Galatians 4: Christ Adopts
Notes
Transcript
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Belonging is part of life
Belonging is part of life
Belonging is a nonnegotiable in life. We want it, we chase after it. We end up finding anything that we feel is worthwhile to belong to. We want to attach who we are to something else. WE look like family members, we look like spouses, we look like friends, we look like our dogs. We look like people we group up with
So we focus on belonging. We can’t help it.
Show pics dogs and owners
So the question this morning as we look into Galatians chapter 4 is “where do I fit?”
Last week we looked at the idea of being adopted as sons and daughters. That God has brought us in and brought us close. He is our home and our way home. Christ has given us the Spirit of God as a guarantee of our home and way home. And by the Spirit of God we are God’s children. We are adopted into a new family.
This week we are going to pick up that thread and look at what it means to be children of God and why it matters. We will see that we are always looking for a place of belonging because we were created to belong to God in community.
We will always want to find a place to belong and will likely experience some disruption until we do. Or sometimes we have things that we have attached ourselves to, that we have called home, that no longer work.
Maybe the club you belonged to ended. Or maybe a relationship ended. Or maybe you moved and stopped doing a hobby. Or maybe a spouse died or kids moved away. Your sense of belonging gets disrupted.
What happens when we can no longer see what we belong to?
What happens when we can no longer see what we belong to?
We want to be able to look at something and see yourself in it. You look at the church and you see your thumbprint in it. You see your ministry and area of service. You see your impact. You belong.
You see yourself in the places you live or see yourself in the things you do or in your work. But sometimes we look and it is hard to see ourselves in what is around us. This happened to us as a family when we moved here in 2016. As we got to know this area we would drive around and experience different areas and locations that were new to us.
But the strange thing was, that even though we were living here, we were experiencing things as tourists. We didn’t really belong here. We didn’t really see ourselves here.
When you live somewhere, you begin to create memories connected to places. Maybe you get a flat tire on Pleasant street and then every time you drive by there, the memory of that flat tire comes to mind. You see yourself there. You have a memory of yourself there.
But when we first moved here, we didn’t have any of that. We had no memories, no experiences tied to the area. It was all new. It took us time to see ourselves in this area.
And I wonder how many of us have a hard time seeing ourselves in our culture now. Maybe you don’t see yourself in the culture right now, maybe you don’t see yourself in the story that the culture is trying to tell. You don’t recognize it and don’t recognize yourself.
Maybe you don’t recognize politics right now. You see parts and pieces but don’t recognize the whole. You no longer see what had been familiar or see yourself in that
Everything we have used to identify with doesn’t seem to have the same glimmer.
Think about an area that used to be trustworthy, used to be reliable, and now you can’t see yourself in it anymore. For some people, many young people, this is the church! the church has represented something reliable that has become a struggle.
Some people are referring to this as a gray zone. Meaning that we are in the midst of a cultural shift and the things we have depended on we no longer can. We are in a strange time of world history. We recognize everything has changed and is changing. And the problem we are facing is that we don’t recognize the outcomes. We don’t know what things will look like.
This is why we are confused. We rely on things, we belong to things that have no answers to where we fit in. There is lots of loud answers to “what’s wrong.” But not a lot of response to “where do I fit?”
This is kind of the point that Paul is taking.
He is telling the church that they had been under something different. They had been under a form of protection that could for a time, keep them safe.
Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set. And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world.
But that they were still caught up under the “elementary principles” of the world. Meaning that they found their meaning, or their protection, or thier solutions to the problems they faced were found in what they could see. They looked no further than what was in front of them even if what was in front of them did not work.
I was out on a hike on the Pacific Crest trail and we were a couple days in on a week long hike. The third day we woke up to rain. And we just started to hike in it, we didn’t have another choice. But we got tired of it and found an evergreen and we stood under it for an hour or so. It didn’t completely stop the rain, it just kept us from getting drenched. But we were still dripping wet.
The groups or faith systems could not hold up. Judaism was not complete yet. The pagan religions were not complete yet. There was no answer to where do I fit?
That is kind of like this guardian that Paul is talking about. IT helps, it keeps the rain off. But it won’t protect you entirely. You will not get free. You will not stay dry. You look at it trying to find yourself, and you can’t.
Our own “elementary principles of the world” include whatever we have trusted to answer for us, “where do I fit?” It could be your bank account or your next purchase. It could be vacation a promotion. It could be a job or graduation. We all want these things to answer for us “where do I fit?”
That is the work of belonging. Asking people and groups and things to help us see ourselves. We ask them “where do I fit?” But every time something shifts it is hard to see ourselves in it.
The Good news is that we will always ask “where do I fit?” You will ask that question until the day you die or until the day you get an answer. The good news of Jesus is that He answers for us where it is we fit.
Because we don’t have to scrape all the stuff we do in order to find meaning or where we fit, we can look to the God who has already come to us. Who has already invited us in. Who, because He created us, has an answer to where we fit.
We Belong to God
We Belong to God
Paul says, here, we were stuck. There was nothing that could free us. But then.
But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
God, in the fullness of time, just at the right time, sent Christ so that we could be brought in and adopted, “as his very own children.” God calls us His own, telling us that we see ourselves in Him.
We are always looking to belong. We are always hoping for something that we can look at and see ourselves in. And this passage is saying, it’s right here. We have been running around endlessly asking people to see us, wanting people to invite us in. And Christ solves it by entering into our lives and by calling us His children.
When we consider the relational quality of the God of the universe, this is how He enters into relationship with us.
But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God,
We have a God who is relating to us in resonant ways. He has come to us, He is attempting to find connection with us.
Look at what we find in this chapter.
God shows up at the right time:
But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.
God sent his son born of a woman. Christ would be recognizable. We would know him we would see him. He would look like us.
But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.
He came for us,
God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
We are not just invited inside we are invited into family. Belonging means being invited in. We have been invited in by God.
God has made it so that there is nothing in the way, and that nothing can get in the way of God and humanity. We have no lesser definition than sons and daughters of God.
And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.
God is always doing a new thing in Christ. He has restarted all of creation, turning the chaos of sin into the order of redemption. And He does that through relationship.
We fundamentally relate to the world, even before we understand it and can subdivide it into meaning. (Rosa 34).
The only way we really know anything is through relationship. And we are constantly defining and redefining the kind of relationships we have with ourselves and with the world. And our relationships are based on how connected or resonant we feel to people and things, or how disconnected or isolated we feel to people and things.
When we are connected to people and things in the world, when we can see ourselves in them, those relationships are full of potential. They are resonant.
Have you ever resonated with someone? When you are together you somehow understand their perspective almost intuitively. When you are talking to them you are almost working together in the conversation to finish each other’s sentences. They tell a joke and you get the punchline before they do.
That is what it means to be connected to someone. what is means to be resonant with them.
God has come to connect with us. He has come to always be in a resonant relationship with us. It is one certified in the Holy Spirit, eternally unified in Him, but One filled with what could be.
And he also established what kind of relationship we would have. It’s important to know how God defines the relationship. He doesn’t define it through contract. He doesn’t define it through transaction. He doesn’t define it through proximity. He defines it through your family. God shows us what He is like so that we can remain in relationship with Him. He reveals what kind of God He is by calling us sons and daughters (Webster 26).
On your worst day, when you can’t find a place to belong to, a place that looks like you, Christ has invited you in. He is calling you to find your belonging in Him.
In Christ you are a son or daughter of God.
And by the Spirit that has been given to us we cry Abba. This word is a relational term that means people are familiar with the other person. It is not just a child calling God “father.” It is more like a pet name. Someone who would call their father Abba would feel comfortable because they would recognize the care and concern their father takes for them. It is a familiar term because by the Spirit we recognize that God cares for us. That he takes care of us.
If you recognize the closeness of God in your life, the closeness of belonging to Him, spend some time this week just crying out to the Father as Abba.
Maybe you are in great need. Cry out to the Father who is the Abba, who is committed to caring for you.
Maybe you have never been familiar with God. You’ve never known His care or concern for you. This is why Christ came. To show us how good God is and to restore that relationship that we cry out looking for. Trusting Christ for salvation leads you back to God, and gives you His Spirit that allows us to cry out Abba. Maybe you need to do that for the first time this morning.
Understand God has come close. His presence has come near. We recognize that God sustains us with His strength but parents us in His love. As we worship, welcome HIm as Abba.
Webster, John. Word and Church: Essays in Christian Dogmatics (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 27). (Function). Kindle Edition.
Soskice, Janet. Naming God: Addressing the Divine in Philosophy, Theology and Scripture. Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
