Sonship

Let's turn to Galatians chapter 4 continue on in our study of this great epistle about grace and faith and the spirit, what it is to grow as a Christian by grace through faith once we've become a Christian by grace through faith and Christ. We turn to the subject that many think is really the heart of this epistle, the main reason the driving force behind Paul's writing it, that may well be true. What is known in systematic theology is the doctrine of adoption, what has become known practically as the state of sonship that a believer or a new Christian has by the grace of God in Christ. One of the problems of the Christian life is that in the spiritual warfare that we face against the enemy that we are oftentimes prone to slip from our state of being the sons and daughters of God and slip back into a mentality and a behavior pattern like that of a slave. That is what was the threat that was being leveled at the saints there in Galatians by these ones known as the false brethren. We know them as the Judah Isres. They were coming along and saying well it's okay to be trusting in Christ so that you might be justified, but if you really want to grow on and grow and grow into be an acceptable person with God you have to add to Jesus Christ and your faith to law. And that of course is what Paul has come about. That's why he's talking so much about slavery and sonship and freedom and things like that. Look if you will at the beginning of chapter 5. He says it was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to Yoke of slavery. This was the problem that was confronting the people in Galatians. This Yoke of slavery that was being subtly but very definitively pushed back into their minds and hearts by these men from these false brethren. He calls them from James who came to spy out our liberty. Turn if you will back to chapter 3. Never remind you that Paul makes no doubt about it and we believe under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that he's a hundred percent accurate. When he says in chapter 3 verses 3 and chapter 2 excuse me verses 3, 4, and 5 not even Titus who was with me though he was a Greek was compelled to be circumcised but it was because of the false brethren who it sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus in order to bring us into bondage. So Paul sees the the spiritual freedom, the sonship, this joy and liberty and being the adopted children of God threatened by these Judeisers and what they taught and that is what he is combating. It's not just a problem here in Galatia. Seemed also to be a problem to the Colossians. If you'll turn there you'll find in chapter 2 that Paul says this in verse 20. If you had died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world why is if you were living in the world do you submit yourself to such degrees as do not handle do not taste do not touch which all refer to things destined to perish with the using in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men. The widespread spiritual problem wherever Paul went it seemed and he preached this liberating gospel of coming in to sonship to liberty with Jesus Christ that right on his heels were these men who once say oh yes but you have to add this to the gospel. Oh yes but you have to add this. I maintain rather than it's a problem today as much as licentious and libertarian it's antinomian as an age we live and we still struggle with the idea that our relationship to God can be freely predicated upon Jesus Christ and nothing else and there's always it seems to me an evangelical circus something more there's always some seminar something that ends with an ISM or an H-S-H-I-P or something that has to be tacked on to the back end of this wonderful doctrine of adoption or else we just don't feel secure and people who are all to convert it by grace through faith and Christ Jesus alone and therefore they're justified and those who are adopted often come in a short period of time to wonder whether it's just that easy whether there isn't some some system that they ought to be memorizing some theology they ought to be committed to some some set of rules and regulations some regulative principles perhaps that ought to be the driving force of that life so that if they did these things they'd really I mean really be acceptable to God let's face it we are by nature since where works oriented in our fallen state we are by nature even once converted we are performance oriented we talk even among ourselves about how we love our spouses and we love our children unconditionally but in in our human fallen state that's really not possible all of human love is conditioned upon performance and so for us the grasp the idea that God accepts us purely and completely and and sufficiently on the basis of what Christ has done is foreign to us and we struggle with this we are spiritually schizophrenic we want to by nature be justified as a gift that God's grace and then we want to be sanctified we want to be perfected and matured by the works of our own flesh by our own obedience our own efforts our own performance so Paul is attacking this because it lies at the at the heart of the greatest danger to the gospel of all the greatest danger to the gospel is never been and never will be pagan religions pagan religions fall like dominoes before the gospel of Jesus Christ the great danger to the gospel is always works righteousness it's due to it it's the old covenant being brought into the new so Paul a master in that old covenant a Pharisee a Pharisees a Jew of Jews he said one who was advancing in the law he tells us in chapters one and two attacks that problem with adentions and he said if we'll go back a few verses in chapter three that we once when we were in our pagan days are if we were Hebrews if we were Jews in the old covenant in the old testament time we were under tutors namely the law who were perfecting us and discipling us and teaching us to we matured into the faith that comes in Christ look what he says in chapter three beginning in verse 23 but before faith came we were kept in custody under the law being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed therefore the law has become our tutor that leads us to Christ that we may be justified by faith but now that faith has come we are no longer under a tutor for you were all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ there is neither June or Greek there is neither slave nor free man there is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus and if you belong to Christ then you are Abraham's offspring heirs according to the promise heirs according to the promise now there's the thought the the kernel of his teaching here remember he began in chapter three Kishleen theologically what it was to be a son of God he said it was to to receive the same promise that Abraham our promise our father received when God in the old testament preached the gospel beforehand in this promise that if we believe in the Messiah we will be brought into the community of the covenant we will be adopted by God and we will be given the inheritance of Abraham and all the spiritual children of God whether we are Jew or Gentile that's why he belabors the point about Jew and Gentile and slave and free man and male and female he says we're all we all have this one birthright if we've accepted Christ we are Abraham's offspring Abraham's children heirs according to the promise it is the promise in the gospel is being contrasted here with the works the performance that is in the law promise is synonymous with the gospel so when he says at the end of chapter three that we are heirs according to the promise he really is saying we are heirs according to the gospel and that is not as easy to say and it's difficult to protect to maintain especially those of us who are ministry I'm sure that Keith and Ruth and Earl are aware of this being on the foreign mission deal that seems to show its head there not more frequently but more obviously when we import into another culture things that are really cultural and we begin to pretend that they're gospel Earl just came back as you know recently from Mexico City and when we were visiting about how things were going you said you know the one of the few problems I saw down there is that they're trying to make Mexicans sing and worship like Americans so they got these Mexicans who have their own kind of music and their own kind of culture and they they teach them English hymns sung out of an American hymn played on a European organ and they tell them what that smile off your face your Presbyterian and your in church I mean it's that kind of you know that frozen chosen that's and it's all cultural and yet they're convinced many of them that that's the biblical way to worship it's easier to see on the mission field I ran into a lot of these things when I was in Malawi trying to tip around the issues and I'm afraid I made some of these issues worse than then I should have by bringing up things I shouldn't have brought up that there's all kinds of ideas that we have that aren't that this is the way the Christian lives this is the way the Christian worship this is the way the Christian conducts his family and really it's not the way Christians do it it's the way we do it here in America maybe good for us maybe the way we apply the scripted text but maybe not the way they do some of the place and some of the culture even though they are as we the sons and daughters of God so it's a difficult balance to maintain it's impossible I think in this life to keep the gospel completely pure but that is the challenge of all of us especially in this postmodern age to make sure that without compromising upon the demands for holiness that we maintain this message that if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ alone you will be saved and you will be a child of God by his adoptive graces that's what Paul is defending that's the case he's prosecuting and that's the illustration that he returns to time it again has he uses Greco-Roman legal terminology for what was called the laws of minority he began talking about that in chapter 3 verse 23 when he says but before faith came we were kept in custody under the law being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed therefore the laws become our tutor to lead us to Christ he speaks there as if the law is a Greco-Roman tutor custodian one who was called an epitropos keeper of a little one and sometimes pedagogas a teacher of children and the law was our tutor our gardener our personal instructor so to speak our mentor to lead us to Christ lead us to faith and he carries on that terminology in chapter 4 when he talks about what it is in the Greco-Roman Roman system of the Greco-Roman legal system to go from minority age to majority age to go from a child to a full full blown era possessing your own inheritance and spending it freely and he likens that spiritually to one who grows out of the old pagan religions if they're Galatian Christians or out of Old Testament Israel's worship and and liturgy and laws if they are Jewish Christian he's going to use a wonderful metaphor of Jewish and Greek and Roman law to illustrate this point for us it's important that we grasp this point I think in many ways the first seven verses of Galatians are some of the most important things for us to know and apply in our life let me tell you why before we pray and then we'll jump into the text when we are unconverted when we don't know God the enemy's main effort is to keep us from knowing the truth once we've come to know that truth once we've come to be in Christ and Christ in us the hope of glory there's absolutely nothing the devil can do to take us away from God so the next best thing you can do is to ruin our joy in the void he can't keep us out of the family of God he can't keep us away from our inheritance but he can keep us living as if we are not in the family of God as it were slaves of this household not able to get our hands on the riches of Christ and enjoy them in this life and in the one yet to come so this is a text that applies more to Christians than non-Christians the people who struggle the guilt and with security and with ideas of freedom and obligation and all these things we're going to need the Lord's wisdom to understand and apply it so let's pray and ask for that father we thank you for this text we thank you for our brother Paul we thank you for the Holy Spirit who's our perfect teacher we ask for the spirit to take these words of Paul and this text and said before us these truths of sonship of adoption and of our freedom in Jesus Christ and in your spiritual family guard our languages we preach and guard our hearts and minds as we study your word and help us to to love this word and cling to it and confidently apply it to our life for our sake and for Christ and his name we pray amen let's study there's a number of ways we could look at this test get kind of this text kind of unfolds chronologically we could we could look at the first three verses of chapter two and talk about the old testament the promise of God and the old testament if you look at verses four and five we're we're looking at the realization of that promise in the gospels and the life earthly life of the second person of the Trinity Jesus Christ and then if we went to verses six and seven we could look at the new testament age the age we live in and how the Holy Spirit comes to indelice and apply what the father promised and the son accomplished we could look at this thing in terms of chronology we could look at it in terms of theological themes but I think the best way to look at is a combination of all those things this is really the heart of his epistle Paul is bringing to conclusion all the preparatory things he said so far and setting the stage for his applications and verse eight to the end of this little epistle so this is the core of it for Paul says I want you to see that you're being adopted into the family of God is the ultimate the perfect the consummation of God's plan it's just everything God wants for you God is not interested in just saving individuals so they escape hell and one around disconnected in heaven happy as a lot he's interested in building a family a spiritual family just as his first son and daughter Adam Eve went off and left him divorced themselves from his heavenly family he wants to bring his people back to himself so adoption is ultimately the goal of God in salvation and so Paul brings this theory talks about the promise of our adoption the status of our adoption and the experience the enjoyment of it let's look at these things as they unfold chronologically and logically in this text first of all I talked about the promise of our sonship in verses one two and three now I say as long as the air was a child he does not differ at all from a slave although he is the owner of everything but he is under guardians and manages until the date sent by the father so also we while we were children were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world he says three things about us when we now want you to notice he says when we were children he is including and this is important if you miss this Galatians doesn't make any sense many people miss this and so Galatians doesn't make sense to them the we includes Paul who is a Jew and the Galatians who were not the we includes Paul and the false brethren the Judaizers born weird growing up in Judaism and the Gentile Galatians who had come to faith and Christ through him we'll see why that's important in a few moments he says three things about us before we came to know Christ we were in eternity past we believe part of God's elect those who have faith in Jesus Christ were before the foundation of the world Paul says in Ephesians chosen to be in Christ and his family so God was promising something to us in the ages past he says now I say as long as the air is a child that's the first thing he says about us before we came to know Christ we were errors but we were in minority as the Greeks and Romans would say we were errors to what the father had bequeathed to us but we were a child we were a little one little in Greek one who is not a legal age to make his own decisions now I say as long as the air is a child he does not differ at all from the slave although he is the owner of everything but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father now one of those guardians and managers is the law our tutor that leads us to Christ what Paul is doing here in a subtle way is he's showing us as we looked at last we get that guardianship that heads your protection that wall of sanctity that the that the law put around us was perverted and so the custodian ship of the law became the slavery of legalism the law which was our guardian our tutor became through our perversions of it our master and we were enslaved to it but he has here in this text someone other than the law in mind he has the whole old testament system and uses two different words to describe it he calls them guardians and managers look again now I say as long as the air is a child he does not differ at all from the slave although he is the owner of everything but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father now in Paul's world the world in which he wrote this these people have been much more familiar with these terms and we were according to the Grepto Roman system there were two people especially of the children of wealthy people and our God is wealthy he's the owner of everything the cattle and the pals meals everything belongs to him the universe is innocent pocket and he can give this to us and Christ which he does but these wealthy men and women in the Roman world they when their children of little hired so to speak to people usually they were slaves sometimes they were hired employees one was called the epitroclus we translate that the guardian or the custodian he was the ones who literally was what we would call the nurse mayor a woman for a girl a man for a boy and he took that little boy to school every day school was very strict met for about six hours usually 60 to 120 students in the classroom they sat on the floor with their knees tucked up under their chin with a stylus and a wax template on it the teacher sat on a rostrum at a table on a little platform above them and they drilled them in art and in literature and in music and poetry and in science and these epitrophos sat on benches around the science and back and if the child misbehaved if you got a bad mark if you didn't get the lesson then the epitrophos jerking up in the middle of the classroom and worn out kind of like when I went to school I like those Catholic nuns they were all epitrophoses everyone on that'd be truffle boy they wore me out in public and I deserved it and these felt this is not a tender idea these guardians were stiff and they were they were tough and oftentimes a phyllo and other writers say that these slaves they did not really love the children it was their duty they had more than to just take in the school they made sure they had a bath every day it combed their hair supervised their recreation pick their friends manage their birthday parties took them to the arena they wanted to go to the library wanted to go and you can imagine them in the growth man my age following some six or seven year old around who says I want I want it's a little bold after a while and so there was a resentment there there was a harshness and that epitrophoid those epitrophoid those managers those guardians those custodians they would guard him until the age of fourteen when someone else would take over this one was called the economists he was really more of what we would call a trustee was a businessman sometimes a professional banker or a barrister or a lawyer but often a slave usually a little bit more educated than the guardian of the custodian his job was not so much to supervise the personal conduct of the child but to manage his inheritance to make sure that what happened in the story of the particle sun did not happen too many times so he was the one who gave him his allowance made his investments managed his property he guarded and managed the boy or the girls inheritance until they reached the age of 25 or some other day older than that set by the father to when he legally in the presence of the father and at the registry downtown in the city signed all the inheritance over to the son who was now considered a legal man and he took responsibility for his own life look that is exactly what Paul is saying our old religions whether it was Old Testament Judaism or the paganism of these Greek speaking Galatians did for us spiritually look again now I say as long as the air is the child he does not differ at all from the slave although he is the owner of everything but he is under guardians and manners until the date set by the father he says that not only are we errors like that but he says we're no different than slaves although we're the owners of everything these children retreated it like slaves they ate with the slaves they worked with the slaves they were disciplined with the slaves that's why slavery in the Old Testament world in the world of Paul in the first century had a much different ring and and and feel to it than our modern slavery the children that these men grew up with that these girls grew up with became their personal friends they were like siblings until they reached the age of 14 and there was a radical break that took place then they no longer ate with the slaves they no longer played with them they began to be socialized to deal with their own laws in life their own class their own case system and their slave friends of their child who were left behind because these little childhood friends would eventually work for them someday and be the epitome boy the economy of their own children so there comes a time under the law he says we know although we're the owner of everything we know that we could get our hands on it if God would let us we have to live just like a slave just like someone who's not going to get it I think what Paul is saying is that there was it that grace was never absent from the Old Testament the gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham he says in chapter three the way of salvation was always there there was a sense in which in the Old Testament times both Israel and the world were not ready to handle on their own the riches of the gospel they would have squandered and we'll see why in a moment he says a third thing about them that they are slaves to elementary things look this is a key verse verse three so also we choose in Gentiles like we while we were children were held in bondage under the elemental things of the word world the word the word for elemental things is the word the stoic care it means literally first things or elementary principles it could mean three things in the Greek it meant first of all the elements that the Greeks believed everything was made out of four elements earth air fire and water or it can mean secondly the ABCs the elementary principles of any system of learning two plus two is four is part of the stoic care of arithmetic ABC D E is part of the stoic care of reading and writing there are rules and regulations that are principles that are primary and elementary that's why we call it elementary education that children before they reach the age of puberty have to learn in order to build other parts of learning on top of it they're the foundation of knowing all the things we know the kindergarten and first grade an elementary school of our education and Paul says that's what these things were these were elementary principles of religion there's also a way in which the Greeks use these to mean their gods phyllo says that that the Greeks worshiped earth and wind and fire and water and they gave them respectively the names Demeter, Poi Sidon, Hera and Hephanes and they had other gods they worship a whole pantheon of gods and goddesses and they referred to them all as they were teaching them to the children as the stoic care the elementary things about the spiritual life even in their pagan minds the Greeks believed that there were some elementary principles that their children had to learn that the gods were different from men they lived in a different place they thought differently they were superior to us they had rules and regulations to follow rituals to be engaged in rubrics to be observed and so was the old testament like that when Israel was under the mosaic and the biblical legislation it was in kindergarten so to speak in elementary school of religion it was learning the ABCs of holy living of regulative worship of upright moral character from the ten commandments and the biblical precepts and liturgy of the worship and the temple and the ternacle and the case law of Moses all these things Moses says these were the elementary principles that we had to learn so what Paul is really saying is this when we were growing up spiritually when the world was being prepared for the gospel when Israel was being prepared as the old testament church to receive the gospel and share it with the world we had to go through a stage of elementary education we had to learn either through Judaism or through paganism some elementary principles about our own simple nature about God about writing wrong that was holy enough or about worship and Paul seems to say this this is the thing that is so shocking to the Jews that if the Galatians who would once been under these pagan elementary idolatrous worship principles in life were to take their gospel and revert and put it back to Judaism it would be no different than going back to the elementary principles of their paganism you know why Paul was so unpopular with the judy I see judyizing sect of of the New Testament church because this is a strong statement Timothy George explains it in his commentary for the Galatian Christians to revert to the ceremonies of Judaism would be like a university graduate student taking up kindergarten lessons all over again after being liberated from the bondage of their former idolatry they were once more subjecting themselves as slaves of another ceremonial law one equally harsh and debilitating and equally as defective and giving them the inheritance of grace that's a strong statement put yourself in the place of Paul's family is for East and Syracuse Christians who for a time it seemed come on to a lot of the law as well as the gospel Paul says in effect all that you went through was for kindergarten kids you've outgrown Moses in the law and to the Jew that was shocking Ben witherington says it would appear that Paul's view was as follows there are elementary teachings that are found throughout the world and one form of these elementary teachings is the mosaic law Jews were under one form of these elementary laws and teachings while Gentiles were under another but both shared a common condition of being enslaved and under subjection because of these teachings for a Gentile Christian to submit to the mosaic law would be like going back under the elementary pagan teachings of the world which they left behind when they came to Christ God has even liberated Jewish Christians for under that law these basic teachings which were appropriate for God's people during the period of spiritual minority are not after this eschatological condition of knowing Christ appropriate for those in him therefore the Gentiles should not consent to submit to teachings which even Jewish Christians no longer were expected by their father to obey Paul is being a goodness geologist here I'm sure that those on the mission field one of the things that we've learned the hard way is we don't charge into some culture where the gospels never been and assume that people are totally irreligious they are not they have their own animistic folk religions and in those religions by the common grace of God the Paul talks about in Romans one and two there are elements that are true I mean it's never appropriate in any culture to murder or to lie or to come in adultery or to be sacrilegious to profane a holy object the holy day to give us the kick against the goads of the law and many times what missionaries have to do is learn those elementary principles and draw the analogy of their old way of living to the truth of Christ because these are just perversions of the real liberty in Christ real holiness real sonship and that's what Paul is doing these were such young naive brand new believers these collations are on the first mission field as we know and we studied in the first chapter these people hadn't been Christians for more than eight months before this attack game and Paul goes back to them and writes a letter to them and says look I know that it's a very natural thing for you to clean to some elementary system but the elementary system this is shocking the true of Judaism is no better now than the elementary system of your pagan mythology you have graduated to Christ you cannot go back you've got to grow up you've got your inheritance now the father set the date that you come of age and you you can't say old daddy listen it was so much easier under the old plan to go gas it was so much easier when the epitope point made all my decisions where the economist managed all my wealth you can't go back God is forcing you forward forcing you to grow the world has grown to this point we'll find out how in just a second the church has grown to this point and so do individual Christians we've grown to the point where the promise of sonship has become our status that's what he says in verses 4 and 5 and these wonderful verses that have to be the center of Paul's theology and his teaching here in Galatians but when the fullness of time came God sent forth his son born of a woman born under the law and order that he might redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons he talks now about the son with the capital S he talks about the fullness of time for this son remember that in verse 3 he said we were waiting until a time that's set by the father in verse 2 excuse me to receive this inheritance now this time set by the father is revealed it's the fullness of time in which the son of God comes to make the elect the children of God this first of all is the fullness of time for the son of God look what he says in the beginning of verse 4 again but when the fullness of time came God sent for his son this is how it reads literally in the Greek but when the maturity of time came God sent his son on a mission that's what he said God sent his son on a mission uses the verb form of the word of puzzle one that was sent on a mission he said to his only boy Jesus go get him don't come home with that and Christ invaded our world in his humanity cloaking his divinity the son of God came and it was the fullness of time Paul mean by that he means that in no time was the world more perfectly prepared to receive the gospel than around 4 BC now that's hard for us to realize but think with me for just a moment especially if you like history you like this when Jesus Christ came the following things that happened in the centuries preceding his birth Rome had conquered the known world all the way from Britain and the north to Sudan and the South from Spain to modern day India all under their empire and over this empire were four things cloaked as a great iron fist but really a hidden blessing from God the pox Romana the piece of Rome there were garrisons of Rome and so just all over the world to make it a safe place to travel and business and commerce and on missions there were Roman roads the the Appian way it went all the way from the center of Rome and if you look at ancient maps and I've been on these roads in Italy even to this day cars drive on they radiate out from that city that eternal city to all the ends of their empire people were able to have Roman citizenship like all which gave them free passage without any tariff into any place where Rome and dominion and there was a uniting religion the emperor worship of Rome that is subdued all the other religions and brought a great spiritual dissatisfaction into the hearts of most people in addition to that the Jews had because of their disobedience to God of the Old Testament been scattered all through the ancient world they were living in places in northern Europe down in the Mediterranean rim of North Africa they were in Spain they were all the way over to Persia and everywhere they were they did two things they built a synagogue and purchased a copy of something known as the Septuagint you see Greek was the international language everybody spoke Greek even little Hebrew boys and girls in Torah school learned Hebrew and they learned Greek and the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures were translated into the Greek known as the Septuagint you'll oftentimes see it in books elevated by the Roman numerals LXX which means 50 plus 10 plus 10 or 70 because the the folklore the stories is that 70 rabbis translated the books of the Old Testament in the Greek and they placed these Septuagints into their synagogues so that later on traveling on Roman roads with a Roman pass of citizenship speaking a language that everybody could understand Jewish apople would take the Greek Bible stand in the synagogue and to do in Gentile like would say what God has promised of old I now tell you it's come to fulfillment and in addition to that the Greek and the Roman mythological religion in all their philosophies were beginning to be more corrupt than ever and the vast majority of common people and many of the educated the elite no longer believed in their gods there was a great spiritual vacuum in their soul they knew that Caesar was not a God and they knew that all these half human and half divine immoral beings whose lives would put them to shame couldn't possibly be gods they were waiting for God in all through their neighborhoods and all of their cities and towns were these weird quirky little people known as the Jews who believed in one God that there were nice people the world was ready and from the time that the son of God came to the time when Europe and the Near East and North Africa was Christianized was a total of three hundred and thirty three years this is going to shock you but the gospel spread quicker and more effectively permeating all the levels of culture and society in the first three centuries then it could spread today with all of our internet all of our international communications and their national travel it was the perfect time for God to visit men that's what Paul says look at that wonderful verse again in the fullness of time God sent for his son he introduces to humanity to the human experiment is one man called it the son of God he's cloaked as the son of Mary he's said to be born of a woman and born under law he's born of a woman he's fully human as well as fully divine more importantly that Paul was pointing to here is he's born under the law listen to me this is important Jesus is born under these elementary principles Jesus grows up in the old testament that he might put it to bed for good he introduces graduate school to the children in spiritual elementary school he keeps the law he's a full orthodox righteous Jew John Scott said he was God's son he was also born of a human mother so that he was human as well as divine the one and only God man he was born under the law that is of a Jewish mother into a Jewish nation subject to Jewish law and throughout his whole life he submitted to all the requirements of the law he succeeded were all the others before and sense had failed he perfectly fulfilled the righteousness of the law so that when he says to us let me tell you something everything that the law promised you is in me you don't need the law anymore all you need is me he knew from experience what he was talking about Christ is the fulfillment of the law he is our graduation into the fullness of God and sonship he also talks about the fullness of time of God's son David the Messiah he says in verse five in order that he might redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons the Redeemer is the son of David who is the son of Mary who is the son of God and he is the one who redeems us in a sense he is the one who is the time set by the Father for when Christ came he says you don't need these tutors and guardians anymore their job is over you don't need these managers and trustees anymore the riches of my inheritance and yours you have in me I have fulfilled all these elementary principles they will do you no good anymore you were qualified to come to God's house with me and I will introduce you to my father as my brothers and sisters and he will say to you because you're with him welcome into my family why Paul says if this fullness of time comes why would you want to go back and pretend like you're preparing all over again for status that's already been granted you in Christ time to not do that Paul said time to enjoy your sonship that's the last thing he said the promise of our sonship that's now become a status that we share in Christ becomes something do we experience in the Holy Spirit verses six and seven and because you are son God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts crying about father therefore you are no longer a slave but a son and if a son then an heir through God Paul says three things now about us in the first three verses he talked about the world and the second two verses about Christ now he talks about us because the God of this world who sent his son now sends his spirit to apply with the father's promise with the son is accomplished to apply to us these benefits of Christ called redemption he says first of all we are the adopted sons and daughters of God verse six and because you are sons God has sent forth the spirit of the son into our hearts crying about father there the adoption of the believers is accomplished by the Holy Spirit he sends the son into our hearts by sending the spirit of the son into our notice how the words son are used three times in this work and because you are sons God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts crying about father because you are sons God has sent the spirit of his son into your heart so that as his sons you might say to him daddy my father there's a there's a promise here what Paul develops in his theology of the Holy Spirit and other epistles of the sealing of the Holy Spirit where Paul says in Ephesians chapter one verses 13 and 14 in him you also after listening to the message of the truth the gospel of your salvation having so believed you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise the Holy Spirit is given as a seal a stamp a guarantee that our legal rights are inheritance as the sons of God cannot be revoked not even by the father that was the Roman law he also gives the Holy Spirit as a pledge he says who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of his glory he says and in second Corinthians God who prepared us for this very purpose gave to us the spirit as a pledge the Holy Spirit is earnest money he's a down payment he's a piece to be experienced now of the fullness that we will enjoy in eternity later and the many things we will grow into as we grow in the school of Christ called Christianity there's also a sense of familial affection intimacy as God is now not just that God out there but papa that's what I mean if the if the word that a little boy would use of his daddy only in his living room in his own house you never called your father Abba out in public only at home that's why Jesus shocks Judaism when he called God Abba my father and Paul says there's an intimacy that comes in knowing God with this Holy Spirit who is the spirit of adoption he says this in Romans for you have not received the spirit of slave relating to fear again but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons by which we cry out Abba father the spirit himself bears with us with our spirit that we are the children of God and if children heirs also heirs of God fellow heirs with Jesus Christ what Paul is saying is this in this elementary religion and this kindergarten of Christ we learned about the law we learned about God and we learned about what was good and bad and it was always written on some cold tabloid stone that was separated from us there was always this vast distance between us and God or the gods no more the God who is the father and our Abba our daddy now has come into our hearts and written these elementary principles no longer on tablets of stone but on the tablets of the human heart that's what Jeremiah promised to us and that's what Paul says has been fulfilled in Christ but this is the covenant which I will make with the House of Israel after these days declares the Lord I will put my law within them and on their hearts and I will write it and it will be and I will be there God they shall be my people and they shall not teach each other any more his neighbor and each man his brother saying let us know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember God it lives in our hearts now Paul says we have a right to call him the privacy of our own prayers in the fellowship of the saints in his home in his living room we have a right to call him Abba and to approach him with freedom with intimacy and with courage and comfort that means that we are no longer slaves therefore you are no longer slaves but a son he says slaves are full of fear but John says the perfect love cast out fear or fear involves punishment and in Christ we won't be punished therefore now no condemnation for those who are on Christ Jesus slaves are never sure of their status they never know when they're going to be sold to the next master when their family is going to be divided when children are taken away from them and given to someone else for a price sons know that mothers and daughters under the Roman system could never never disown them was not a legal possibility slaves are always wondering about the future in fact the future is pretty gloomy for a slave his tomorrow is going to be like today unless there's some kind of system of manumission where he or his children or his great-grandchildren can buy themselves out of slavery it's going to be the same thing forever but a son always looks to the future thinking with dad it just got to get better that's why John says this see how great a love the father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God in such we are for this reason the world does not know us because it did not know God beloved now we are the children of God and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be we know this that when he appears we will be just like him because we shall see him just as he is and everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he is pure sons have hope they have assurance they're comforted they're not full of fear and he says not only that but these these sons who are no longer slaves that outgrown that stage they are heirs with Christ and gone and if a son he says that in the heir through God that's one of the favorite legal metaphors legal pictures that Paul uses of the saints they are heirs with Christ it's it's a mind-boggling thing and we can't really even begin to explain it it's so deep but it simply means this listen to me that every single thing that God has given to Christ you share with him his kingdom his glory his intimacy with a father his fellowship with the spirit his dominion his throne his home in heaven that's why he said listen I'm only going to go away for a little while but don't worry I will come back again for in my father's house there are many rooms I go to prepare one for you and if I go to prepare one for you I will come again take you home with me listen to this wonderful phrase so that where I am there may be you always with me now brethren why would we want to throw all that away and go back to tutors and guardians and trustees and yet there's something about us that wants to do that I don't know why it is I just know what is there but I know this there are two applications that I make to this deck you have to make your own here's the first one I will continue you know as I get older I'm mellow out some I'm sure that Keith Newton said my goodness he's toned down since he was in search of it true it happens it's a sad thing to mellow out that it happens I think it's part of I think it's part of dying is emotionally die first you know you don't even get upset when the buck I lose anymore you just kind of say wow so what but listen the one thing I will not mellow out that is I will till the day I day fight against any tendency of anybody in any congregation I serve to introduce anything into the gospel that doesn't belong there and let you say well that's not a problem but oh it is a problem with us let me tell you that it is a problem with us there are people who are enamored with the law there are some people who are into something called sunshine sounds like a wonderful thing but they can take that too far there's a there's a tenuous narrow delicate balance that the law has to maintain it's not an easy thing to do and I know I know you like I know me there's a tendency for the human psyche to get enamored with movements with seminars there's always somebody coming down the pike I mean there's been a hundred of them since I've been converted just two decades ago saying now we've really now that we've really now discovered what Christianity is all about get into this and you'll never worry again and it's always it seems to me something to take away from the simplicity that once we belong to Christ we belong to God we are his children because we're siblings of his son it's just that that's as simple as I'm ever going to make it and that's as complicated as I hope to ever make it it's just that true I know there are a lot of things for us to learn but I'm telling you these little catchable people who couldn't spell relations they probably think it's a disease once they have Christ they have everything I've got everything and their brothers and we need to be careful with each other not to lay things on each other say unless you really have this now you haven't arrived yet you're not a spiritual that's law that's stoic here those are elementary kindergarten things introduced into this graduation we have in Christ here's the second application I don't know about you but I often have to guard my mind and heart because I have a tendency sometimes to slip into thinking not like a free son but like some orphaned slave so when things happen to me in my life that are not pleasant I have a tendency to say well maybe he doesn't love me maybe maybe there's something wrong here maybe maybe I don't have everything I have to have you do the same thing when we lose our joy when we become burdened when we have the tendency to be hard on ourselves and others will you come legalistic when there's this introspective spiritual naval gazing that makes us melancholy and burdened with our own spirit you know these things I listen to a child I've never had any of my children come to me never come to me at the age of six or seven and saying you know I'm not mature yet it's really bothering me I've never had him do that you know I've never had him do that I'm never one time Jim Barnes was the assistant pastor of first-president during church and in Joanna our oldest girl was about oh probably not about 13-14 months and all the children her age were walking in the nursery Joanna was crawling so I called Jim Barnes the house I said Jim I got a problem he said what I said I got a girl that's there's something wrong with it she won't walk he said you talked about Joanna that's the only child I had I said yes I'm talking about Joanna he said well Mike he said let me just tell you this I have never seen a 21-year-old crawling on all fours down some street in the city what I'm saying folks is our father Papa Abba he knows how to grow us up he knows what we need him and we need it and he's never going to stand before the world on judge would day and say I want to do that in Earl but I couldn't get him there he'll get Earl exactly where he wants Earl when it's the fullness of time for Earl to go home and he'll be the same to you to me and we need to worry less about what God is doing we need to rest more and our relationship with him rebel a little bit more in the council and we need to wipe that frown off our face and forget that we're Presbyterians for a minute and remember that we're the children of God so wonderful thing to be adopted by God it's a wonderful thing to be in the family of the spirit I think the most wonderful thing in human existence is to be able to look at Jesus Christ and call him brother and that's something that's so precious we always need to safeguard it all the time amen let's pray father we want to thank you for this wonderful truth that you know exactly what you're doing with your family you're growing them all up to be the perfect image of Christ in the fullness of time you've accomplished what you've had to accomplish for our sake and you're accomplish it now in our own time and there'll be a fullness of time for us when you take us home and we will be as pulsed head just like him now we want to grow and there are a lot of things we need to learn we're in school not kindergarten but we're still in the school of Christ but we don't want to go backwards and we don't want to become burdened with elementary things that are more bondage than they are liberating and we don't want to overemphasize what we are not but rejoice in what we are and we want you to help us live in grace not so that we're sloppy and and anti-nomean and that we have this chief idea of holiness know so that we're growing responsibly and wanting to grow in our Christ-likeness not to be right with you to be loved by