Participants: Mark Howard & Jim Howard
Series Code: GBOTB
Program Code: GBOTB00008B
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00:06 Welcome back to our study of the book of Galatians.
00:09 Before the break we were talking Pastor Mark about this idea 00:13 in Galatians Chapter 4 about the weak and beggarly elements. 00:18 - About observing the days and the months and seasons 00:20 and years. - that is right. 00:21 We just made the point that Paul wasn't opposed to observances of 00:26 religious ordinances as it were, but rather 00:29 the idea that these would serve as a servile relationship with 00:33 God, similar to how they had a relationship with 00:37 the idolatrous deities that they served 00:41 prior to becoming Christians. 00:42 We have observances today. 00:44 That's right and we talked about that, we observe 00:47 Communion, baptism, and even the apostle Paul wasn't 00:50 opposed to the observance of circumcision, because in 00:54 Acts 16:3, he talks about when he circumcised Timothy. 00:58 So the apostle Paul wasn't opposed to it, but he was 01:01 opposed to it when it served as a substitute for 01:04 obedience to God's will. 01:05 That's right, that's right and we are going to move 01:08 ahead and go into verses 4 and 5. 01:11 There is so much to cover, these two verses are another 01:15 two verses that encapsulate the Gospel message. 01:19 I would love to have more time to delve into them but we 01:23 moving into the idea of the slave or son and 01:26 we want to emphasize that. 01:28 We pick up here in verse 4 of Galatians 4 where it says, 01:31 "but when the fullest of the time had come, God sent 01:35 "forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 01:38 "to redeem those who were under the law, that we might 01:42 "receive the adoption as sons. " 01:44 We have a study coming up where we are going to talk more 01:46 about being under law and how scripturally to be under 01:49 the law, to seek the law as a means of justification. 01:52 Now Jesus we know didn't seek the law as means justification, 01:55 He didn't need to be justified, but for all who seek the 01:59 law as a means of justification. 02:00 You can't justify yourself by the law so they incur the 02:04 penalty and what Paul is trying to make a point here is 02:06 that Jesus incurred the penalty of all those who sought 02:09 the law for justification. 02:10 It's almost the same thing as he said earlier in 02:13 Galatians 3:13 where it says, "Christ has redeemed us 02:18 "from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. " 02:21 Here He was made under the law to redeem us through His 02:25 sacrifice by paying the penalty for our sins. 02:28 But notice what it goes on to say in verse 6, 02:31 I'm sorry Galatians 4:5, "to redeem those who were under 02:35 "the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. " 02:39 You know a lot of Christians look at the redemption aspect. 02:43 Oh I am forgiven of my sins, praise the Lord for that but 02:48 they haven't entered into the adoption. 02:50 that was the whole reason Jesus paid that price. 02:54 Amen, now this idea of sonship that he picks up very 02:58 strongly in verses 6 and 7 and this is at 03:01 the heart of this passage. 03:03 It says, "and because you are sons, God has set forth the 03:06 "Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, Abba 03:10 "Father! Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, 03:13 "and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. " 03:16 Why is it that they are no longer a slave but a son? 03:19 Because God has poured the Spirit into their hearts 03:22 that cries out Abba Father. 03:24 That word Abba is an intimate word for father. 03:27 We might see daddy or something that shows the affection. 03:29 It's a less formal term too, it's an affectionate term. 03:33 That's right and so this is helping us to see that when 03:36 we truly become a son, no longer do have a servile 03:40 relationship with God but we have a genuine affection 03:43 for God, we have an interest in the things of God. 03:46 Our hearts are melted by the love of Christ and there 03:49 is an interest in the things of Christ. 03:51 This contrast I think we ought to look at another verse. 03:54 It's in Romans chapter 8 and it contrasts nicely with, 03:59 I should say compares nicely with this passage in Romans 8 04:03 where it says in verse 15, "for you did not receive the 04:07 "spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the 04:11 "Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba father. " 04:15 So the idea again is not a fear relationship that 04:18 we have with God, it is not a servile relationship, 04:21 but rather it's an affectionate relationship. 04:24 We actually have a love for God. 04:26 We don't have a love for God and spiritual things, 04:29 we cannot be an heir. 04:31 This is a very critical point here, it says the Spirit 04:35 of God comes in to give us that bond of love, 04:38 and affection for God and Jesus said unless a 04:41 man is born again he shall not see the kingdom of God. 04:45 Unless we have this genuine hunger and interest for the 04:49 things of God, then we cannot see the kingdom of God. 04:53 And this is a problem with a lot of Christians. 04:57 They go to church, they have a formal experience but 05:02 they never really gained an interest or a hunger for 05:07 the Word of God, they never really sensed a drawing 05:12 power to the things of God. 05:14 You mention they go to church, but they go to church 05:18 late and leave early. - right! 05:20 In other words it's something that needs to be done, 05:22 like those weak and beggarly elements, but it is not 05:25 in the heart to do it. - that's right! 05:27 I think that this idea needs to speak 05:30 the heart of every Christian. 05:31 If that is where you are, if you do not have an interest 05:37 in the Bible but you go to church and they read the 05:40 Bible and you listen to it because you do it because 05:42 you think it's the right thing to do, but you don't 05:45 actually have that warmth of affection for Christ. 05:48 you don't actually have that warmth of affection that 05:50 desire and hunger for spiritual things. 05:52 Then you are in a servile relationship. 05:55 There needs to be a change from the servile relationship 05:58 to the sense were we can have intimate love for God 06:01 or we cry out Abba Father. 06:03 We know Jim, another thing here is that Paul speaks to 06:06 the Galatians as though they had that Abba Father 06:10 relationship and they had slipped back and maybe some 06:14 of our viewers who had at one time felt that warmth and that 06:18 love for the things of God but now have felt that 06:21 they have fallen away from that and their love has 06:24 grown cold for spiritual things and 06:25 they are just going through the motions. 06:27 This is why we are going over this topic. 06:29 God can restore in us, as David said 06:32 the joy of thy salvation. 06:34 There's a book called 'Steps to Christ' that I believe 06:38 hits right at the mark of how we can know if our 06:44 relationship of God is a servile relationship or a Son 06:47 relationship, with child relationship. 06:49 I want to read this quote if I could, it says, 06:53 "who has the heart, with whom are our thoughts? 06:57 "Of whom do we love to converse?" In other words in our 07:00 most comfortable situations do we like talking about 07:03 spiritual things? Do we like talking about the Bible? 07:06 Or is that something we only do at church? 07:07 And then it says, "who has our warmest affections and 07:11 "our best energies? If we are Christ's our thoughts are 07:16 "with Him and our sweetest thoughts are of Him. " 07:19 Absolutely, well you know Jim there is a parable that 07:23 Jesus told that illustrates this contrast between this 07:27 servile relationship and the relation of a servant and 07:31 the relation of a son. 07:32 It is in Luke chapter 15 and it is the parable of the 07:36 prodigal son, or the lost son as some Bibles say. 07:40 The prodigal is employed in many translations and most 07:43 people are familiar with that and that means wasteful. 07:46 What happens in the story and we don't have time to read 07:49 through the whole story here, but it is found in 07:51 Luke 15:11 and onward. 07:53 What happens is you have this son who the Bible says 07:57 a day comes when he decides that he wants the portion 08:02 of goods that comes to him. 08:03 In other words he wants his inheritance and he goes 08:06 to his father and asked him. 08:07 The Bible says the father divided his livelihood and 08:11 gives to his two sons, he has two of them, so he gives 08:14 the inheritance to his two sons and then it says 08:17 this son went away to a far country. 08:20 What that implies, maybe some people don't pick up on it, 08:24 he didn't say he took the inheritance and went 08:27 to a nearby town where he could be close to dad. 08:30 He went into afar way country, in other words what 08:33 we see a picture of it is a son who has become weary of 08:37 the restraint of his father's house. 08:39 Why do young people run away? - rules! 08:41 Well something happens, some bad happens, with the rules 08:45 are too tough, and I am out of here. 08:46 So this is what we see, the son runs away and he wastes 08:50 his possessions in prodigal wasteful living. 08:53 What happens is there are two things the Bible brings up 08:57 in the course of his experience. 08:58 Once he runs out of everything the Bible says he began 09:02 to be in want, he began to be in need. 09:05 What we are seeing here is a conversion process. 09:09 The son went away, that is us who ran away from our 09:12 Heavenly Father and now the son begins to realize 09:16 that his idea of what was going to be great in life 09:20 is it really panning out. 09:22 His ideas of freedom weren't really as free as he thought 09:24 they were going to be, 09:25 but he doesn't yet go back to his father, he decides 09:29 he is going to work things out himself. 09:30 That is how many of us do, we come under the conviction 09:33 of sin and think we are going to take care of the problem. 09:36 As time goes on the Bible says the young man is slopping 09:39 pigs, the Bible says he came to himself, 09:44 in other words this is the conversion, this is the ahh hah 09:47 moment, he came to himself and said you know my father's 09:50 servants are better off than this. 09:52 The son decides to go home to his father and when he goes 09:57 home the Bible tells us that while he was a long way off, 10:01 his father saw him and ran for him. 10:04 Now we don't have any idea how long the son was gone, 10:07 so that tells us that the father must have been looking 10:10 and watching day in and day out. 10:12 Jesus is trying to convey the love of our heavenly Father. 10:15 What is interesting Jim is the Father never ran after 10:18 the son, because it wouldn't have done any good 10:20 to bring the son back when it was in the son's heart 10:22 to serve the father. 10:24 But the dynamic thing we find is that when the son left 10:27 the home he wasn't even willing to live as a son in the 10:29 father's house and he had the attitude of a servant. 10:32 Dad has all these rules and it just wasn't in his heart. 10:36 When he comes back, now he is willing to be a servant 10:39 and he has this attitude of a son. 10:42 Wow that's powerful, powerful! 10:45 If you look at the story, his brother is not real happy 10:50 about him being back and he is living at home and he is 10:54 living as a son but he has the attitude of a servant. 10:58 - he's kept all the rules, but it is not in his heart. 11:01 I think something else that is really powerful about 11:04 that story is that when the son comes home, 11:09 the father comes out. 11:11 The son has a carefully planned speech that he is going 11:14 to give, I'm not worthy to be called your son and etc.. 11:17 The father cuts him off and says okay were having a 11:20 party my son that was gone has come back home. 11:22 What that teaches us is that God cares less about where 11:26 you have been then He cares about where you are going. 11:29 He was just concerned that he came home. 11:32 That is a powerful thought and it leads me back to 11:35 Galatians, because in Galatians 4:19 we see the heart of 11:43 a spiritual father in the apostle Paul. 11:46 He says to the church in Galatia, "my little children," 11:50 you see the affection he has, "my little children, for 11:54 "whom I labor and birth again until Christ is formed in 11:58 "you. " The apostle Paul is here saying I'm laboring 12:03 that I might be able to see that affection and sonship 12:08 once more in your hearts, to have the 12:10 real experience with Christ. 12:11 And it's such a powerful point they are, the apostle Paul 12:14 is longing for these Galatians to enter into a real 12:18 relationship with God were they recognize that He is 12:23 their Father and they entered to the Sonship. 12:25 So that servile attitude is being held of God. 12:28 I can relate and I know you can relate as a Pastor as 12:30 we see members in our own church that professed Christians 12:36 that are lacking that real passion for spiritual things. 12:41 They are just going through the motions and maybe 12:43 you are viewing at home, maybe you are saying that is 12:46 where I have been, how do I have that Sonship, 12:49 how do I have that real experience? 12:50 I just want to urge you to cry out to the Lord Jesus 12:54 and ask Him to renew your heart. 12:56 Sometimes we can do that and you say well it doesn't 12:59 seem like anything is happening. 13:00 Keep pressing your petitions to the throne of grace. 13:03 Jesus says He ever lives to make intercession for us so press 13:07 those petitions, cry out to Jesus and I tell you in the 13:10 whole name of the Lord He will answer you and renew you 13:14 as sons and daughters. |
Revised 2014-12-17