent His Son, His pre-existent Son.

Colossians 1:15, “The image of the invisible God…” Philippians 2:5 and 2:6, “In very nature, God…” Hebrews 1, “The exact representation of his being.”

First qualification: He is fully divine.

God did not send a divine surrogate on His behalf; He came Himself.

God sent His Son, fully divine.

Not just fully divine, though, but fully human.

Second qualification: He is fully human.

“…sent his Son, born of a woman…” Same thing, Philippians 2 continues, “Being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in…” what?

“…human likeness.

Being found in appearance as a man…” fully human.

Luther said, “Christianity does not begin at the top as all other religious do.

It begins at the bottom.

You must run directly to a manger and a mother’s womb, embrace this infant and virgin’s child in your arms, and look at him.”

Third qualification fully righteous.

“…sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law…” Not just born a man; born a Jewish man under Jewish law, would go be raised in a Jewish family and go to Jewish synagogue, and who would know the law of God; not only know it but faithfully, perfectly fulfill it.

Third qualification fully righteous.

The only way that Jesus can die, for those who are unrighteous, is if he has perfect, what?

perfectly righteous.

These are his qualifications: fully divine, fully human, and fully righteous.

Someone who has the right resolve.

You do not adopt accidentally.

Adoption always happens purposefully.

“God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to…” Here’s the purpose.