1st Sunday Xmas

Intro

This mornings text

The book of Galatians is a letter from St. Paul to one of the New Testament Churches. We have a lot of Pauls letters to other NT Churches, so we can see when he is celebrating with some churches and when he is rebuking some. This letter is a rebuke. The Church in Galatia has wandered away from a Gospel where Jesus and his obedience makes us right with God and are leaning into a Gospel where it is our obedience that makes us right with God.

So by chapter 4 where we are he has explained why God gave a Law to the people of the Old Testament and how Jesus acts as Gods agent to free us from the Law.

Verse 1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything,

So those living under the law have certain official status, but functionally that status is unhelpful. The law which mankind could not live up to shows us what it would mean to exist in God’s perfect standard. So even though the Jew where God’s special people and has a special revelation of the law, they could know God’s character, they could not live up to the Law and where in the same predicament as everyone else. They are the children of God with the same functional status of the rest.

2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.

Now Children of the household living among household slaves did not experience much in the way of difference. They both had to live up to codes of behavior, the household goods and management where left to others, but at the age where the heir took the household good, you then see what are the joys of being a heir.

3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.

Paul reminds the Galatians that they had once lived out the slavery of others by being outside the Gospel community. The ideology of the world outside the Gospel is its own slavery. But the next verse is going to remind us that God solves the equation, God solves for x

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Just as there is a time set when a person living like a slave becomes an heir, God had set a time in that we would be made full heirs through the work of adoption. It required a things that are important to Christian faith…first God descended to us. He did not imagine slaves could make themselves family members of God through their own work, he instead made himself like us. He was born of a woman. The first representative of man, Adam was a human and in his fall he took all of humanity with him, the one to redeem us would then also have to be human to get us all back, and Jesus does so by being born a woman (bowing at the creed). Not only was born a man he did what no man could which was live out and fulfill the law. That made able to purchase us our of slavery…the word Redeem. And now that we are no longer slaves of the old, we can be made son, that is we can inherit what God has in mind.

6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

This adoption means that Just as Jesus is a union of God and Human, we as human are united with God in the Holy Spirit and can go to our new Daddy…we can go to God and cry abba. You are no longer slaves you are the children of God.

Main Point: What Jesus does in the manger God becoming man, is essential for us to be able to go up to God, or man becoming God.

We have to make sure that we keep the Gospel the act of God coming down, accomplishing the Law and adopting us into his family...

There is always pressure to add to the Gospel certain actions to show that this adoption has taken place. Pressure comes from three directions.

First there are those who don’t want the Gospel that will try and add human works to the Gospel of God’s work: Often secular critiques of Christian faith will want to show how Christians do not act like sons of God and how they do almost like…someone from a family with no inheritance talking about how they are better suited to take over a rich families fortune.

Theses folks might claim they have a higher moral standard, they do a better job caring for family or neighbor. If Christians really cared about God and neighbor they stop all this evangelism and worship to feed the poor and restore justice. The redeemed people of God care for the poor and work to restore justice but the great commission starts with disciple-making and worship, then moves into social restoration. We have to guard the Gospel from those who would redefine it outside of the church.

2nd pressures may come not from out side the church but inside the church hoping to change the Gospel to the same thing folks outside the church want it to be. This part of the church looses the Gospel as they walk away from a primary mission of evangelism to again a primary mission of social action. The Gospel will move the church into action…but it only des so because it begins with our adoption. Our social action does not make us right with God. Jesus work on our behalf, makes us right…because we are right we then change the world around us to reflect God’s kingdom, we then take on the mantle of social action, of contending for justice.

3rd pressure of the church is we loose the Gospel to behavior modification. We behave really bad as humans. And because we cannot live up to God’s standard we deserve to spend eternity far from God. That is why God had to act first in Christ to rescue us. And now that we are rescued into to the family we get the joy of living as a member of the family. But if we make the Gospel this: Act like a family member then we will let you in…but you have to keep it up to stay! Then we loose the gospel of God’s work to save us apart from our own effort. That is not the heart of adoption, that is not the heart of the Gospel. Brothers and sisters the Holy Spirit is going to give us tools to live as children of God starting with the ability to cry abba father. But we are not at risk of loosing the love of God at every infraction. Do not let anyone use a false Gospel to enslave you to a New Law. Live as heirs of God.

Main Point: What Jesus does in the manger God becoming man, is essential for us to be able to go up to God, or man becoming God.

Tomorrow is New Years day. People have been planning all week ways they can impose new laws on themselves to set them free…No more refined sugar…exercise ever day…every other …3 times a week…okay more exercise. And by this time next week so many people will have already failed their own laws…People cant even keep their own moral standards, how do we intend to keep God’s.

The joy of the Cross is this, Jesus became a man and on our behalf kept God’s moral standards…Jesus was the ultimate resolution keeper. And instead of keeping the benefits to himself he gives it to us. Adam and Eve were created to be co-rulers with God but they lost that right, Jesus regains that right and gives it his adopted sons and daughters. Jesus takes the death and exile that Adam and Eve bought for us all, he even takes on hell, and wins. We need the baby in the manger to get the man on the cross and we need the man on the cross to have the victory of an empty tomb. Don’t loose the gospel to behavior modification, remind yourself as often as you can that you are adopted children of God, from slavery to hears of his kingdom, solely by what he has done...