Who Am I?
Galatians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
35:00
Intro
Intro
Welcome / Week 5
Recap:
Letter to churches in Galatia
Lovingly correcting errors in their theology and resulting behaviors
Addressing the false teaching of Judaizers
Salvation through Jesus + Law
What Paul has reiterated to the Galatians over and over again throughout the first 3 chapters is this:
We don’t work to earn God’s favor. That’s legalism, that’s the old covenant, the law.
Legalism is working in our own power, according to our own rules, to earn God’s favor. That’s not the gospel
We are saved through faith alone. God’s pleasure in us is based on Jesus’ performance for us. We trust in Jesus, and in so doing, we are made righteous.
Justification, being made right with God is the primary blessing of the gospel. because it meets our primary spiritual need.
By your sin and mine, based on our merits, wea re guilty and the penalty of sin is eternal spiritual death; his law condemns us, guilt eats away at us, we find ourselves restless, miserable, and afraid; we have no peace in ourselves because we have no peace with our Maker, Creator, Father, God.
So we need the forgiveness of our sins, and assurance of a restored relationship with God, more than we need anything else in the world; and the gospel offers us this.
But as we jump into week 5 of this series we need to understand that justification is the primary blessing of the gospel but it is not the sole blessing.
Justification is the beginning, not the end of what Jesus is offering to us.
Main Scripture
Galatians 4:4-7
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. 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.
Prayer
Prayer
30:00
Facebook Quizzes
Facebook Quizzes
Anybody ever taken a Facebook quiz?
Why do you need to know which finding Nemo character you're most like? Why do you know what dessert type you are or what type of bird of you would be… you know what I'm saying?
I mean, I'm guilty of taking them. This week I was going through my Facebook to see if I could find some of the results of said quizzes and unfortunately I did…
Let’s take a look at some quizzes I took in 2009/2010 (Senior Year)
Alcohol
Dog
Ice Cream
Eyes
27:00
When I got the idea to share these quizzes from 14/15 years ago, I was thinking I would stumble on quizzes such as: which Disney Prince are you most like? … not what alcohol are you?
The thing that's so interesting about these Facebook quizzes is this to me it highlights our obsession with how we identify ourselves. Or at least my obsession 15 years ago…
As humans, we have always been desperate to know who we are.
In today’s society, instead of trying to discover who we are, we try to decide who we are
We have become focused on what we prefer to be called, oftentimes becoming ignorant to who or what we have been called to do or to become.
“My preferences, pronouns, I identify as…”
I think it's interesting that we've become obsessed with identity and yet we’ve messed the whole thing up.
The way that we identify ourselves dictates, or at the very least, influences our behavior. Sometimes its how other people label us or identify us, and we find ourselves bearing those labels either out of shame or out of pride.
If I'm preoccupied with what I prefer for people to call me, but that preference doesn't align with my actual identity and purpose, I will experience internal disarray.
When I look at what Paul talks about, the end of Galatians 3 in the beginning of Galatians 4, he's addressing something that at it’s core, should change, should impact the way we identify ourselves and others.
Paul is at this intersection of how we are identified and how we live.
24:00
Adoption/Sonship
Adoption/Sonship
3:25-27 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Under
No longer “under” the weight, bondage, thumb of the law
Guardian = Law
Baptized Into
Not in relation to Jesus Christ, but into spiritual union and communion with him. (Paul uses similar language in Romans and 1 Corinthians)
If you are a follower of Jesus, this is why baptism is an extremely important step.
It's not necessary in order to be saved, to be justified but it is something commanded by God as part of our journey of faith
As we go under the water we die to ourselves, becoming unified with Jesus in his death and burial, but as we rise out of the water we unified with him, in his resurrection, and it's not just symbolic, but there's actually something spiritual that happens where we are actually unifying with and therefore being identified by, the crucified and risen Jesus.
On
To put on Christ implies making his character, feelings and works our own.
One of the things that we struggle with in faith is that we say yes to Jesus, we raise our hand in church, we get baptized, we read the word, we're in life groups and serve teams.
We do all the things, but the person we see in the mirror still looks the same.
I placed my faith in Jesus, I have been justified but I don't see myself any differently
A lot of Christians get stuck in that days, weeks, months, and for some of us years and decades after we've made this proclamation of faith
We get stuck with who we see in the mirror.
It’s just the same Travis it’s always been.
Nothing's actually changed.
Are you even saved?
Try harder, work harder!
Legalism creeps in and we find ourselves working for our faith all over again. We took the initial faith steps, but we fail to identify properly.
Unfortunately we fall into the trap of enemy that wants to keep you locked in to your former identity.
Paul said in Galatians 2:19-20 “For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”
Regret for a sinful past will remain until we truly believe that for us in Christ that sinful past no longer exists. The man in Christ has only Christ’s past and that is perfect and acceptable to God. In Christ he died, in Christ he rose, and in Christ he is seated within the circle of God’s favored ones. He is no longer angry with himself because he is no longer self-regarding, but Christ-regarding; hence there is no place for regret. (A. W. Tozer)
If I believe that I have been made righteous through faith in Jesus, and that when the when the heavenly Father looks at me, he sees his perfect son, then when I look in the mirror as hard as it might be because I know my propensity to sin, I know that I have regrets.I need to honor what Jesus has done by looking in the mirror and not seeing my past, but rather I need to see myself as clothed and covered by his past.
I am overwhelmed by his life now in me, his blood, his spirit, his goodness, his righteousness, and its enough.
When I look in the mirror, my eyes see me, but my spirit says there is a man who is baptized and clothed into Christ, and no matter what my past is, or what my regrets were, I can stand here and I can see myself differently, I have to see myself differently.
Let me tell you from experience, that will change your walk of faith, it will change your life.
We can't be so self-regarding. I love that terminology by Tozer. Everything we look at needs to be regarding Jesus, even the person you see in the mirror.
16:00
3:28-29 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abrahams’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
There is neither
It's not that you are no longer a man or a woman.
Let's be very clear on that. but rather that Jew Greek slave free those things no longer divide us, those barriers do not prevent us from being one in Christ.
That's the beauty of the church summed. We are a people not unified by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, or by some other artificial distinction that culture, society, politicians, wants to create. Those walls in this church don't exist.
Can I just say that it is especially important as we are in an election season. Election day is coming, unknowns are ahead of us.
How we identify individually and corporately matters so much.
I may vote this way or that way, but my identity is not Republican Democrat libertarian, etc. but my identity is in Christ, nothing else can identify me.
Heirs
In a moment were going to see more “son” language, but notice who is considered an heir. Paul did not speak of “sons and daughters” because inheritance in that day was reserved for sons, not daughters. Paul was actually being very counter-cultural for his day. According to 3:28 the full rights of a son, including the full inheritance, are granted to all who belong to Christ, regardless of whether they are male or female.
So while the next verse uses “Son” language, he is not excluding women by any means. He is simply talking about the offer and benefits of sonship being offered to all who belong to Christ
13:00
4:4-5 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
To
Jesus was sent to Redeem us & to Offer Sonship
as
not for sons
The gospel doesn’t just declare us “justified,” nor does it only give us a new position, a new status, it gives us a new way to relate to God.
4:6-9 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
Strong language from Paul again. He's like, do you not understand that beyond justification there's so much more and yet you would so quickly turn back to the law, to the things that you were a slave to?
Because
you all have been given a position once reserved for only my Son, Jesus
Until we hold the position of “sons”, we can not relate to Him as Father
Crying
= A strong word, expressing deep emotion. The verb originally represents the sound of a croak or harsh scream.
This is a groaning, a longing for a father. It’s Jesus in the garden, crying out, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Lk 22:42.
I hope that after 4 weeks of Paul destroying the Judaizers theology, you have been able to let go of legalism. But if not, or if you have not been here the last four week, Paul gives the greatest argument against legalism.
10:00
Abba! Father!
“Abba” is only a little word, and yet contains everything... Even if I am oppressed with anguish and terror on every side, and seem to be forsaken and utterly cast away from your presence, yet am I your child, and you are my Father. For Christ’s sake: I am loved because of the Beloved. (Martin Luther)
It's not law, it's love.
Something we need to understand historically is that the people of God were awed and afraid and frightened at the idea of approaching God. We see this in the Old Testament, especially in Exodus that they would actually shield themselves from the presence of God, they wouldn't enter the presence of God. But you and I, because of our faith in Jesus, because we are unified to Christ in the way that Paul has explained, we actually get to approach God.
In Ephesians, he would write that we get to approach the throne with boldness and confidence because of our faith. But it's not just confidence and boldness. It's intimacy.
When we cry out, Abba, father, it's this closeness that is provided by the new covenant the old covenant could never provide. We can not earn this closeness.
And the Judaizers were missing it, just as many professing Christians today are missing it. They’ve got the religious routine down, but they have no intimacy with God.
Slaves not sons.
If you want to judge 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.
how can you turn back again
If grace has freed us and made us heirs and sons to God instead of aliens and enemies to him, is it not utter absurdity to willingly turn away from this grace?
Like the Galatians, we need to pray that God would make us aware of what He has done for us in Jesus so that we, in turn, will live accordingly and not return to the worthless principles of the world
Why do we find ourselves turning back? Guilt, Shame, Regret, Unworthiness, Pride, lack of understanding what God is truly offering, what Jesus truly provided for you and I, misunderstanding the fullness of the gospel?
3:00
Closing
Closing
The doctrine of justification makes us right before God the judge, but in the doctrine of adoption we are loved by God the Father
To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater
In justification, the picture is legal; we stand before a judge who makes a pronouncement. But in adoption, the judge not only declares you “Not guilty,” but He also gets up off the bench, comes down to where you are, takes your chains off of you, and He says, “Come home with Me as My son.”
In a much greater way, you and I have a God who says, “I love you.” And when we ask, “Why, God?” He answers, “Because you’re My son.” “But why?” “Because I wanted you,” He says, “and I came to get you.” Praise God that He sent His Son so that we might receive the position of sons.
Are you a son? I’m not asking whether you go to church, read your Bible, or raise your kids a certain way. But do you have intimacy with God as Father? This is what it means to be a son.
I am a Straight, White, 32yr old, Husband, Father, Pastor. I have pronouns and preferences. I have failed so many times in my life.
But my Identity is none of those things. Those may all describe WHAT I am or what I have done.
You want to know who I am? Crown and Cross on my neck, Because of the salvation work he did on the cross and because I have received his offer of adoption into sonship, I AM a SON OF THE KING.
Who are you?
Pray
Pray