Galatians 3:26 - 4:7

Introduction:

-Have you ever noticed that most of the privileges you get to enjoy come at the expense of someone else?

-A few weeks ago, a few men from the church took my dad and I out to a really nice steakhouse where I got to eat what was probably the best meal I’ve ever had in my life, consisting of a 22oz bone-in ribeye with mashed potatoes

-It was awesome

-And that wonderful privilege was due to the men that took us graciously picking up my bill so I could enjoy that steak I otherwise probably would never have enjoyed

-Some of us love war movies, in part because it shows the incredible sacrifice that some people made in order to secure the freedom we enjoy as Americans

-And I know that around this time every four years, you’re often reminded of many the reasons and things you don’t like about our country, but we enjoy incredible freedom because of many people who have sacrificed in order to give us these privileges

-In our section today, Paul turns full force to the topic of our adoption as he explains and defends his Gospel in the face of the Judaizers who were trying to convince the Galatians Christians that you must believe in Jesus AND be circumcised and keep the Law in order to be saved

-And this section about adoption is truly a beautiful piece of Scripture that I feel very incapable of doing justice to in my preaching this evening

-But this passage is not simply about adoption

-It’s about adoption through the agency of Christ

-All through this passage, as Paul leads us through the wonderful truths of our adoption by God, he’s going to keep pointing us the fact that Christ was the one who paid for our adoption and make our adoption into the family of God possible

-And without that, we can take our adoption into the family of God for granted, without even realizing the incredible Person and Work of Christ who makes this adoption possible

Now, the reason that Paul is talking about adoption is that in the previous verses, he taught the Galatians about how the Law acted as a guardian or babysitter, guarding us and guiding us to Christ

-The implication is that if we needed a guardian, then that must make us children

-And it is to that point that Paul now turns

**give the three points, read the text, pray**

1. Adoption is Identification with Christ (3:26-29)

-Paul’s main point in this section is that adoption into the family of God comes not through keeping the Law

-being circumcised

-observing the Sabbath

-or doing any of the other commands of the OT

-No, adoption into the family comes through faith in Jesus Christ

-No amount of law keeping will get you this adoption . . . only faith in Christ will

The connection to verse 27 may seem puzzling at first

-Almost the entire section we’re going to cover tonight is chalk-full of references to adoption and sonship

-But this verse almost seems out of place

-Paul here inserts baptism into the discussion (the only mention of baptism in Galatians)

-And a reference to putting on Christ like one would put on clothing

-What’s the connection here?

-What Paul is saying here is actually central to the entire discussion he’s having about adoption

-Let me show you how that is from the text:

-Let’s jump into verse 27

-Now, when we’re working through a text and we’re trying to figure out it’s meaning, sometimes it’s helpful to begin with what the text doesn’t mean

-Paul is not saying here that baptism saves us

-That would be entirely contrary to what he’s been arguing about the entire book!

-As one commentator I read pointed out, that would be like Paul saying, “Christ plus circumcision doesn’t save you! . . . Christ plus baptism saves you!”

-That would not be combatting the Galatian heresy of faith plus works, that would simply be adding in a different work other than circumcision

-So what is Paul saying then in regards to baptism?

-Some people say that Paul must be using symbolism here and isn’t really referring to water baptism

-However, I don’t think it’s an either-or proposition

-Paul is referring to water baptism that a believer goes through, but he is using this as a reference to the final culmination of entering fully into the Christian life

-Let me explain

-Let’s say that you’re sitting in the living room with your wife, and your wife turns to you and says, “will you love me always?”

-You nervously gulp as a husband, knowing that this could be a potential landmine if you don’t get this right

-You turn to her and say, “dear, I will always love you! I’ve been fully committed to you ever since I slipped that ring onto your finger, and I always will be!”

-Now, when you referred to slipping the ring on her finger, you are referencing a literal event that happened in your past

-However, the significance of that event is that it was the culmination of everything that goes into becoming a married couple!

-All the dating, engagement, wedding planning, etc. culminates toward the end of the ceremony where you place that ring on her finger

-In the same way, water baptism for the Christian is in many ways the final culmination of being fully immersed into Christ and His church

-People in persecuted countries often understand this better than we do, because for many of them, their baptism is the point of no return, often being the starting point for their families shunning them or their communities beginning to persecute them

-And in this way, baptism in the NT often represents the entire process of repenting of sin, trusting Christ for salvation, confessing Him as Lord, leaving your old way of life behind, and identifying with His people

-And Paul says that in this sense, those who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ

-This word has the idea of clothing one’s self, similarly to how you may have changed your out of your dirty shirt from work and into a new shirt for prayer meeting this evening

-In the same way, those who have fully repented and turned to Christ have put on Christ, choosing to be fully identified with Him

Paul may be borrowing here from Isaiah 61:10, which says . . .

Isaiah 61:10 (NKJV)

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,

My soul shall be joyful in my God;

For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation,

He has covered me with the robe of righteousness,

In this verse, the people of God are clothed with the garments of salvation, but now in the full light of NT revelation, we realize that what we’re putting on is the Lord Jesus Christ, for He is our salvation!

-We are completely identified with Him!

Verse 29 confirms our exegesis in one of the coolest ways!

**vs. 29**

Now, as I was reading through this text and considering it, verse 29 seemed to ring a bell for me

-Paul says there that if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed

“Abraham’s seed? Where have I heard that before? Wait, didn’t Paul just say that Christ was Abraham’s seed?”

-so I look back up a few verses, and there it, Galatians 3:16

Galatians 3:16 NKJV

Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ.

Wait, so is Paul changing his mind? Did he forget what he just said?

-No! That’s the whole point of adoption! How is it we can be descendents of Abraham and children of God?

-It’s through our connection to Christ!

-Because of Christ is the true descendent of Abraham, and the Son of God, then our connection to Him, our being in Christ, makes us descendents of Abraham and children of God as well!

Isn’t that awesome???

I have a friend of mine who I’ve known for a long time and am very close with who is quite wealthy

-He’s not a Christian, but he’s a really great guy and God has blessed him through his hard work with a lot of money

-And when I’m with him, I’m able to do things and go places I would never do or go to on my own

-One time example in particular comes to mind where I showed up at his expensive condo overlooking uptown Charlotte and he informed me we were going to go to a nice new restaurant that just opened in Charlotte

-He handed me the keys of his very nice, expensive car and had me drive over to this restaurant

-The restaurant that we were going to was on the top floor of this hotel overlooking Charlotte

-So we drove up, and it was valet parking

-It kind of felt like a movie as I got out of this nice car and tossed the keys to a valet nearby

-We then road up to the top floor of this elevator where we proceeded to eat a meal worth several hundred dollars

-That is not how I generally live my life! But because of my connection to my friend, I got to enjoy the benefits of his luxurious life for a little bit because he was the one who provided the for the experience

-And brothers and sisters, in a far infinitely greater way, you and I get to experience all the incredible blessings of being adopted by God because of our connection to Jesus Christ, because He is the One who has provided us with all of the privileges of adoption!

-And in verse 28, he shows us what just one of those incredible privileges are!

**vs 28

We have a benediction from a Jewish Rabbi in the mid-2nd century AD

-And in his prayer, he thanks God that he is not a foreigner (or Gentile)

-That he is not a slave

-And that he is not a woman

But guess what? In Christ, there is no distinction between any of these groups when it comes to being saved and adopted into Christ’s family

-Now, this doesn’t mean that Paul doesn’t believe that there is any such thing as slaves, or that Paul doesn’t believe in biological sex anymore

-That would fly in the face of what he teaches concerning sexuality and gender roles for men and women in other parts of Scripture

-but what this does mean is that your ethnicity, your social status, and your gender mean absolutely nothing when it comes to enjoying the blessings of justification and adoption into the family of God

-We live in an culture right now that is dominated by identity politics

-Right now, you’re being told that your skin color, your gender, and your social status are the most important things about you

-These determine how oppressed you are, how much your voice ought to be elevated, how you ought to vote, who you ought to spend time with

-But guess what Paul says? In regards to your adoption into the family of God through Christ, these things don’t matter at all

Brothers and sisters, can’t we thank and worship God this evening for making us all on in Christ?

-Can’t we rejoice that our identification with Christ completely levels the playing field in regards to race, gender, and social status?

-Aren’t you so thankful for your adoption into the family of God, regardless of where you are on the social ladder?

-Also, this is why we place such an emphasis on missions here at this church!

-Christianity is not an American religion! It’s not a western religion

-It’s not an English-speaking religion

-The Gospel is for all people

-all nations

-all skin colors

-all social statuses

Our identification with Christ brings us into the family of God

So first, we’ve see that adoption is identification with Christ

Second, we see that

2. Adoption is Redemption by Christ (4:1-5)

**4:1-2**

-Paul is using an illustration that would have been easily understood by his original readers, and is not too hard for us to picture today

-Back in this time period, if a rich man were to have a son, that son would inherit the family wealth

-However, the father might not want the son to inherit all of this wealth and privilege at a young age, knowing that his son wouldn’t have the maturity to handle it

-So the father would not allow his son to inherit all of this wealth until he reached a certain age

-Until then, although the son is an heir to all of this wealth, he really is not much different than a servant or slave, in the sense that while he’s young, he doesn’t own anything and he has to follow the rules of the household

-We have similar structures today in our society

-I’m sure you’ve all heard of a trust-fund

-This is often where a parent is super wealthy and they want to leave the wealth for their children, but they put restrictions on that money because their child is not old enough to handle it yet

-We often call these kids trust-fund kids

-This is the picture Paul is painting for us

-Notice how he applies this illustration

**4:3**

-He applies this to himself and his readers, acknowledging that their situation before salvation was similar

-Before salvation, all of us are in bondage to what Paul calls the “elements of the world”

-Now, scholars have debated exactly what this means

-Is Paul talking about demonic forces?

-Is he talking about the Jewish Law?

-Is he talking about something else?

-Ultimately, while it may be hard to pinpoint, all of these answers seem to point in a general direction: Paul is referring to being enslaved to something else other than God before salvation

-All of us, before our adoption, were in bondage, serving our sin, unable to ever reach God through our own efforts

-but this gloomy truth leads to the beauty of our redemption:

**4:4-5**

-These verses describe the great rescue operation that provides adoption into the family of God

-At just the right time, in the perfect unfolding of the plan of God

-God sent forth His Son, His eternally pre-existing Son who is truly God

-To be born of a woman, to become truly human and enter the world through the virgin birth

-This God-Man was born under the Law

-What does that mean?

-It means that Jesus perfectly kept and fulfilled the Law on our behalf

Matthew 5:17 NKJV

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

The weight of the Law was bearing down on all of us, crushing us under the immense holiness and righteousness of a perfect God

-Not a one of us could even come close to standing up under it

-And then Christ comes, our mighty Savior and Champion, and bears up under the weight of the Law, and it does not crush Him

-Instead, He perfectly fulfills everything that the Law demands and implies

-Perfect obedience in word, deed, and thought

-Theologians call this the active obedience of Christ

-Through His life, Christ completely and perfectly fulfilled the demands of the Law in our place,

-And then on the Cross, Christ took the punishment and wrath of God for our Law breaking

-And so when we repent of our sin and confess the Lordship of Christ by faith, the righteousness of Christ, His perfect Law-keeping is applied to our account

-Isn’t that incredible??

He did this to redeem those of us who are under the law, so that we could receive adoption as Sons!

-Through our being in Christ, connected to Christ, we receive His Sonship and are freed from the demands of the Law

-Don’t you see how pointless it is for the Galatians to go back to the Law?

-They can’t keep it!!

-And they don’t need to! Because Christ already kept it for them

And don’t you see how foolish it is for you to fret and worry about your performance, somehow thinking that you have to earn God’s love and favor through being a good Christian, or that somehow you can lose it through your struggles?

-You’re not God’s child because of your Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, or witnessing

-You’re God’s child because you’re connected to Christ!

-Although we’re barely scratching the surface, this is what the NT means when it speaks of being in Christ! It means that you are now identified with Him in such an intimate and connected way that in some sense, what is true of Christ is now true of you because He has rescued and redeemed you

-Obviously, we are not Jesus, but we are now sons of God because of THE Son of God

-We are now righteous before God because of the THE Righteous One

-We are now loved by the Father because of THE Beloved Son of the Father

-We are a nation of priests to God because of THE High Priest of God

-And we will be Resurrected one day because of the One who is THE Resurrection and the Life

-Isn’t that a great cause for rejoicing and worshipping today?

-Shouldn’t that change the way you live?

-You’re here and you’re struggling with discouragement and anxiety and doubt and fear

-You’re struggling with family concerns, with financial needs, with your own struggles with sin

-Look to the One who is your identity because He rescued you!

-You’re in Christ

How much does that affect your daily thinking?

**I know for myself, I often struggle to appropriate these truths

-I know that I can easily grow weary and discouraged, rising and falling with my daily performance as a Christian or with the everyday struggles of getting through each day and week and month

-Brothers and sisters, you’re a child of God because of the rescue operation of Christ! Because He was born under the Law to redeem you from the Law!

So first, we’ve seen adoption is identification with Christ

-Second, we’ve seen that adoption is redemption by Christ

-And finally, we see

3. Adoption is intimacy with the Father through Christ (4:6-7)

**vs. 6-7**

-Why do I say “adoption is intimacy with the Father through Christ?”

-The Holy Spirit is the One being sent into our hearts

-Notice what Paul calls the Spirit here in this verse: “the Spirit of His Son”

-This is because that in the same way that Jesus is the One who reveals the Father to us and fulfills the will of the Father, the Spirit is the One who reveals Christ to us on this side of the Ascension and fulfills the will of Christ

This is why Christ says things to His disciples like John 14:26

John 14:26 NKJV

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

John 15:26 NKJV

“But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.

John 16:13–14 NKJV

However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

You see, because we are God’s children through Christ, we also get the Spirit of Christ who enters into our hearts and grants us intimacy with the Father

-If you’re a believer, then you have an instinct to cry out to God, desiring His abiding presence

-And this is given to us through the Spirit of Christ

-Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son

-Why does Paul say “son” throughout this passage instead of “son and daughter” or “children?”

-Is Paul being sexist?

No, the answer is actually really neat

-Back in this culture, the family inheritance went to the sons

-But in Christ, all of us, men and women, get to share in the inheritance of Christ

-That’s why Paul says you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ

-Brothers and sisters, all the blessings that Christ deserves through His status as the Son of God, through His active obedience in keeping the Law, through His passive obedience of dying on the cross,

-Everything that Christ deserves, you and I get to partake in as well

-Not because we are deserving or worthy, but because we are in Jesus Christ

Doesn’t that change everything?

Shouldn’t that encourage us in our daily living, not to rely on our own efforts at maintaining God’s love and favor, but in resting in our relationship with Christ?

-Shouldn’t that encourage us to share the Gospel with others so that they can partake in this inheritance through faith?

-Shouldn’t this bolster us as we face the death of a loved one, knowing that if they belong to Christ, that we will see them again because of us being adopted into the family of God?

-Shouldn’t this encourage us in our prayer lives, knowing that can go to the Father who loves us intimately and loves us deeply?

-Shouldn’t this encourage us to live sacrificially, knowing that we have an incredible inheritance waiting for us one day? An inheritance that consists in unhindered fellowship with God for all eternity, freedom from the presence of sin and pain, and a home made for us in the New Jerusalem?

Conclusion

I looked this up today, and the average price of an adoption right now in North Carolina is $41,000.

-That is quite the sacrifice to make to adopt a child into your family and make him or her your own

-Brothers and sisters, Christ has paid the highest possible price for your adoption

-He was born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He could die in your place and redeem you to God

-You are adopted into the family of God, enjoying intimacy with Him forever, all due to Christ and our connection with Him