fun to him and worship now. Let's talk to him in prayer. Our Father, it is good to sing and to be able to sit here and to listen to beautiful voices as they lift up your majesty. We come into your presence today as your people on the first day of this week in order to get it right and straight in our hearts and minds who we are and who you are. We come here today, Father, recognizing you as the only God, the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And what a joy it is to be able to bow before you because no one, no thing in this world is worth our worship but you. We worship you because you are a God of grace and mercy, a God of kindness, a God who loved us so much that not only did he send his son into the world to tell us more about God but to die in our place, to give us something that we did not deserve, to withhold from us what we did deserve. Lord, we worship you today. We are glad we are your sons and daughters. We are glad for all that you have done in our lives. As we look back, we remember what we were like. We remember the days that we lived without reference to you when we didn't know what was going to happen next. We didn't know if anything good would happen. We remember when we didn't know truth and how everybody contributed something to us but we didn't know what was real. And so Father, we come to you because you are real because your word never changes because you are the God who loves us and more than we can ever imagine. Lord, we come and confess our sins today. You are holy and though we are forgiven, we still have fallen short of your glory. We've sinned this week. Some of us knew what was wrong but we did it anyway. Father, some of us just didn't know until after it was done but no matter, Lord, we confess our sins and we come humbly to you because of what Jesus did and asked for cleansing. And Father, we pray this morning that you would enable us Lord to see what you're doing in our lives. We thank you for what we have. We thank you for our families and our friends, our jobs, Lord our possessions. We thank you even for the trials that you give us because of how they shape us and mold us, how they show us that you are bigger than anything that could happen to us. Father, we thought we weren't going to make it through that last trial but we did because of your power. And so today, I pray that as we look into your Word, you would help us to get an insight and what it means to be adult believers, to understand grace and then to live it as adult members of grace, adult followers of grace. Open our eyes, open our hearts and teach us. Father, you know each person here and you know the burden on the heart and you know the joys as well. So Father, we meet in your presence at the foot of the cross. It's very level there. Father, none of us greater than the other. We gather here to be taught into worship. Receive the honor and the praise and the glory. And now Lord, as we, as we will in a minute, open our ears to your Word. We now open our wallets to your work. Father, we give because of what you gave that others could know as we pray in Jesus' name. Thank you, Doreen. That sets the stage perfectly for what we're going to be talking about this morning. So if you have your Bibles, we'll turn in them to Galatians 4. Galatians 4 will be looking together at verses 1 through 11 as we continue our study in Paul's letter to the Church of Galatians. You'll remember that Galatia was what we would call today Asia Minor, or Turkey. And so these churches were spread out over Asia Minor in what an area was called the Galatian region. So we continue our study. Galatians 4 verses 1 through 11. The Apostle Paul says under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave, although he is the owner of everything. But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the Father. So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order, that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father. Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. However, at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years, I fear for you that perhaps I have labored over you in vain. Today we continue our study of Paul's letter to the Galatians, and in this letter we have been studying grace. And I have had many of you come and tell me about what grace has meant to you, the more you have come to understand what our salvation is. Let me define grace briefly so that you have a clear understanding of what it is. Grace is simply receiving that which you and I don't deserve. Grace is unmarried its favor. Grace is anytime you get something that you didn't earn, that you couldn't have earned, that you didn't deserve it. And the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is that God sent his son when we didn't deserve him to come for us, and when we couldn't have done anything to earn his favor, Jesus died in our place. And by faith we're forgiven, we're accepted, we were made sons and daughters and reconciled to God. That is an amazing thing that God is not angry at you anymore. And that's what grace is all about. One of my favorite stories of grace is written, and I don't think he meant to write this, but Ernest Hemingway, years ago wrote a great story about a father who was alienated from his son. They were angry, and they were upset, and there was great distance between them. And so the father finally had come to his senses, and he wanted to reconcile, he wanted to get back into that close relationship with his son. But his son had gone off to the big city to Madrid, and he didn't know exactly where he was. And so he went to the city, and he took out an ad in the L liberal newspaper that said, Paco, meet me at the hotel Montana, noon, Tuesday, all is forgiven. I love you. Papa. And you have to understand that in Spain, Paco is a very common name. And so when the father arrived in the square, there were 800 young men named Paco, who were seeking reconciliation with their fathers. Guys, I really believe that there are a lot of people today, even grown adults, who would love to be reconciled with their fathers, who would love to feel close to them, love, accepted by their fathers. But the problem is that the fathers don't know how to take that first step to move towards their children. Well, in the spiritual realm, things are the opposite. There are so many people who don't want anything to do with God, the father. They want to know him, they want to reconcile with him, they want anything to do with him, and yet in every way in our salvation, God, the father, has taken the first step toward us, toward reconciling with us. That's what grace is, not because we were good children, but because we were bad, but by faith in Christ, we are reconciled to the father. And so what Paul is saying to the Galatians in our text for today is he's saying this, you guys are fabulously wealthy. You are rich. You guys are so rich spiritually. You don't know who you are rich, and you're not living like you're rich. And so you need to live like you're rich in what you got in Christ. And you need to live your inheritance and never look back. That's what Paul is saying in our text for today. So what I want us to do is to take a look at this argument that he gives them about how they weren't really living as adult believers, as adult followers of grace. And I've got three points. I know that surprises you, but here we go. First of all, let's take a look at the life of the underage heir. He told them they were rich. Let's look at what it's like for the underage heir. Galatians 4 verses 1 through 3. Paul says, now I say as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave, although he's the owner of everything. But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father. So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. In these verses Paul says that the Galatians before they came to Christ, in a sense the Jews as they followed the law and tried to please God by keeping the law, were held in a bondage under the elemental things, the ABCs of spiritual realities. In a sense they were following the law and they were trying to please God, but it kept them in slavery because the law cannot enable you or me to obey God. The law can just tell us where we're wrong and what we got to do to get right. But the law in itself doesn't have any power. And so Paul was saying, listen, when you guys followed the law, the legalistic way of trying to please God, you weren't really getting any power. It was kind of like you were heirs of this great vast wealth. But you were child heirs, you were underage heirs. And you know the children of heirs are just like slaves. I mean they're told by babysitters and guardians what time to get up, what to wear, what time to get to school, what to learn, what not to do. You know you can have a fabulous wealth at your disposal in the sense that your parents own it and you can still be treated like a slave or a child. Paul says that's the way you guys were before you came to Christ. Underage heirs have this vast wealth at their disposal but they can't use it. And sometimes they get depressed. The pastor was disappointed that things weren't really happening in his church and so he asked one of his deacons. He said, what is wrong with our church? Is it ignorance or is it apathy in the deacon said, you know, frankly pastor, I don't know and I don't care. Sometimes our kids get that way when they feel like they're slaves. They get apathetic. They feel like, oh just if your kids ever treat giving you that I'm just a slave around this place. You're just going to do all this work. Well slaves really, really sometimes become very apathetic but Paul says, listen, that's the way you were before Christ. That's the way an underage heir is. Now he goes on and he said, let's talk about what it was like when you received your inheritance in Christ. And so that's the second point. Note not only the life of the underage heir but notice receiving your inheritance, Galatians 4, verse 4. He says, but when the fullest of the time came God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law in order that we might redeem those who are under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons and daughters. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, father, therefore you are no longer a slave but a son and of a son than an heir through God. Paul is packing a whole lot of theology into these verses. And we don't have time to unpack all of it. But basically his point is that when the time was absolutely right, Jesus came. I would love to give you historical panorama and give you 100 reasons why it was the perfect time when Jesus came. I don't know if I'd be right. I can tell you there are some tantalizing bits of fact that help us understand that when Jesus came it was the perfect time. For instance, there was a great deal of despair in that first century. A great number of people felt empty inside because the old religions had left them down. Have you ever watched Hercules or Xena, Warrior, Princess? I mean, I know some of you don't because you're more spiritual and others of us do because we like such high drama and quality. But listen, you remember all of that mythology, the Greek and the Roman mythology by the first century when Jesus came. Most of the culture of the people didn't buy into that anymore. They may still have gone to the temple and offered sacrifices but they didn't really believe that Zeus was going to help them. They were depressed. Greek philosophy. Ah, Socrates and Plato. It had not helped people become. I have a fuller life. And so a lot of people were in despair and they were looking for these mystery religions, all kinds of bizarre things. Religions were popping up all over. Sort of like what we might call the New Age movement that's happening in America today. There was emptiness and hunger. And Jesus came at that point. There was a belief that God was going to speak to them. He came. And he came in the fullness of time, born of a woman. He was God, but he was born of a woman untainted by the sin of man. He was born under the law to redeem us from the law. The bottom line is is that when Jesus came, we depaid for our sins so that we were taken out of bondage and the curse of the law and made sons and daughters. A missionary one time was in Hong Kong and as he walked through this busy street he went by a tattoo shop and looked in the window. And on a Sunday we're all kind of options about what motos you could have tattooed on your body. And one of the options was born to fail. And he was just aghast at that. And so he walked in and he said to the Chinese tattooist, he said, surely no one has that tattooed on their body. And he said, yes sir, they do. He said, how can that be? And the Chinese man said, before they tattoo on chest, they tattoo on mind.
Guys, before we came to Christ, we were in bondage, we couldn't please God. We couldn't do anything good. We were born to fail. And all the law said was see how bad you are. But in Christ he took all of our badness. In Christ the father took out his anger on his son and through faith in his son, we have been brought into the family. We are forgiven. We are now sons and daughters. And the point call is making is not that we are just sons and daughters. The point he's making is that we are adult sons and daughters. His point is because the Greek word is different. We're no longer children. We're adult children. And at adulthood that's when you get to use your inheritance. We've been working on wills and all that kind of stuff, not because I think I'm going to die. But you never know. And so we stipulate a time when our vast fortune will be distributed among our heirs. And there's a certain age in which they'll get it. And you need to know that's the way it is almost with all wills because you don't give along some to an immature child. But when they reach adulthood, then they can utilize their resources. And Paul says in verse five that Jesus redeemed us from under the curse of the law that we might receive the adoption. And so when you become a Christian, Paul is saying here's the point. You move into spiritual maturity. You are an adult child. God, use your inheritance. Recently a teacher garbage collector and lawyer wound up together at the pearly gates in Saint Peter informed them that of course they would have to answer one question before they were allowed in. And a Saint Peter first addressed the teacher and he said what was the name of that ship that crashed into the iceberg. They just made a movie out of it. Teachers said that's easy. Titanic said you're in. He next turned his attention to the garbage collector, but he wasn't sure he wanted somebody quite that smelly in the kingdom. So he decided that he would make it a little bit more difficult. He said, all right, how many died in in that accident? He said, that's easy. I just saw the movie about 1500 said you're in. He turned to the attorney and he said, he said name them. I've got permission, by the way, from the attorneys in this church to use such jokes in this setting. I love, I love pretty great jokes because they always make us realize that no one could ever get in to the kingdom of God by our works. We could never measure out. That's the point of the gospel that Jesus measured up for us. And as we have faith in him, we were adopted into the family. And adoption is a wonderful principle. And Christians ought to be excited about others who are adopting children. And we ought to be behind them and pray for them because adoption is such a Christian concept. All of you have been adopted into the family of God made children and made air. That's the good thing. Your father is very wealthy. You know that, don't you? And you are very wealthy in him and you are an adult. And Paul says act as an adult and use all of the resources that you have as a Christian spiritual adult. Live in grace, use grace because you are an air and don't act like a child anymore. But here's the problem. Here's the problem. Almost universally, the case is that once we are saved by grace through faith alone. And you guys got that doctrine down now, don't you? You understand we have been justified by grace through faith alone. You can say that in your sleep. But the reality is that even though we believe that for our salvation, something happens almost to all of us after a period of time. When we get around other Christians and hear enough legalistic finger pointing from pastors, we begin to think that we have got to start being good to get the father to accept us. We have a regression tendency. And that's what Paul said the Galatians were having. Take a look at verses 8 through 11. He says however at that time when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. But now that you have come to know God, I love this. This is a great line. But now that you have come to know God or rather to be known by God, after all we could never reach him. He had to come to us. We didn't want him. He wanted us. How is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you that perhaps I have labored over you in vain. Paul says listen, I've been with you guys. I've been teaching you the Bible, teaching you to live as adult children of grace. And here it is, you want to go back to kindergarten. You guys are in graduate school. And you want to go back to preschool. We have a great preschool here at Willough Creek Church. But listen, Paul says spiritually you're regressing all of us have that tendency. Did you get around enough Bible teaching and the Bible teaching will make you see that you don't measure up. And so you start thinking well I got to do all this stuff. I got to fulfill all these rules and regulations. I got to be here every time the church doors are open. I got to be good all the time. I got to tie. Well tied. But I got to do that so the Father will accept me. No. We get a whole list of rules and guidelines about what it means to get the Father to accept this. And we've missed the point we've regressed. And we've gone back to allowing ourselves to be in slavery over days. Well I got to be here in church on Sunday good God will strike me dead if I'm not. It's a step backward. And Paul says don't go there. Don't go back. Live as an adult air of grace, understanding that you've got all these resources. Don't regress. Now the question is how do we live as an adult air of grace. Let me give you two ways that help flush this out. It's one thing to say don't go back there and become a legalist. It's another to understand how we have to flush this out as adult airs of grace and there are two truths and they will change your life if you apply them to how you follow the grace of Christ. And the first one is an issue of identity. To live as an adult air of God by vaping Christ means that you are a person of nobility and substance. You are a person of nobility and substance in Christ and you're not a live like it. You ought to live like you're a person of nobility and substance. Some people say what does God do all day long. I'll tell you one thing he does. He thinks about you. Psalm 40 verse 5 many O Lord my God are the wonders which thou hast done and thy thoughts toward us. There is none to compare with thee. If I would declare and speak them they would be too numerous to camps. Good parents think about their kids. They think about how to shape their life. How to plan for their future. The father is thinking about you. Why? Because you're not a child anymore. Because you're his adult sons and daughters are faith in Christ and he's building your life and he wants you to live as though you have an inheritance. As though you know who you are. People may send the message every day that you are worth nothing. But in Christ you need to understand who you are. Live with an ability. One of the things I've always liked about Mother Teresa is that while she was alive and as she lived she lived with a quiet dignity all of her life. She could talk to presidents and write ministers and kings and yet her life was not defined by how she looked or by the resources she had. But because she was a daughter of the king and she knew it and it gave her poise and it gave her boldness and it gave her the ability to never feel intimidated or to never feel that there were too many beggars or lepers in the gutter and that she'd never be able to take care of. She'd never have that sense of despair neither do we. Because we need to understand our nobility, sons and daughters of the king. He's talking to a friend of mine who's a minister and he said that a man, a businessman, a high-power businessman, all of them said, I got to meet with you today, right now. All right, come in. So he came in and he burned a path in his carpet, pacing back and forth. And he said, what is the matter? He said, I'm depressed. He said, why are you depressed? I don't know, I'm depressed. And my mother just died. He said, well, that's understandable. And our parents died. It does lead to depression and ours. I understand that. He said, you don't understand. She was very, very sick and it was a good thing. I'm glad she's not suffering anymore. So I'm still depressed. He said, well, what else happening? I just sold my business. Well, you're in a transition time. That's an awful thing. You might not know what the future is going to hold. You sold your business. You don't know what's going to happen down there. You don't understand. This is a true story. I sold my business and made almost a billion dollars on the business. I'm not depressed about that, man. But I'm depressed. My friend looked at me and he said, could it be that you've been working all your life for all these things and you've got it and all of a sudden you realize that it doesn't matter. And he sunk down in the chair and said, yeah, that's it. It doesn't matter. That's nothing matters. But that you know who you are in Christ, who you are, that you are loved and that the father wants to work in your life, and that you are nobility, that you aren't nobody's. And if the resources of heaven are at your disposal, you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. But I'll tell you this, you'll have the power to deal with it. You'll get through because you're the sons and daughters of the king. And adult children of grace use the resources that are in the checkbook. And that's how they live. The second thing about adult children of grace is that they understand that they are sent people. The children of kings and queens have a different status in society and it'll always be that way. If you're nobility, you've got to live a different life. Much more is expected of you. Much more is entrusted to you and the children of the king have a particular burden to live that nobility out in the world. They're sent people. I love what Jesus said right after the resurrection. He said, as the father has sent me, you know this one. If the father has sent me, so send I, you are a sent person to this culture, to this world in which we live in. And the adult children of grace understand it because they understand it, they give it something so good they can't keep it in. They have to give it out. They have to be involved in telling other people. In fact, our identity is wrapped up in helping other people to come to know Christ. We got to remember that we're sent people and around will a creek. We talked a lot about how we are messengers, managers and ministers. Who are the ministers in this church? Raise your hand. Who are the managers? Raise your hand. We manage the three T's, time treasures and tell us that God has given us. But we're also all passengers. Wherever we are, you are sovereignly placed to tell the gospel of grace. The best way to do that is to live grace. It's to model grace so that then you can talk about grace. I was talking to one of the ladies in our choir the other day. She's telling me that she had begun to do this. In fact, this is where I got the idea for this point. She had begun to build relationship with some neighbor friends. I said, how take your son to church? She's done that. She's brought him here already. She's helped out whatever she can. She's learned it with some friends. She's tried to build relationships with. Sometimes she's just a small little thing of kindness for people. The reality is this. When you've received grace, you give grace, and when you give grace, you have the opportunity to talk about the person who gave you grace. All of a sudden, you're a messenger before you know it. Guys, I really believe that God is at a point of doing something wonderful in our church. The spirit is so good. The attitude is so wonderful here. I really believe that now is the time for us to begin to really not only think about grace and understand grace, but to model it with our neighbors and friends and people in our network and bring them, get them exposed to the support groups that we have, the youth ministries, the children's music, bring them to church. It's a time for us to talk about grace because we are sent people. And we have the opportunity as adult heirs to tell the message. Adult heirs also not only talk about the message, but they give to the message. They give for it. And this past week, you know session meetings, elder meetings are not always a lot of fun. But last session meeting was a blast because we were able to get our missions giving up to the 10% that we wanted it to be at for a long time. We're not getting it up to that 10% and looking beyond. We're moving beyond what we were. And now it's a great thing to be able to give so much more of planting churches, which is the primary way of reaching families for Christ. Bringing people whole families into an environment where they understand grace and those are the kind of churches that we want to start to the future. I want to tell you that sent people are excited about extending the message. My new hero is St. Patrick. And some of you are saying what? He was a Catholic. Everybody was a Catholic back then. But I want you to understand that he's my new hero. I read a book entitled How the Irish Saved Civilization. I thought when I first read that title, man, that's a little bit of an arrogant title. Come on, you got to be kidding. But you know the more I read, the more I agree. Patrick was a little Roman boy who was taken into slavery by the Irish. You need to understand any Irish here. All right. A big hand back there. People waving. You're probably getting to heaven because you're Irish. But at that point, about 400 little Patrick was taken into slavery and into Ireland. The Roman Empire never reached there. It was on the fringes. It never had got there. Ireland was wild and wooly. And Patrick was taken into slavery. He managed to escape and he got out and he came to Christian. But he'd been in slavery so long in Ireland. He didn't feel comfortable in the Roman Empire either. And the Roman Empire, by this time, was crumbling. The goss, the busy goss, the vandals were coming in and breaking into the borders of Rome. And Patrick became a Christian and he said, Ireland is where God has called me to be. So for the rest of his life, he went to Ireland and he brought people to Christ as he preached the gospel. And let me tell you this, in his lifetime, dramatically impacted the culture. So much so. That as the Roman Empire began to descend away from education and learning and knowledge, who was it that was propagating writing new books and copying the old ones? It was the Irish. Who was it that taught grammar? Who was it that kept learning alive, that planted monasteries, that helped the poor, that taught the gospel? It was the Irish all over the Roman Empire so that it could be said they kept Western civilization alive. But the main thing is they kept it alive with the gospel. Guys, we have the opportunity to do that. We're sent people. There's not a doubt in my mind that our culture is crumbling around us, that the seeds of decay have been sown long before even the 1960s. And we are in a decaying culture, but we have the opportunity to make a difference. William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education, said, we have become the kind of society that civilized countries used to send missionaries to and I believe he's right. We've sent people understand grace and because of grace they're motivated, they're not pulling away. Don't we ever dare pull away from our culture and say, God come and get me and wipe them out. Because we have been given to model grace that others could know. And if we keep that attitude as adult children of grace, we will live as sent people in the midst of the bad, but thankful for what we have in Christ. Attitude is everything. There was a sign and a coach shot in London, a coach shop in London that said, we have been in business 103 years, we have survived oppressions, wars, recessions and times of prosperity. We have been robbed, swindled, broken into, burned and generally frustrated. We have had prosperous times and lean times, we have faced bankruptcy, we have made good profits. We remain open because we wouldn't want to miss what happens next. Don't you miss what happens next? Because what God does through you, through people of grace, adult children of grace will change the world. We take it to heart. Father, we desire never to regress back, never to go back to the way it was when we thought we had to do right to be accepted. Father, keep the cross in front of us every day this week. And Lord, I pray that you would enable us to have joy of the inheritance that we have and to tap into it every day. And then Lord, I pray that you would allow the grace that we know to rub off on others. Open the doors, give us the opportunities so that others could come to see how wonderful you are as we have. And we'll give you the praise. As grace, he gets grace, he gets grace. And we pray this because of Jesus. This morning you would like someone to pray with you about a need that's in your life and you're ready to deal with it. Bob and Lou Wass are up here at the communion table and they'd love to pray with you. Maybe you don't know the grace of Christ yet and would like to meet him face to face to begin that relationship with the God who loves you. They would love to show you the way and pray with you this morning. And now may the amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ, the outrageous love of God the Father and the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit go with you this week as you remember his deep love and concern for you.