Posted on August 12, 2012 by Unknown

Sorry for the late post on this. This was a Sunday I was out of town, and as a real treat, here are the actual notes from Jim's sermon, courtesy of Pastor Jim.


“The Inheritance of the Gospel”  (Galatians 4:1-7)


Introduction

  1. A 76 year old Portuguese woman named Helena was totally astonished when she received a call out of the blue one January morning in 2007.  It turns out that she was receiving a significant inheritance from Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral de Camara.  The only problem was she didn’t know who he was.  “Every day you hear of pranks people play on old people,” Helena told a reporter to Sol, a weekly Portuguese newspaper.  We would not blame her at all for being skeptical because who leaves an inheritance to a complete stranger.  It turns out that Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral de Camara, a Portuguese aristocrat and a lifelong bachelor, died without any legal heirs.  Under Portuguese law, his estate would have reverted to the government.  In fact, people in Portugal do not usually make wills since the estate transfers very easily to the heirs specified under Portuguese law.  To ameliorate this problem, Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral de Camara, 13 years prior to his death, went to a local registry office and with 2 witnesses from that office selected 70 names at random from the local phone directory to name as the heirs of his estate.  No one was notified; the heirs had no knowledge of the man or his wishes before he died.  And yet, when the time came to execute the will, the 70 strangers, with no known relationship to Mr. Camara, inherited a sizable fortune.
  2. Doesn’t that seem a bit odd to us?  I cannot fathom the idea of giving my meager estate to people that I do know and have no relationship with.  Or how about this?  Would you give your estate not to complete strangers, but to avowed enemies?  Thankfully, I don’t have any enemies of my choosing, but I know that there are people in this world who hate and revile me.  I can’t imagine for a moment leaving my estate to them.  And yet, consider this:  This is exactly what God has done.  God has given his vast, glorious, eternal inheritance not to strangers, but to enemies who have hated and reviled him.  How does this happen?  Why did God do this?  This is the story of the gospel.  And it is Paul’s subject at hand today in Galatians 4:1-7.  As we have been looking at the gospel in the book of Galatians, we see this morning that Paul focuses in on one of the benefits of the gospel, the glorious inheritance that comes to those who have been changed by the gospel.
  3. Read Galatians 4:1-7.


Outline
  1. The gospel changes our relationship to God:  We are now CHILDREN of God.
    1. Introduction:  Because of the gospel, we have experienced a change in our spiritual condition (regeneration), a change in our status before God (justification), and a change in our relationship with God.  
      1. Paul, summarizing his point in 4:1-6, notes this radical transition succinctly, yet profoundly, in 4:7:  “So you are no longer a slave, but a son…”  
      2. Wow!  What a radical change in orientation and standing before God.  
      3. This is the essence of the gospel:  a radical, abrupt, and thorough change has taken place.  The good news is good news because God has rescued us from the horror and evil of our lot in life and has given us new life and a new destiny so thoroughly the opposite of what was once ours.  
      4. To sense something of the beauty and the wonder of what God has done, we must understand something of our state before he made us his children.  Paul identifies our situation outside of Christ as nothing but intolerable, oppressive, and hopeless slavery.
    2. What we were:  Slaves.
      1. In 4:1-3, Paul describes the situation for the Jew prior to the enacting of the gospel.  
        1. Though the Jews had the hope of God’s promise to Abraham, their situation was no better than slavery.  
        2. Paul uses an analogy from the Greek world to make his point.  
          1. A child could not inherit his father’s estate until he had reached a certain legal age (into early adulthood—age 25?).  
          2. Though he was destined to be the heir, he had no access to his inheritance.  
          3. His inheritance was placed in the trust of administrators and managers to ensure the inheritance’s safety until he reached the age of maturity when he could utilize it according to his own desires.  
          4. As a child, in all practical terms, he was no better than a slave who had no inheritance from which to draw.  
          5. All he had was the promise and the hope of an inheritance that would be his one day.  
          6. The promise, however, was practically worthless at that temporal moment in the economy of his day.  
        3. Like the child, the Jews had a great hope in the promise of Abraham that would be theirs, but it was entrusted to the law to manage that inheritance until the day of maturity, the day of Christ’s ministry, came.  For all practical purposes, though they had the promise to Abraham, they were slaves until the coming of Christ.  
      2. Paul says then in 4:3 that “In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.”  
        1. In 3:22-23, Paul previously made the point that the law imprisoned those who sought to live by it because the law could not make one righteous.  
          1. One would have to keep the whole code to be righteous, but the human condition makes that practically impossible.  
          2. By breaking the law, the curse of its consequences heaps upon us and we are helpless to avert the curse.  
        2. Now in 4:3, Paul’s point is that those who sought to follow the law as a means of self-righteousness perverted the purpose of the law.  In doing so, they enslaved themselves not merely to the law, but to the spiritual forces and powers of this world who used the perfect, holy, and good law of God to carry out their sinister purposes.  
          1. The phrase translated in the ESV as “the elementary principles of the world” (stoixei=a tou= ko/smou) has several possible interpretations.  
          2. It seems to me that the best way to understand this would be to follow the Revised Standard Version’s translation “the elemental spirits of the universe”.  
          3. The phrase often times in Greek literature refers to the physical elements that the ancients believed made up the world:  earth, air, fire, and water.  
          4. But behind these substances, the Greeks and Romans attributed the power of deity.  
          5. These gods and goddess exercised spiritual force and influence among the elements they had charge over.  
            1. People were thus held in subjection to their power.  
            2. Paul speaks in the Corinthian correspondence of demons and other forces of darkness as the true sources of idolatry.  
        3. To get back to the point, if this interpretation is correct, Paul says that the spiritual forces of darkness at work in pagan idolatry were also at work in the corruption of the law among the Jews.  
          1. As the Jews tried to find righteousness in the law, they more enslaved themselves to the spiritual forces of darkness that opposed the work and purposes of God.  
          2. In 4:9, Paul makes this part of his warning to the Galatians:  Why go back to observing the law, a way of life that subjects you to the slavery of the demonic powers of evil, a slavery that Christ has so graciously delivered you from.
      3. Application:  We need to let this reality sink in a little this morning.  
        1. First of all, if you are not a Christian, you need to realize that you are in slavery.  
          1. You may think that because you live in America, that because you enjoy a certain status in life, because you have the liberty to make your own choices that you possess true freedom.  
          2. You may think that I am an absolute lunatic to say that you are in slavery.  
          3. And yet, the biblical reality is that you are bound in the deepest, the most despairing, the most horrific slavery the universe has ever known.  
          4. The spiritual forces of darkness are your cruel masters.  They execute their bondage by enticing you with all kinds of foolish, sensual, temporal desires.  And you blindly follow their commands all the while thinking that you are enjoying your freedom.  
          5. My friend, this morning if this is you, wake up to the truth.  
            1. Realize your true condition and see that there is a new reality.  Don’t stay in your slavery.  
            2. Another master has purchased your freedom and can make you what he truly intended you to be.  
        2. For those of us who are Christians this morning, never forget where you came from.  
          1. Never forget the cruel oppression the forces of darkness wielded over you:  How they fooled you into thinking you were the center of the universe; how they fancied you into believing that you could be satisfied by delighting in the pleasures of this world; how they deluded you into thinking that you were spiritually all right.  
          2. Don’t forget this place because it only magnifies so much more the beautiful and abundant grace God has lavished upon you by coming to you and removing you from your slavery.  
          3. On the one hand, it should cause us to treasure Christ more deeply considering the great work he has done.  
          4. On the other hand, it should warn us that we should never, ever, ever go back to that place again, a point Paul will make in 4:9.
    3. What we now are:  Sons.  But if we were once slaves, if we are now united with Christ in faith, then we must realize that we are no longer slaves, but we are now children of God.  
      1. Our new identity as children of God is called by theologians the doctrine of adoption.  
        1. Adoption is an act of God whereby he makes us members of his family.  
        2. And that is what we are now—children who are now members of his family.  
        3. As slaves, we were children of different sort, “sons of wrath” and “children of disobedience” Paul says in Ephesians 2:1-3.  
        4. But now we are children of God.  Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17-19:  17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.  18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  
      2. As recipients of such a wonderful transformation, our relationship with God has been eternally altered.  He is now “Abba, Father” (4:6).  
        1. The word Abba is an Aramaic term meaning Father; however, it communicates a sense of endearment and intimacy, such that a young child might use to address their earthly father.  
        2. We ought not to understand it in an informal or casual sense, but understand that we have been drawn into such an intimate relationship with God that it parallels in a lesser degree the relationship Jesus had with the Father.  
        3. In Mark 14:36, as Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane sweating drops of blood the night before his crucifixion, he addresses the Father as Abba to make an impassioned plea, a plea that he can only make because of the unique nature of their relationship.  
        4. As children of God, we have been brought near to join with God in heights and depths of close communion with him.
    4. Paul once again describes how this new relationship has taken place—the gospel.  
      1. To a people confused about the gospel, Paul take the opportunity to explain it again.  
        1. In 4:3, Paul describes our condition of slavery to the elemental spirits of the universe, the spiritual forces of darkness that exert their influence to keep us in bondage.  
        2. But all this has changed:  4 “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as son.  
      2. How did our adoption become a reality?  
        1. Well, as in all things pertaining to matters of life, our adoption began with God.  
          1. We see that “when the fullness of time had come”, or in other words when God’s appointed plan intersected with the chronological time of history, God put the gospel into motion in the interest of our adoption.  
          2. At the exact right moment on God’s calendar, he sent forth his Son.  I want us to take away three observations from that phrase right there.  
            1. First, I want us to see the initiative of God in the gospel.  The gospel is God’s work from beginning to end.  The gospel was God’s idea, God’s desire, and God’s purpose.  He took the initiative and set everything into motion.  As slaves bound in darkness, we did not go looking for God; he came looking for us.  God is the subject of this great verse, and the process of adoption begins when he sends his Son to the world.  
            2. Second, I want us to see the adoption of slaves as children brought into a new relationship with him was his expressed purpose.  The word “sent forth” (e)kaposte/llw) implies mission.  God sent forth his son from heaven on a divine mission, a mission that would result in the adoption of slaves as children.  As we have seen in several places throughout this extraordinary epistle, the gospel has from the very beginning been God’s plan.  Now Paul relates that the time came when the plan intersected with reality and the time had come for the Father to deliberately send forth his Son.  
            3. Third, I want us to observe the incarnation of God.  
              1. God does not simply decree this to occur like a genie in a bottle.  He doesn’t wave a magic wand.  He doesn’t send a low level heavenly ambassador to procure our adoption.  
              2. He sends none other than the second person of the Godhead, the beloved Son of the Father.  
              3. Paul says that the Son of God was “born of woman”, meaning that he became a human being and dwelt among enslaved human beings.  
              4. He descended to become one of us, an important criterion for his ability to redeem us.  
              5. God sent his Son, Paul continues, to redeem those who were under the law.  
              6. Jesus was born under the law, meaning that he was born as a Jew.  
              7. And though he was the lawgiver, he subjected himself to the law in order to fulfill God’s original design for human beings.  
              8. He was perfectly obedient to all that God commanded and thus qualified himself to be our substitute.  
              9. Every other human being to live violates God’s law and thus pronounces on himself a curse.  
        2. But Jesus became cursed for our benefit so that we might be redeemed.  
          1. The practice of redemption comes from the Roman marketplace as slaves could be sold by their master’s at auction to a new owner.  
          2. In this analogy, God has redeemed us, or purchased us, for himself so that we might now be his people.  The price he paid, though, was not silver or gold; it was the price of his Son.  
          3. You see, God sent his Son to die as the purchase price for our redemption.  Jesus laid his life down as a sacrifice to pay the penalty that we were due for our sins.  And to show that God was satisfied with his sacrifice, he raised Jesus from the dead.  Now, because of what Christ has done, we are his.  And though we are his slaves now, he makes his slaves his children.
      3. How do we apply this work of redemption that God has performed through Christ?  
        1. Paul tells us when he introduced the idea of sonship in 3:25-26:  25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.  
        2. John 1:12-13 says something similar:  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.  
        3. When we truly believe, when we yield our life in submission to the one who gave himself for us, we are redeemed.  We are adopted.  We are saved.  
        4. And Paul says in 4:6 that God also sends the Spirit of his Son, the Holy Spirit, to bear witness in our hearts that God truly has adopted us, prompting us to cry “Abba, Father”.  What a great assurance of faith!
    5. Application:  
      1. My friends, if you are a Christian here today, please recognize what a great privilege God has bestowed upon us.  We are his children!  He is our Father!  
        1. We have the privilege and the joy to confidently approach our heavenly Father knowing that he not only will hear us, but that he will also act.  
        2. Our confidence ought not to be confused with arrogance or presumption, but God has gone to great lengths to bring us into his family.  
        3. He delights in us!  Zephaniah 3:17 states:  The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
        4. He desires to give us every good thing.  Jesus speaking at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:11:  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!  
        5. I do not want to be crass, but, believer, are you living in the fullness of your sonship?  Are you taking joy in your new relationship with God?  Are you asking him for the desires of your heart in prayer?  Are you crying out to him in the moments of your distress?  Live in this new reality that Christ shed his blood to make possible!  
      2. O unbeliever, I would beckon you to come into this new relationship with God.  Why do you remain in your slavery?  See what God makes available to you.  See what lengths God has gone to make adoption a reality for you.  Believe what Christ has done and submit your life to him in faith and you too will be a child of God.
    6. T/S:  Paul does not stop at making the point that we are now children of God, but he goes on to highlight what being a child means. Particularly, he wants us to know…

  1. Because we are children of God, we are also HEIRS of his promised blessing.
    1. Paul makes the implication very explicit in 3:29 and again in 4:7:  
      1. Galatians 3:29:  And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
      2. Galatians 4:7:  “So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”
      3. I want us to be very clear about the progression:  
        1. First, we were slaves.
        2. Then, we are united with Christ by faith.
        3. Then, we are sons.
        4. And now because we are sons, we are heirs.
    2. What does it mean to be an heir?  And what is our inheritance in Christ?  
      1. Paul draws on analogy from the cultural world of his day.  
        1. In Roman society, the eldest son was entitled to receive all of his father’s inheritance.  
          1. There was no equal inheritance among children or even a shared inheritance.  
          2. Daughters could not inherit.  
          3. Only the eldest male inherited and he received the totality of the estate.  
          4. So, inheritance was an exclusionary practice.  
        2. However, Paul shows that the inheritance that God gives is opened to all his children without exclusion.  
          1. In 3:28, Paul says:  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  
          2. Everyone who comes to the cross finds acceptance without distinction.  The normal human categories no longer apply with regard to salvation.  There is no merit in being a Jew or derision in being a Gentile.  There is no advantage in being wealthy just as there is no additional detriment in being impoverished.  Gender identity provides no benefit or disadvantage.  These attributes count for nothing.  
          3. Anyone who comes to Christ in faith may find salvation freely because Christ brings what is necessary to the act of redemption.  
          4. The Father has promised all that he has to the Son because of his faithfulness in procuring salvation for lost humanity.  
          5. Now that we come to Christ and are found in him as his body, all that belongs to Christ now belongs to us.  In other words, the inheritance of Christ has been opened up to us.  
          6. Paul says in Ephesians 1:11-12:  11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.  
          7. We could think of it this way:  the unique, beloved Son of God inherits all.  In him, we enjoy his inheritance as our own.
    3. Well, what then is our inheritance as the children of God?  
      1. We do not have time for an exhaustive study and in reality every blessing that comes to us from God in Christ is part of our inheritance.  
      2. But let me make a few brief observations of what we can hope in as our inheritance.  
        1. First, our inheritance is laid up for us with God in our eternal home.  
          1. 1 Peter 1:3-6 says:  3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials…  
          2. Though we may partially experience our inheritance now while we live in this present evil age, we know that our inheritance will be an eternal possession, a possession that is pure, lasting, and complete.  
        2. Second, we also know that our inheritance includes something of the condition of our bodies for all eternity.  
          1. In a passage parallel to ours, Paul relates our adoption to our inheritance regarding our eternal bodies in Romans 8:22-25:  22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?  25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.  
          2. So, we will receive new spiritual bodies specially designed for eternity as our inheritance.  And that’s something to truly be joyful about and expectant for.  
          3. In the last five (5) years that we have been with you, we have seen how some of your bodies have deteriorated.  Your bodies have been wracked by disease or debilitating pain.  But you know what?  You have an inheritance in Christ as his children in which pain and disease will never be a reality that you will ever experience again.  
        3. Third, we have an inheritance in which we will know all things fully.  
          1. Paul relates this reality through a metaphor in 1 Corinthians 13:9-12:  9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.  11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  
          2. What has been reserved as mystery for us here on earth will be opened up to us fully one day.  
        4. Fourth, we have an inheritance in which we will be present with God and see him face to face.  
          1. In 1 John 3:1-2, the apostle says:  1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.  The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  
        5. And finally, we have the inheritance of Christ himself as our eternal possession.  
          1. Jesus related something of this truth in two parables in Matthew 13:44-46:  44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up.  Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.  45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46 who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”  
          2. Now, we must realize that the treasure is purchased now in this life and experienced in this life.  But the treasure that becomes ours is eternally ours.  Christ is our treasure.  He is our eternal possession.
    4. Application:  This and so much more is our inheritance.  And it is ours for no other reason than we are the children of God.  
      1. Oh child of God, do you know what is yours in Christ?  Do you long for your inheritance in Christ?  Does the reality of your inheritance shape the way you live life in this present realm?  
        1. Oh friend, know your inheritance!  
        2. Praise God for your inheritance!  
        3. Seek and long for your inheritance!  
        4. Do not become so friendly with this world for it is passing away.  
      2. For those of you who are not Christians this morning, see all that Christ offers to you, if you will only take his Son.  Will you take the Son?  
        1. You may have despised him before.  
        2. You may have thought of him as weak and offensive.  
        3. But he is the most treasured possession you can gain in all eternity.  
        4. All the stuff you might pursue now in this life is mere rubbish compared to the glory of knowing Christ.  
        5. Count your life as nothing.  Count your possessions as nothing.  Count your dreams and your hopes and your visions as nothing.  Come claim the inheritance the Father has reserved for you.  Take his offer to redeem you from your slavery and receive his glorious sonship that comes with an inexpressible inheritance.


Conclusion
  1. John Newton, the author of the famed hymn “Amazing Grace”, kept the reality of his previous enslavement and his present sonship always before him.  His mother died at age 7 and by age 11 he set off to find his life as sailor.  He became involved, in his own words, “in the unspeakable atrocities of the African slave trade”.  When he was 23 years old, on March  10, 1748, his ship foundered in a terrible storm in the Atlantic Ocean and peril seemed imminent.  He cried out to God for mercy and God graciously granted it to him.  He was truly converted, and he never forgot how God had showed grace to him that night, a grace that he wrote about in the well-known hymn.  “He sought diligently to remember what he had previously been, and what God had done for him.  In order to imprint it on his memory, he had written in bold letters and fastened across the wall over the mantelpiece of his study the words of Deuteronomy 15:15:  You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you…”  Newton was no longer a slave, but a son and needed to be reminded of that to live properly before God during his days on earth.
  2. John Stott, in his commentary on Galatians has written:  “If we only remembered these things, what we once were and what we now are, we would have an increasing desire within us to live accordingly, to be what we are, namely sons of God set free by Christ” and in possession of a glorious and eternal inheritance reserved for us by the Father through Christ.
  3. If you are a child of God, praise God and keep that truth ever before you.  If you are not, look at what he offers to you and turn to Christ in repentance and faith.

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