Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. This morning as we again continue with our sermon series on Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, we focus in on verses four through seven of chapter four, as we read them earlier in today’s epistle reading.
I certainly hope that none of you had to spend any of the holidays we recently celebrated, or those we are about to celebrate, alone. During the holidays (and I think this is especially true of Christmas and Easter), we look longingly forward to spending quality time with our loved ones, don’t we? Now sadly, there are a lot of people in this world who don't have a family. They don't have moms and dads or brothers and sisters. They don’t have aunts, uncles or cousins. They don’t even have friends. They don’t have a choice, but to spend all their holidays, alone. One blessing of belonging to a church is that you always do have a family. But an even greater blessing is that of belonging to The Church Universal because you are now part of the family of all believers. And today the apostle Paul wants you to remember that because you are a child of God, you indeed have a family And you are a Child of God ,first of all because God sent his Son to redeem you, and secondly because God sent his Spirit into your heart to lead you.
You know, whether we've ever thought about it before or not, we all know what it's like to be without a family. In fact, each of us was born without a family. “Now I can hear all your thoughts! How can that be” you ask? Well, what I mean is, we were all born as spiritual orphans. Now I can't fully describe the feelings of a real orphan to you, because I was not an orphan. However in my adult life, I've known some orphans, and they have told me how they felt. All too often, orphans feel alone, abandoned, unloved and unwanted. And to some degree, we can all relate to those feelings, can’t we? Haven’t we all at some point in our lives, also felt alone, abandoned, unloved, and unwanted. Here’s the thing. All of us are born as part of the human race. And especially in this culture, we grow up with a very high view of ourselves as members of that race. And we are taught at a very young age to be rugged, independent, self-fulfilling individuals, only to realize later on that we actually fail more than we succeed, and that we can't get along without the help of others. You see, the reality is, you and I were born as sinners. You and I were born as spiritual orphans – born with an unloving, unreliable "father-figure", named Satan. A father-figure that doesn’t live up to what he so enticingly promises.
So we all were at one time spiritual orphans, and therefore slaves. Slaves both to the Prince of this world, and slaves to our sinful nature. We yearned for someone to love us. And because of our slavery to sin and the devil (bondage, as Luther put it), we groped around in the darkness, unaware of a God who already loves us. You see, then we were truly slaves. Slaves to our own sinful minds. Slaves to the ideas of the world. And slaves to the devil. And they lied to us! They told us that God wouldn't love us unless we so impressed him that he couldn’t help but love us. So what did we then do? We set out in fear to do our best. Maybe we put on our very best clothes, and exhibited our very best behavior, and then prayed that God would be so impressed with us, that he would have to love us. We had no other choice, no other way. We were then in slavish bondage to sin. The harder we tried, the more alone we felt. And eventually, we came to realize that we could never do enough to impress God, so that he would then reward us by being our loving Father. We were indeed spiritual orphans. And left to ourselves, and our bondage in sin, we would have forever remained as spiritual orphans.
But here the words of Paul in our text. “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son…that we might have the full rights of sons." You see, while we were still chained to thoughts of impressing God, tied down to our failures, and just plain feeling sorry for ourselves, then God did a most amazing thing. God sent his Son to take our place under the law. We didn't even know that God was looking to adopt more children. Why would he? He already had the perfect son. But, for a reason we will never fully understand, God wanted more children. And he knew that no other child could ever live up to his standards of perfection. He knew that no child could ever impress him enough to earn his love. He knew that because of our inability to keep the law, we were put us under the law’s curse of death. And he knew that because of all that, there was only one way to adopt more children. God would have to send his own perfect son as a substitute, to suffer the fate of the law’s curse in our name.
Let’s continue listening to Paul. “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those who were under the law.” You see, in order to become our substitute, God's son had to become one of us. He couldn’t be a substitute for humans unless he himself first became human. So as a result, God's son was born of a woman. And so the Son of God became the Son of man. And that means that God's son also became an orphan. He was left to live on his own, dependent upon sinners. And Jesus learned first-hand what it meant to be an orphan when his own people rejected him, including some of his own family. And when his best friends deserted him, that night in the garden. And when his Father in heaven completely abandoned him to literally suffer hell on that cross. Yes, Jesus took our place, as an orphan.
And Jesus also took our place as a slave. Like all other men, the Son of man was born under the law. Just imagine the irony. The Son of God, the eternal second person of the Trinity, the one who both created the law and also gave the law to Moses, now lived under that very same law. And in order to make us children of God, our substitute had to do what we couldn’t do. Namely, keep that law perfectly. And friends, that's just what he did. Jesus did everything that we could never do. He loved his God, and his family and his friends, and his enemies, perfectly. He kept all of God's laws for us. By taking our place under the law, and keeping it perfectly for us, he redeemed us from the curse of that law. Because he fulfilled the requirements of the law for us perfectly, we don't have that impossible burden threatening our salvation. We don't have to worry about putting our eternal life in jeopardy, for all the times we failed to keep the law. Because of Christ, we can receive our Father’s forgiveness, put those times behind us, and move forward and serve him in joy, not fear. But most of all, we don't have to worry that God won't be our loving Father, because we aren't good enough.
Because God sent his son to take your place, you are a child of God. And because he declares you to be his child, you now have the full rights of an heir. You are wanted and loved. And God showed how much he loved you and wanted you by sending his son in the first place. And you are accepted. Because God's son took your place under the law, the Father, in his great love, now accepts you with open arms. And you now have a home. And your Father is waiting for just the right time to welcome you with open arms to that home. Then you will spend eternity not on your own as an orphan, but instead as a loved and accepted and welcomed child of God in heaven.
So we are all children of God, because God sent his Son to redeem us as his own. But now, Paul goes on to tell us that each of us will remain a child of God, because God also sent his Spirit, to lead us.
We are indeed children of God. (Let’s make that clear!) But sometimes it doesn’t feel good to be a child. Now why is that? Because children are always under some kind of authority. And as anyone who has ever raised, or is currently raising a teenager will tell you, they always feel that they are under too much authority. There always seem to be too many rules. They probably think that they are old enough to take care of themselves, and don't need those rules. In the verses just before our text Paul actually compares a child to a slave. He was talking about wills and inheritances. A child might be the heir to a multi-million dollar estate. But, the child cannot have that estate until the time set by the will. Until then the child is still under authority, just like a slave.
And because we are already now children of God, we are still under God’s authority. Now, why is that a good thing? Well first of all, we still live in a sinful world. And as such, we cannot avoid living with the consequences of sin. And this is a very hard lesson to learn in this individualistic, “I’ll do it my way” culture. No matter what we do, those consequences never seem to go away. We are always dealing with the same old problems, often ones of our own making. We have health problems. We have money worries. We have frustrations at work. We have arguments at home. We have friends that betray us. And then we have our own personal failures. Sometimes we just want out. We know about the heavenly estate that awaits us. And we want to be in heaven, but it's not time yet. We cannot receive our inheritance, until the Father gives it to us. And he will do so, just as he did in sending his Son, in the fullness of his own time.
Secondly, living under God’s authority is important because we still live under the authority of unbelief. Now what do I mean by that? Sometimes it's very hard for us to believe that we really are the children of God. In his commentary on these verses from Galatians, Martin Luther said that if we could ever fully appreciate what it means to be a child of God, we would rate the things of this world as mere pocket change. He said that we would then welcome death, so that we could finally receive our inheritance. He even said that if we perfectly believed we are children of God, we would literally die from the pure joy of it. But, we don't believe perfectly, do we? In fact, we often doubt. We tend to keep looking back at ourselves in the mirror, only to realize, again and again, that on our own merits, we don't deserve to be children of God.
But here Paul speaks up again. “Because we are [children of God]” he says, “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. And God sends the Spirit of his Son into our hearts to give us his good and precious gifts.
And His first gift is faith. The first job of the Holy Spirit is to create faith in the work of the Son. First, at our baptism, and then throughout our lives, by the Holy Word and in the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit shows us over and over how the Son took our place to make us God's child. And the Spirit continually works on our hearts so that we believe in the Son. He takes our eyes away from that mirror of self examination, and off of ourselves, and then directs them to the cross – the place where we stopped being orphans and first became his beloved sons and daughters, and inheritors of the kingdom. He helps us appreciate the fact that God loves us, not because of who we are or what we do, but solely because of his Son. And God first sent his son to redeem us because he loves. And now God sends his Spirit to lead us in faith, also because he loves us and because he wants us to believe it.
Now the Spirit also helps in still one more way. He prays for us. You see, because of our doubt and unbelief, we often do not know how to pray. We don't pray with the confidence that God loves us. We don't pray with faith in God's promises. We pray weak, wishful prayers. That is, if we pray at all. So the Holy Spirit cries out in our place. He cries out, Abba, which means father. The Spirit takes advantage of our status as God’s children. He takes our groans and cares and worries and gives them over to the one who loves us most. He prays in confidence and faith knowing that the Father always keeps his promises, especially for his beloved children.
Because God sent his Spirit, you can be sure that you are an adopted child of God. And the presence of the Spirit in your heart is your receipt of that promise. He is the official papers of the will that guarantee you of your status as an heir of God. The Spirit, who first created faith in your heart, assures you that one day you will receive your inheritance from the Father. The Spirit proves that you now have a reliable Father. One who promises to bring you his child home to heaven with him. And in the meantime he promises to provide for you and to protect you. He promises to make all things work out for your good. Your Father has never let you down, and you can believe with certainty that he never will.
Never again will you have to feel alone, abandoned, unloved or unwanted. Never again will you have to feel like an orphan or a slave. Never again will you have to spend another day without a family. God sent his Son to take your place and to redeem you. And God sent his Spirit to give you the gifts of faith and prayer. You are now, and will always be, a dearly loved child of God. And you inheritance is sure. Amen.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith unto life everlasting. Amen.