Sermon Tone Analysis

Bookmarks & Needs:

B:

Housekeeping Stuff & Announcements:

Welcome guests to the family gathering, introduce yourself.

Thank the band.

Invite guests to parlor after service.

Keith Buchanan’s sudden death on Friday.

Not sure on a service time this week.

We will do a OneCall from the church to let everyone know.

I would like to say a special thanks to all of the folks on our Safety & Security Ministry for all that they do week in and week out, and specifically for how hard the team worked over the past couple of weekends with the Aspire and REAL Women’s Conferences.

I want to mention something that our Children’s Ministry is starting that is very exciting.

On Wednesday nights this school year, from 6:30 to 7:30, our “Father’s GYM” program for boys will be themed “Mimicking Dad,” and will be a combined father/son Bible study and activity time.

The focus will be on fathers guiding their sons by example on a journey toward becoming godly young men.

There will be 6 lesson topics: Embarking, Clean Hearts, Standing Strong, Leading Lessons, Working Well, and Manhood Myths.

Each topic will be a six-week study.

Dads with boys, please prayerfully consider coming and being a part of this great focus.

We know it’s a school night, and that’s hard, but we believe it will be well worth it… not only for your sons, but also for our young men whose fathers cannot be there or for sons of single moms.

We want these boys to come as well.

There will be men who are willing and excited to step in on those Wednesday nights for those boys.

6:30 to 7:30, meet in the FLC.

We will initially meet in the gym at 6:30pm for some type of game/activity.

Then we will move to room 202 till 7:30pm.

We will initially meet in the gym at 6:30pm for some type of game/activity.

Then we will move to room 202 till 7:30pm.

For our young men whose fathers cannot be there or for our single moms with sons, please come too.

There will be men who are willing and excited to step in on those Wednesday nights for your sons.

We will initially meet in the gym at 6:30pm for some type of game/activity.

Then we will move to room 202 till 7:30pm.

On Sunday, October 20, following morning services, we will host a flu shot clinic for our church and school families, provided by Albertson’s Pharmacy.

This clinic is free of charge, and you don’t have to have health insurance to participate.

Shots will be available for all ages.

If you want to save some time and fill out the required form before that Sunday, you can get one from the counter in the church office.

Please note that the form mentions that pneumonia vaccines, but we will not be having pneumonia vaccines at this clinic.

On Wednesday, October 2, our church is hosting a lunch for students at the Christian Challenge at UNM (aka the BSU).

We are in need of some yummy desserts for that day.

If you can provide some, please bring them to the church office by 9 am on that Wednesday.

The college students thank you.

Mission New Mexico State Mission Offering thru September and October.

Goal is $8,000.

Received so far: $5,440.

Opening

For those able to do so, let’s stand as we read our focal passage today, :

Pray

This is our 10th message in our series called “Dear Church,” and we’re studying Paul’s letter to the churches of Galatia, which I believe to be the earliest of Paul’s writings.

This letter was written to a group of churches that were undergoing some “troubling” times according to chapter 1 of the letter, as some people had come in and had started trying to draw the believers away from a pure devotion to Jesus and into legalism: the belief that just having faith in Jesus isn’t enough to save, but that you had to work to earn it or to keep it in some ways.

Last week, we looked at the contrast that Paul made between the promised blessing to Abraham, and the law that had been given to Moses over 400 years later: that if the blessing to Abraham came through works, it wasn’t a promise, and if it was truly a promise, he couldn’t have earned it by working.

The fact is that it is in Jesus Christ that we see the total fulfillment of both the law and the promise: and through faith in Christ, we are set free.

And this is a beautiful truth that we have studied over several weeks: that the blessing of Abraham, justification (being made right with God), is given by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

And the doctrine of justification is absolutely central to the Christian faith.

Our sins—the things that we do that dishonor God, or the things God wants us to do that we fail to do—our sins destroy the relationship between us and Almighty God, who made us and loves us.

And without God graciously choosing to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to die in our place and take the punishment that we deserve for our sins, we could never be justified.

We cannot be good enough to earn it.

That’s why it has to be by grace.

That’s why it has to be through a promise.

That’s why it has to be through faith alone.

But in my studies this week, I came across an interesting quote in a book that I read a while back by J.I. Packer called Knowing God.

Packer said this:

…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 this the Gospel offers us before it offers us anything else. . . .

But this is not to say that justification is the highest blessing of the Gospel.

Adoption is higher, because of the richer relationship with God that it involves.

Packer goes on to say that the doctrine of justification makes us right before God the judge, but in the doctrine of adoption we are loved by God the Father.

In justification, the picture is legal; we stand before a judge who makes a pronouncement.

But in adoption, the judge not only declares us “not guilty,” but He also gets up off the bench, comes down to where we are, takes our chains off of us, and He says, “Come home with Me as My son.”

I’m not sure I completely agree with Mr. Packer’s position, but he makes a good point.

This is what we’re looking at today: the Christian doctrine of adoption.

I’m going to read verse 25 along with verse 26, as they form a sentence in the CSB.

gal 3:26-

In the CSB, this verse finishes the sentence from verse 25, however,

Paul had previously said (3:7) that those who have faith in Christ are the spiritual sons of Abraham, who had faith.

And since the blessing was promised to Abraham, then those who are his spiritual children will also inherit the blessing.

But here, he ups the ante quite a bit, saying that through faith, not only are we the spiritual sons of Abraham, but we are, in fact, sons of God in Christ.

This brings us to our first point:

Paul had previously said (3:7) that those who have faith in Christ are the spiritual sons of Abraham, who had faith.

And since the blessing was promised to Abraham, then those who are his spiritual children will also inherit the blessing.

But here, he ups the ante quite a bit, saying that through faith, not only are we the spiritual sons of Abraham, but we are, in fact, sons of God in Christ.

1) All who have faith in Christ are sons of God.

Does the fact that it says “sons” here bother some of us?

In the offendedness culture that we live in today, it’s almost like its on our radar to find things that upset us.

So we come to this word, “sons” and we declare chauvinism, or male privilege, or some other such thing.

Is Paul a chauvinist?

A misogynist? Just for fun, I’m going to leave this tension here for just a second.

Try not to let it distract you, because we have to deal with verse 27 before we can cover it well.

First off, Paul mentions baptism.

This is the only reference to baptism in Galatians.

romans 6:3-

So, Paul is not saying that baptism is necessary for salvation, however, he is saying that all those who were baptized had made a declaration of faith.

Baptism doesn’t save, but being baptized once you have been saved is that public declaration of your faith.

Again, he’s creating an image for the Galatians.

Paul says that those who were baptized into Christ have been “clothed with Christ.”

Here at Eastern Hills, when someone is baptized, we give them a t-shirt that says “Let the Future Begin!” on it.

This is kind of the picture that he’s drawing from for the Galatians.

In the Hebrew culture, when a Gentile became a convert to Judaism, they were expected to be baptized.

However, they performed baptism without any clothes at all.

After the baptismal candidate came up out of the water, they were given new clothes to put on.

When a Gen

Paul says that those who have been baptized (those who have faith) in Christ have been clothed with Christ, like a garment.

In other words, we are covered by Christ.

There is almost no personal property that you have that you keep closer to you than your clothes.

So it is with Christ.

Our clothes cover our nakedness (representative of shame in Genesis), as Christ covers our shame.