Free in Christ - Week 2

Foster Care

Every once and a while I get up in front of you and give you an update about the foster care world.

How in the word does this fit into Pauls’ writing about the law?” don’t worry this is going to make sense in a few minutes.

What is foster care?

The simplest and most direct answer is that a foster home is a guardian for the child.

A guardian, according to the dictionary is: a noun for - a person who guards, protects, or preserves.

Under the Law it’s defined as - a person who is entrusted by law with the care of the person or property, or both, of another, as a minor or someone legally incapable of managing his or her own affairs.

A guardian is someone who protects either in a short term manner or in a more permanent way if need be.

Foster care is a form of guardianship for a child in need.

A child has been taken out of their home, for various reasons, and in all reality that child has become homeless.

Foster families say, we will become that home for that child as their family works through the reunification process.

The goal is always reunification.

Sometimes it doesn’t happen and this is where you have other families who might adopt that child in need because they can’t go home or they have lost their family.

Fostering is a temporary guardianship of a child. Usually 12-18 months depending on the situation.

As guardians, foster parents, are in charge of providing for the child’s needs.

Education

Health

Community Activities

Helping coach parents if there is a chance

Becoming family with the biological family

Foster Care is a system of guardianship

Foster parents are not the final authority but a mediator in the system.

We can take them to doctor appointments, but it is up to the parent or the state representative to ok vaccinations and changes in medical treatment.

Foster families can’t take a child out of state, like on a vacation or something, without seeking approval from those who are in authority.

Foster families can’t even take a child for a haircut without getting permission from the biological mom or dad first.

So, foster families are part of the guardian role, but they are not the final authority for that child in need.

From Faith to the Law

Paul is leading us through his argument about why the faith that Abraham displayed was the same faith that we need.

And in the process he has to transition us through the law to understand the full grace that we have received from Jesus Christ.

“Why the law then” found in verse 19. That is a great question for our time.

Is it all true for me?”

moral laws like what we see in the Ten Commandments.

ceremonial laws that gave direction on how you were to worship, the sacrifices to be made, and the foods to eat and not to eat.

civil laws that outlined the procedures for dealing with punishments for crimes commited in the community.

All of these laws came together to form The Law.

And so when Paul is talking about the law he is talking about the law that was given under Moses, the great prophet.

The Law

The law can’t bring life. It can’t bring salvation and it can’t bring righteousness before God.

Galatians 3:10–11 CSB

10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written, Everyone who does not do everything written in the book of the law is cursed. 11 Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith.

Paul is going to take their hand and lead them down a path so that he can say “the law was given so that we could get clarity about the sinful nature of our flesh, we are sinful to the core, and we are in need of salvation.”

Paul does something great here. He gives a quote in verse 10 right out of

Deuteronomy 27:26 CSB

26 ‘Anyone who does not put the words of this law into practice is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

Do you hear the finality in that. Everyone. And when the Scriptures mean everyone they mean everyone.

The law demands obedience, and perfect obedience at that.

Jesus says the same thing - “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”.

The law shows us that we can’t be perfect, because the law exposes our sin. The law doesn’t make us sinners, but it reveals the fact that we are sinners.

The Law Exposes Our Sin

Paul says in verses 10 and 11 “you want to know the purpose of the law?” “The purpose is to expose our sin.

Calvin’s words is “The law was given in order to make known transgressions obvious.”

Close your eyes and think about the people that you know. Do you think any of them are sinners. Be honest! Include ourselves in that list.

Well, the Law makes those things obvious, literally spells them out on paper, or stone tablets if you are Moses taking them down the mountain.

Children and Parents in home - Giving commands

The Law Intensifies Our Sin

Galatians 3:19 CSB

19 Why, then, was the law given? It was added for the sake of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise was made would come. The law was put into effect through angels by means of a mediator.

There’s a little bit of a debate here on what Paul actually means, but a good translation carries the idea that the law was added to “produce” transgressions. Paul says the same thing in his letter of Romans.

Romans 5:20 CSB

20 The law came along to multiply the trespass. But where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more

The law isn’t sin itself.

Romans 7:12 CSB

12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

Under the law, the reign of sin expands, and therefore it makes sin’s presence felt more clearly.

The law doesn’t make us better it actually makes our situation worse.

When we resist the law or don’t follow all the commands it shows that our hearts are growing farther and farther apart from the grace of God.

One commentator - “The law confronts man with his disobedience, his continual disobedience, and exposes his sin, even intensifying it.”

The law shows that we all deserve the wrath of God.

Martin Luther: “The principal point of the law is to make men not better but worse; that is to say it sheweth unto them their sin, that by the knowledge thereof they may be humbled, terrified, bruised and broken, and by this means may be driven to seek grace.”

We need grace, because we stand cursed beneath the law.

Do you feel discouraged or helpless after hearing that?

The point is we can’t get it right on our own.

Our sinful hearts will always turn away from God’s way.

Galatians 3:22 CSB

22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin’s power, so that the promise might be given on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe.

We allowed the law to take precedent over the promises that God had given to Abraham. They had seen the law and then moved into a mode that said we have to perform instead of looking to God in faith. But Paul says in verse 17 - The law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously established by God and thus cancel the promise.

Everything that God told to Abraham stands true.

Abraham’s covenant was based on blessing. “I will bless you. I will bless those who bless you. And all the peoples of the earth will be blessed by you.”

Those promises still stand.

In fact the blessing is going to come through Abraham’s seed, his offspring Jesus Christ.

Galatians 3:16 CSB

16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say “and to seeds,” as though referring to many, but referring to one, and to your seed, who is Christ.

What the law did was to act as a guardian until Jesus came.

Galatians 3:24 CSB

24 The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith.

Back to Fostering

The LAW acted like the foster care system.

something wrong in our family.

We were like a child floundering in a dying family and as children we couldn’t get ourselves out of the pit we had lived in.

Something needed to happen to allow us to thrive to actually live.

The law pointed out the sin and gave us a place to hang our hats.

It gave us a place of protection while we waited for salvation to present itself.

And in this case it showed us that we couldn’t go back to the old family that was only going to bring us death.

The law pointed to our future adoption.

NT Wright - “The Law was given to provide a quarantine for God’s people.

The medication the cure for our sin was on the way.

But until that could be administered the law quarantines God’s people from between the promises given to Abraham until the fulfillment and freedom found in those promises through Jesus Christ.

Galatians 3:24–26 CSB

24 The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith. 25 But since that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.

And we see Jesus woven through Paul’s who tapestry. The whole tapestry of the Scriptures.

The law showed us that we are under a curse,

Paul says that Christ became that curse for us. He stood in our place.

And in the same way that the promised Messiah was a blessing for God’s people Israel Christ is the full blessing promised to Abraham when he said this hope was going to be for the whole world.

Galatians 3:14 CSB

14 The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith.

The law brought imprisonment and intensified our understanding of sin

Jesus came as the freedom giver.

Through Jesus we are part of God’s family again. “for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.”

Galatians 3:26 CSB

26 for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.

Our Time in Foster Care is Done!

We no longer need the guardianship of the law because now we have a chance to be sons and daughters of God.

We have a new family.

How do we receive the promises of the new family? In the same way that Abraham did, through faith.

Sitting on the Mountains

Two of the mountains that Paul points out to us.

The promises of Abraham

The law given to Moses.

I mentioned last week that there were joys on being on each of these mountains, but there are also dangers.

The law shows us our sin.

One of the pitfalls - getting stuck in a “I’m not worth it, or I can’t do anything right” attitude.

Sin or no sin, we are still image bearers of our great creator God.

The purpose of the promises to Abraham and the Mosaic law was to walk us down a path that leads to salvation through Jesus Christ.

Next week we are going to see that we are heirs in God’s kingdom.

Down playing or neglecting our kingdom status - focused on our insecurities, or failures, the ways that we feel like we don’t measure up.

The law says, of course you don’t measure up

That’s why you need Jesus!

He is the one who has measured up on our behalf.

So a danger of sitting on the mountain of the law is getting focused on our sin and not our savior.

The law points out sin, and then focusing on the sins of others.

Jesus says be careful how you judge, he even goes so far as to say don’t judge other people, that’s God’s job.

One of the things that judging other people does is it takes our eyes off of our own life and our Savior.

As we struggle it is much easier, may I be so bold as to say, more therapeutic to look at all the ways other people don’t measure up.

You might have fallen into the category of law keeper if you’ve ever said or thought something like this:

Well, I might have my issues, but at least I’m not like them.

I can’t believe you did that. Or you are talking to someone else - I can’t believe they did that.

You deserve all the trouble in your life, because of those decisions that you made.

I don’t know if I could ever forgive them for what they did.

When they start living in a more biblical way, well then we can talk.

The law was meant to show us our need for a savior because we had no freedom.

The law shows us our separation.

And the law taken out of the context of grace further separates us from our brother and sisters.

The freedom we find through our Savior Jesus Christ gives us a life giving connection to God and his will as well as giving us what we need to build true and healthy relationships with our fellow brothers and sisters.

Let’s not get stuck on the mountain of the law taking it out of the context of the grace and promises that God has given to us.

Next week the week of Christmas we are going to look at the mountain of salvation that comes through Jesus.

Being sons and daughters of God,

Brothers and sisters of King Jesus.

There is freedom to grab hold of!