The Son Redeems

Sing We the Song of Emmanuel

WELCOME

Good morning family.

Hear the Word of the Lord from Isaiah 7:14...

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Most of us don’t have a hard time believing that God is above us. That He’s beyond us, outside of us, over us.

But the song we just sang and the Scripture we just read tell us a startling truth. That God the Son is with us.

That’s what Immanuel means, God with us.

In just a moment we’ll hear a reading from the text for today’s sermon in Galatians 4. Turn there now.

While you’re turning, 5 quick announcements:

1) Christmas in Boutopia, tonight from 3-6 PM

No TableTalk tonight

Directions in your bulletin

If (and only if) you’re especially concerned about large crowds due to Covid-19, please come between 3-4.

2) Christmas Eve service, 12/24 at 6PM

Great service to invite family and friends. We’ll sing a few well-known Christmas carols, hear a Gospel message and close with Silent Night by candlelight

Flyers at the blue flag

3) Bible Reading Plan for 2022

Available at the blue flag

4) Sunday School in 2022

Three new classes beginning January 2

A new Explore the Bible class taught by John Rogers & Bubba Jones

How to Grow taught by Jake Rogier

Church History taught by Sterling Tollison

If you’re not in a Sunday School class, but you’re interested in one of these or our other classes, go to the blue flag after the service

5) Fellowship Groups

Sign up at the blue flag or online

If you’re interested in leading, co-leading, or hosting a group in 2022, we’d like you to attend a volunteer luncheon on January 9 after AM worship

Please sign up at the blue flag

Now look in your Bibles at Galatians 4:4 as Richelle Rogier comes to read for us.

Scripture Reading (Galatians 4:4-7)

Prayer of Praise (Christ our Love), Richelle Rogier

Joy to the World!

Come Praise and Glorify

Prayer of Confession (Cliff Hall), Lust

He Leadeth Me, O Blessed Thought

NEW CITY CATECHISM #51

Of what advantage to us is Christ’s ascension?

Christ physically ascended on our behalf, just as he came down to earth physically on our account, and he is now advocating for us in the presence of his Father, preparing a place for us, and also sends us his Spirit.

PASTORAL PRAYER (John Rogers)

SERMON

One of the giants of the 18th century church was a man named Charles Wesley. Born in England on December 18, 1707, Charles was one of the leaders of what would eventually be called Methodism, alongside his brother John.

One of Charles’ greatest contributions to the Christian church was the 6,500 hymns he wrote including songs we still sing today like O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing, And Can It Be, Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus and Christ the Lord is Risen Today.

In the days before modern copyright laws, people would often change the words of a hymn before publishing it in a songbook, something which made Charles a bit cranky. He once wrote that people were “perfectly welcome to [reprint the hymns] provided they print them just as they are. But I desire they would not attempt to mend them, for they are really not able. None of them is able to mend either the sense or the verse.” [1]

Thankfully, not everybody listened to Charles. Consider the original words he wrote to a famous Christmas carol:

Hark how all the Welkin rings

"Glory to the King of Kings,

Welkin was an old word for heaven. But when Charles’ friend, another preacher named George Whitefield, read those lyrics he changed them to Hark! the Herald Angels sing.

We can thank Whitefield for his memorable contribution to Wesley’s hymn, but we have much to commend in what Wesley wrote.

Listen to the powerful words that Wesley wrote about God the Son:

Christ, by highest Heav'n ador'd,

Christ, the Everlasting Lord,

Late in Time behold him come,

Offspring of a Virgin's Womb.

Veil'd in Flesh, the Godhead see,

Hail th' Incarnate Deity!

Pleas'd as Man with Men t' appear

Jesus, our Immanuel here!

Mild he lays his Glory by,

Born—that Man no more may die,

Born—to raise the Sons of Earth,

Born—to give them Second Birth.

Come, Desire of Nations, come,

Fix in Us thy humble Home,

Rise, the Woman's Conqu'ring Seed,

Bruise in Us the Serpent's Head.

What’s perhaps even more surprising is that these words were written just one year after Wesley became a Christian.

Let’s contrast Wesley’s theology with the theology of many professing Christians in our country. Recently Lifeway Research published data from a survey about American beliefs about Jesus. [2] If you only consider the beliefs of professing Christians who attend church four times a month or more, the findings are troubling:

95% believe Jesus was born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago

98% believe Jesus is the Son of God the Father

So far, so good! But...

Only 63% believe that Jesus existed before He was born in Bethlehem.

Almost 2 out of 5 professing Christians who attend church four times a month are holding heretical beliefs about Jesus.

What about you?

How would you answer those questions? How certain are you of your answers? Could you defend your answers with Scriptures?

It doesn’t really matter if we sing “Christ by highest heav'n adored, Christ the everlasting Lord!,” if we don’t really believe that Jesus is in fact the everlasting Lord.

Turn to Galatians 4:4

Letter written by Paul to a group of churches in Galatia who were tempted to wander from the good news of the Gospel.

Throughout this letter, Paul clearly argues that we are saved and kept by the grace of God, not by our obedience to the law.

But in the passage we’ve been studying the past few weeks we learn that the grace of God that saves us is a Trinitarian grace.

So we’ve said repeatedly that you cannot rightly tell the Christmas story without the Trinity.

Last week we said you cannot rightly tell the story without God the Father who in love sends His Son.

This morning let’s explore the work of the Son who was sent by the Father to redeem sinners like you and me.

You cannot rightly tell the Christmas story without God the Son who is sent.

Galatians 4:4-7—“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. 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.”

Three questions:

Who was sent?

How was He sent?

Why was He sent?

WHO Was Sent?

v. 4—...God sent forth His Son...

The text is clear: Jesus is the Son of God. But what does that mean?

Years ago I was preaching at a church outside of Memphis, TN and I said something about Jesus being God and after the service someone tried to correct me. “Didn’t you mean that Jesus is the Son of God?” I said, “Yes, Jesus is the Son of God.” “Then He’s not God.” “Jesus is God. He’s the Second person of the Trinity.”

This person who had grown up in church had never once understood that when the Bible calls Jesus the Son of God it isn’t saying He’s lesser than God the Father, or that He’s not really God. Jesus is God the Son, the eternal second person of the Trinity who is coequal with both the Father and the Spirit.

How do you know?

Consider what Jesus said about Himself...

Jesus said He came down from heaven (John 6:32-35)

Many people claimed to have visited heaven and returned to write a NYT Bestseller.

But Jesus claimed something different. He claimed to be from there.

Jesus said He could forgive sin (Mark 2:5-7)

It’s one thing to forgive someone for a sin they commit against you. It’s quite another to forgive someone of all their sins.

Yet that’s exactly what Jesus claimed to be able to do.

Jesus said He would judge all people (John 5:22-23; Matthew 25:31-46)

2Pac famously sung, “Only God can judge me.” And in one sense that’s true. We can make preliminary judgments on earth, but only God can judge a person for eternity.

But Jesus claimed that He was the One who would make the final decision on Judgment Day.

Whether you believe He is God or not, you will one day face Jesus as your Judge.

Jesus said He Was God (John 8:48-59)

Once Jesus was debating Jews who accused Him of having a demon.

Jesus rebuked them and said that even Abraham knew who He was.

This was a powerful argument because Abraham was the father of the Jewish people and someone highly revered by every self-respecting Jew.

The problem was that Abraham had died almost 2000 years earlier.

So they said, “Come on bro! You’re not even 50! How can you say that you’ve seen Abraham!?!”

John 8:58—Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

Jesus doesn’t say “before Abraham was “I was,” implying age.

He says “I am,” implying eternal existence

Also Jesus is clearly identifying Himself as the God of the Old Testament...

Exodus 3:13-14—Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And He said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Jesus blessed those who worshiped Him (John 20:24-30)

When Thomas saw the resurrected Jesus, he fell to his knees and worshiped Jesus saying, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus doesn’t say, “take it easy!”

He encourages Thomas’ response by blessing all of you who believe that Jesus is God even though you’ve never seen Him.

The only right way to understand who the Father sends at Christmas is that Jesus is God, the second person of the Trinity.

C.S. Lewis—“I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” [3]

You cannot rightly tell the Christmas story without God the Son who is sent.

Who was sent? The second person of the Trinity, the Son of God Himself.

But it’s not enough to know who was sent. The Scriptures also tell us how.

HOW Was He Sent?

Usually how a gift is sent doesn’t affect your appreciation of the gift. But sometimes it can.

This time of year families are often sending packages filled with presents to each other. Most of the time it doesn’t matter how it’s sent. Whether you ship it FedEx or UPS or USPS (well, maybe not USPS) it really doesn’t matter all that much.

But if you’re deployed and you tell your wife and kids their presents are on the way, but then you ring the doorbell with their presents in your hand, it’s different.

The way you sent the gifts deepens their appreciation for the gift.

When the Father sends us His Son, how He sends Him should deepen our appreciation for Him.

Notice Two Truths:

He became human

v. 4—...born of woman...

When God sends His Son, He sends Him to be born as a human!!!

We’re so familiar with this truth that we don’t allow it to affect us as it should.

Let’s imagine that you have an aquarium at home with a handful of frogs. You notice one day that the frogs are a little out of sorts. They seem to have lost their appetite. They refuse to eat their food.

For some reason you’re particularly attached to these frogs, so you take them to some sort of frog vet to try to sort things out and they tell you there’s nothing wrong with them physically. But for whatever reason they simply refuse to eat. If this continues for an extended length of time, the frogs will die.

Let’s imagine that this frog vet is also some sort of magician. After all, frog vets aren’t in high demand so he learned magic on the side. He offers you a solution. He could send you into the aquarium so you can attempt to reason with your frogs, but there’s a catch, he says.

First, he can’t send you as a frog. You’ll have to go as an egg, transform into a tadpole, then a froglet and finally you’ll turn into a frog. This way you’ll have enough respect to try to convince your existing frogs to eat.

Second, there’s a considerable danger. Sometimes frogs eat tadpoles and froglets. The very action of trying to save your frogs may end up being the death of you.

Now how many of you would be willing to do such a thing? What kind of person in their right mind would give up their humanity and risk their life in order to save a handful of frogs?

I know it’s an absolutely ridiculous scenario, but that’s precisely the point! The difference between you and a frog is nothing compared to the difference between Jesus and humanity. After all, Jesus created both frogs and humans on the same day!

Yet Jesus left the glories of heaven to enter into this little aquarium called earth. He became an embryo, then a fetus, then a baby. And from the beginning, dying wasn’t just a potential risk. It was part of the plan. He was born to die so that we might be saved.

Christian, do you realize how much God loves you? So much that God the Son left everything to step onto this dusty globe wearing the garb of human flesh.

He loves you so much that, as Athanasius said, “He became what we are that He might make us what He is.”

When Jesus was sent He became human. But as part of the plan He also...

He became cursed

Remember last week we talked about you being “under the law” concerning Poquoson’s speed limits as long as you drive on our roads? But if you never drive here, you never have to worry about it!

By becoming a human, Jesus is choosing to submit Himself to the law of God. He’s willingly getting on the road and choosing to submit to the speed limit.

v. 4—...born under the law...

By being born a human, Jesus willingly subjected Himself to the law of God.

But it’s more than that. When you get on the road you’re under the law, which means you’re also subject to the law’s penalty. So if you speed you’re subject to get a ticket. But imagine that we live in a world where nobody gets away with speeding. Every infraction is tracked and penalized, no exceptions. Like Emporia, but worse!

Since God sees everything perfectly, He sees every time we disobey God’s law. Every infraction has been tracked, every infraction must be penalized.

Jesus of course never sinned! But He was born under the law so that He could accept the penalty for all our lawbreaking!

Galatians 3:13—“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”

Every sin you’ve ever committed will be punished in one of two places: either at the cross of Jesus or for eternity in hell.

Repent and believe the Gospel!

You cannot rightly tell the Christmas story without God the Son who is sent.

How was He sent? In human flesh, born under the law’s power and penalty.

WHY Was He Sent?

Some gifts require an explanation. If someone sends you deodorant or a weight loss book for Christmas, you’re going to want them to explain themselves.

The Christmas story is all about the Father sending His Son to be born a human so that He might bear the curse of the law in our place. BUT WHY?

Notice Two Reasons:

To redeem a people

v.5—“...to redeem those who were under the law...”

We explained this last week. We are slaves, held captive by the law of God because we have broken it and cannot possibly pay our penalty.

Jesus comes to pay the price we could not pay by dying the death we should have died.

O come, O come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.

Christian: it’s not helpful to people to minimize their sin to help them feel better about themselves, to feel accepted or loved. We need to know exactly what God says about sin because only then will we ever cry out for a Redeemer!

To adopt a family

v.5—“...so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

Nobody is a child of God naturally.

The BF&M 2000—God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.

Unbeliever: God is fatherly towards you, but He isn’t your Father until you come to faith in Christ

Jesus came to die so that we might be adopted into the family of God.

The point of the Father sending His Son is so that we might be in relationship with Him!!!

Rightly defining the Trinity isn’t enough. We must love the Trinity!

Jesus isn’t a recipe to get just right or you ruin the dish. He’s a person to love and relate to.

You cannot rightly tell the Christmas story without God the Son who is sent.

Why was He sent? To redeem fallen sinners and adopt them into God’s family.

George Whitefield changed Wesley’s hymn for the better.

But in just a moment we’re going to sing another popular Christmas carol that has been changed, I would argue for the worse.

It’s one of my favorite Christmas carols, O Come All Ye Faithful.

Originally written in Latin sometime in the 17th century, we’re not quite sure who wrote this beloved carol. But we know this, the earliest versions of this song have a verse that you might never have heard before. It’s been left out of many modern hymnals and most of the recordings you’ll hear on the radio.

True God of true God, light from light eternal

Lo, He shuns not the virgin's womb

Son of the Father, begotten not created

It’s taken directly from the Nicene Creed, which we’ve referenced several times over the past few weeks. Let’s quote from it again together before we sing.

We believe... in one Lord Jesus Christ,       the only Son of God,       begotten from the Father before all ages,            God from God,            Light from Light,            true God from true God,       begotten, not made;       of the same essence as the Father.       Through Him all things were made.       For us and for our salvation            He came down from heaven;            He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,            and was made human.            He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate;            He suffered and was buried.            The third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures.            He ascended to heaven            and is seated at the right hand of the Father.            He will come again with glory            to judge the living and the dead.            His kingdom will never end.

O Come All Ye Faithful

BENEDICTION (Romans 8:38-39), John Rogers