Christmas Sunday 2023: Redeemed and Restored

Intro

Big Idea: Christmas means that it is now possible for anyone to be redeemed out of the family of sin and adopted into the family of God through Christ. Christ has dipped down low to us, that He might raise us up with Him. The presence of the Holy Spirit in us grants us confidence regarding our true place in Christ.

Truth

I. God bound us under the law for our own good. (1-3)

The law is a faithful friend to humanity, not an oppressive dictator.

A dictator seeks to exploit others for his gain, but God’s law seeks to restrain us from that which will destroy us for our good.

God greatly inconvenienced Himself in order to relate to fallen humanity in the pursuit of our good while we waited for the right time to bring about our redemption by His becoming one of us and spilling His blood in our place.

The law kept us from descending too far into chaos like what happened to the people who lived before the flood.

People were enslaved to their own devices.

Knowing that we needed God, but not having any ability in sin to get right with Him, man-made religion became the only source most had to try and regain some of what was lost int he fall.

Try as we might, our attempts to justify ourselves before God never fully satisfied and only drove a greater wedge between us and God.

Those who were bound under the Mosaic law were actually living in the grace of being in actual relationship to God and learning to trust Him for their sustenance.

Even still, the allure of trying to save ourselves through good works rather than relying on God’s grace crept in.

The basic forces of the world rule us apart from Christ, though we were designed to have dominion over them.

Paul calls these the elemental principles of the world.

Many ancient cultures turned the elements of the world such as earth, wind, fire, and water into personified gods which then literally enslaved them to the earth they were supposed to rule over with God.

Many today are still doing this by worshipping material things such as their body, their feelings, nature, and etc. When we live this way, we are slaves rather than masters over that which Christ has given us stewardship of.

II. Christ came at just the right time to redeem us out of sin in order to restore us to the Father. (4-5)

Christ came at the right time.

We see the divine providence and sovereign grace of God in action in the precious details of the coming of Christ; particularly in His timing.

The exact timing of Christ’s birth also marks the beginning of a time of general peace and stability under Roman rule which would last for centuries, giving the Church ample time to incubate and grow.

The Romans had not only subjugated the majority of the Western and Middle-Eastern world, but they had brought with them extremely effective modes of transportation to the vast majority of the World’s civilizations. This allowed for the viral spread of the gospel.

The Romans also cemented and extended the use of the Greek language as a common language for all people groups. This allowed people from all over the world to read and understand the New Testament writing which were written in Greek.

Lastly, the Roman conquest had allowed Jewish influence to spread all over the Roman Empire. There were Jewish synagogues in nearly every major Roman city, and many minor ones too. These Jewish enclaves proved to be effective connecting points for the new Christian movement, providing a ready made starting point for gospel work in each region. Many of the first Christians in each area were synagogue members who responded to gospel preaching by repenting and believing in Christ. It can be said that the early church was born from and patterned after the synagogue system which had developed beforehand.

Christ was born of a woman.

This identifies Him with us in the most intimate way possible.

He voluntarily subjugated Himself to the structure which He had put in place in order to preserve us.

He obeyed every aspect of the law perfectly, thus fulfilling its purpose for us in Himself.

Matthew 5:17 NASB 2020

“Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.

Hebrews 4:15 NASB 2020

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin.

Galatians 3:13 NASB 2020

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a Tree”—

He was born under the law just as we are so that He could obey it perfectly as we were intended to and that He might become the only perfect sacrifice who could possibly pay the redemption price for us.

Christ redeems us out of sin.

There could be no restoration to our place in God without the elimination of the sin problem which separated us from Him.

Christ restores us to the Father as sons.

Once our sin has been washed away, we are clean by His grace and are enabled to enter into God’s household by faith.

We are no longer as children who are under a conservator. We are fully grown, fully vested sons with all of the privileges that entails.

We are heirs of God’s estate, meaning all that belongs to Him is ours too. This new identity grants us great peace and confidence. No matter what we face in this world, our eternal state is secure in Him.

III. The Father and the Son have sent the Spirit to seal and empower us. (6-7)

As we become more aware of the Spirit in us, we become more confident of our place in Christ.

This is what theologians throughout history have meant when they talk about the sealing work of the Holy Spirit. All Christians have the same Holy Spirit and no Christian lacks any measure of Him in that regard. There are no second class citizens in Christ’s kingdom! However, when we are baptized with the Spirit, which comes after salvation for most Christians according to the Biblical pattern, what we experience is assurance and greater power because we are walking in His anointing.

God wants us to be confident in who we are in Him because that confidence grants us power to focus on our growth in His kingdom and on the work of the family.

So long as we are paralyzed in doubts and insecurities, we will not be maximally effective for the Kingdom. We must receive our inheritance as sons and then we can move about with the confidence that we are building a Kingdom which we are fully vested in.

▪ 1 John 5:13-15

1 John 5:13–15 NASB 2020

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.

The primary work of the Spirit is empowering us to know Christ and to live holy lives in Him.

We tend to talk a lot about spiritual gifts and those are very important. Scripture commands us to earnestly desire them so to neglect them is actually to deny Scripture. We never want to neglect the gifts. However, we must be sure to keep our priorities in proper order.

The Spirit’s presence gives us power to live like free sons under God rather than slaves to the world under sin.

Are we growing in holiness, grace, truth, and love for our fellow Christian? Are we growing in the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control)? Those are sure signs of the Spirit in us and the Spirit in us is proof positive that we belong to God.

The secondary work of the Spirit is to empower us to do the work of ministry.

He does this by giving us spiritual gifts which we are to use for our good, for the good of others, and for His glory.

The purpose of spiritual gifts is to build up the body of Christ, to build up the Christian, and to awaken the world to the fact that God is real, that He is at work in our world, and that every word of His gospel message is true.

▪ Ephesians 4:11-13

Ephesians 4:11–13 NASB 2020

And He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

▪ 1 Corinthians 14:1-5

1 Corinthians 14:1–5 NASB 2020

Pursue love, yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. For the one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people, but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries. But the one who prophesies speaks to people for edification, exhortation, and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself; but the one who prophesies edifies the church. Now I wish that you all spoke in tongues, but rather that you would prophesy; and greater is the one who prophesies than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may receive edification.

Gospel Application

Who is God? He is the eternal Christ who was born of a woman, merging His life and line with ours.

What has God done? By becoming one of us, fulfilling the law perfectly, dying, and rising again, He has paid our sin debt and made it possible to restore to the Father all who desire it.

Who are we? If we have repented of our sins, trusting in Christ alone for salvation, we are no longer slaves to the powers of this world but are free sons of God in Christ.

What does God want from us? He wants us to live like free sons and not like slaves as we once did. He has given us His Holy Spirit to seal us in Him, and grants us the grace of anointing in the Spirit for power to see our new identity through.

Challenge

Trust in what Christ has done for us.

Receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit that you may know who you are, that you may have power to live as a son, and that you may have power to minister to yourself and others.

Practice walking in His grace daily through gospel-centered rhythms (Bible, prayer, spiritual disciplines, kindness, hospitality, evangelism, etc).