Isn't that a beautiful sight?
Children are a gift of the Lord, and
blessed are those whose quiver is full of
them.
Sometimes we roll our eyes, right?
More?
Yes, more, Lord, more.
Thank you.
You may be seated.
I just felt like it's so important to
read the entire chapter over us.
It's just such an incredible passage in salvation
history from old to new, as we've been
saying that the new is in the old,
the new covenant is in the old covenant
concealed, and the old is in the new
revealed.
St. Augustine says this, and so let me
say that one more time.
The new is in the old concealed.
It's there, but we don't see it until
the coming of Jesus.
And then we see, we read the old
covenant completely through what we say Christologicalize, through
the eyes of Christ.
Those were types and shadows proclaiming what was
to come.
And that's what Paul is getting into in
this somewhat complex argument to the Galatians.
Paul has been making strong appeals that Torah,
that is, the first five books of the
old covenant, is subsequent and subordinate to Abraham's
covenant.
The larger program of God is revealed in
Abraham's covenant.
It's not revealed on Sinai.
The law is good.
The law reveals sin.
The law does many things that Paul will
talk about even in the book of Romans,
especially unpacks all of that.
But as we shall see, the law was
just a temporary arrangement.
It was a good thing, but it was
temporary.
Abraham's covenant supersedes the covenant made with Moses
on Sinai.
And so the larger program indeed is revealed
in Abraham's covenant, where one is included in
God's unfolding promise by what?
By faith.
Abraham was justified before the law.
Four hundred and thirty years before the law
was given, Abraham was justified, made righteous by
believing, by trusting what God called him to
do.
Now, why is this important?
Because the roots of our salvation are located
in the promise made to Abraham.
We saw last week in Galatians three, verse
eight, I quote it.
The scripture foresaw that God would justify the
Gentiles.
That means nations apart from the Jewish nation,
all the nations, all of us.
The scripture foresaw that God would justify the
nations by faith and announce the gospel.
This is why this is important and announce
the gospel in advance to Abraham.
God preached the gospel to Abraham.
What is that?
Here it is.
All nations will be blessed through you.
That's what Paul says.
What does that mean?
All nations will be blessed through you, Abraham,
through your seed, as we came to see
last week and through the one seed, not
the many seeds, the many seeds carried the
one seed that would eventually be conceived in
the womb of Mary through Jesus Christ.
Or let's say Yeshua Hamashiach.
Jesus is Joshua and his last name is
not Christ.
Christ means anointed one.
Right.
Jesus Christ, Jesus, the anointed one.
And that's just Greek for Hamashiach, which means
the Messiah, the anointed one.
Sometimes we need to kind of break our
thinking up sometimes when we just hear Jesus
Christ so much.
I mean, Jesus Christ is used in profanity
all the time, you know, but it's Jesus,
the anointed one.
Joshua, see that Old Testament reign in that
he's Joshua, the deliverer, Jesus Christ, the anointed
one.
And last week we looked at the power
of baptism superseding circumcision.
What we heard about this morning and through
baptism, male and female now have been incorporated
into Messiah, into Joshua and his body, the
one people of God.
There's not two covenants now.
There's one people of God, Jew and Gentile
made one through the seed of Joshua.
And it's without respect.
We saw this.
There's neither what?
Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male and
female.
That's saying that we're all made one and
have the same status in Jesus without respect
to privileges of one's race.
And oh, do we need to continue to
hear this?
You guys, it's not just about some ancient
Jew and Gentile war without respect to the
privileges of race, social class, slave or free,
but social class today.
Classism is just entrenched in the very fabric
of our fallen world, just like racism is
or gender.
You see, if you were a male, if
you were a Jewish male, one of the
things that you would pray is that, God,
I thank you that I'm not a Gentile
and that I'm not a woman.
Paul is playing on that prayer, that benediction,
and he's saying that baptism in Jesus Christ
obliterates that prayer.
It's invalid now.
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor
free, male and female in Jesus, according to
superiority.
There is no superiority in those distinctions.
All are one in the one human being
now, the new human being, Jesus Christ.
It's radical stuff, you guys, the implications of
this.
So I challenge some of you to begin
to work this out with us.
What does this look like for us in
Kansas City?
All of that will apply to how we
move forth in restoring the foundations of the
city in Jesus, serving the city in Jesus.
While these categories remain, I'm still a man.
You're still a woman, right?
He's not obliterating those categories.
He's obliterating those categories in terms of superiority.
He's not calling us androgynous.
He's saying that because you're a man, that
doesn't make you any better than a woman
before Jesus Christ coming into the one people
of God.
All are on equal footing as Abraham's children
and equal heirs, according to the promise.
That gets us into today in chapter four.
What's he talking about?
What I'm saying is this, that as long
as an heir is underage, he is no
different from a slave, although he owns the
whole estate.
When you're too young to inherit the estate,
he's equating that with what he's already called
the law as a pedagogue, a custodian, a
temporary au pair in a sense, keeping check
over Israel for the time being until Messiah
came forth.
The law was a temporary au pair, a
custodian, a pedagogue in the Roman household system.
A pedagogue was sort of an exalted slave,
so to speak, who would come in and
be paid to take care of the children
until they became a certain age where they
didn't need the pedagogue anymore.
He's equating that with the law and the
nation of Israel.
As long as Israel was a child, in
a sense, not ready to fully inherit what
God had promised, the law was given to
him, Israel in and those who would come
in to the nation of Israel through circumcision.
We saw that in Abraham in the passage
this morning.
He had lots of Gentile servants that he
brought in through circumcision.
Now, that really will test your commitment.
I don't know if I want to be
a part of the one people of God,
if that's what it's going to say.
I've already been through that trauma and I
don't remember it.
Right.
So I've been told.
Oh, yes.
Amen.
I got an amen somewhere there.
It was a guy, right?
All right.
And so verse two, the heir is subject
to guardians like that's the law.
The heir is subject to guardians and trustees
until the time set by his father.
OK, now he's saying that he's going to
say some radical stuff here.
He's going to say so also in verse
three, when we were under age talking about
the nation of Israel and he is a
part of that, we he's including himself.
When we were under age, we were in
slavery.
You're anticipating we're in slavery under the law.
But he's not going to say that right
now.
He's going to equate something with that.
He's going to use a Greek category of
the elementary principles of the world.
And we'll talk about what is that?
What in the world is he talking about?
So as long as when we were under
age, we were in slavery under the elementary
spiritual forces of the world, when the set
time had fully come, God sent his son.
OK, now let's back up elementary spiritual forces.
It's a real shocking statement that Paul is
making because he's talking about the period of
old creation.
About fallen creation, about the period where the
nation of Israel was still under the law,
it was like a pedagogue, a household slave
keeping the nation in check because they were
immature.
The nation of Israel was immature.
It had not fully grown into its fullness
of maturity that God had planned.
OK, so he's saying that.
And so because of that and because of
the time period to go back under the
law when Jesus has come to fulfill that,
it's like going back under a religious system,
living by principles.
And there's a lot of Christianity that's preached,
that's principle based.
Principle based Christianity is not the gospel, guys,
that is also living by wisdom and principles
apart from the person of Jesus Christ is
coming and pulling Christianity back under some kind
of rule and legalistic system that if you
do this, this will happen.
That's not Christianity.
Christianity.
That is not Christianity, that's not grace, you
see, and that's what Paul is going to
war with over this because they were Gentile
Christians, he evangelized them, they were full of
the Holy Spirit already, they were already sons
and daughters of God.
And then Judaizers are coming in, trying to
draw them back, saying you need one other
thing to be complete in Jesus.
We don't need anything else to be complete.
Oh, you need to pray this way or
you need this book or you need that
principle or you need to, you know, five
principles to a successful life.
You ever heard of that?
That can be helpful, but that's not gospel.
Elementary principles, what are those things?
Slavery under the elementary spiritual forces of the
cosmos, the Greek categories that Paul's pulling out,
speaking to Gentiles, and they were sort of
like the the building blocks of the universe
in the Greek mentality, the elements of air,
earth, fire, water.
But it also came to include religious and
philosophical systems that we import now into Christianity.
He's saying that life in Christ is not
based in principles.
But a person.
Do you want a principle or do you
want a person?
Do you want something to fulfill or do
you want someone to know who is a
redeemer, who is a deliverer, who is one
who is eternal principles come and go, but
the Lord remains forever, the risen Lord Jesus
Christ.
If you study world religions and you'll see
karma, the principle of karma in Hinduism and
Buddhism.
That's a great example of something under the
elementary principles of the world, most of the
world lives this way, you guys.
Most of the world lives under the domination
of karma.
Just by sheer population.
What is karma?
Where one's fate is held captive to the
sum of the way I live out my
life and I get plenty of chances to
a Buddhist to be born again, again, again,
again.
You've got to keep doing it and doing
it and doing it until you get it
right.
That's slavery, where one's fate is held captive
to the sum of one's actions in this
and previous states, I mean, you know, if
you don't get it as a human being,
you may come back as a slug and
have to start all over again up the
food chain.
Count me out, please count me out.
But here's the radical thing.
Paul is so bold as to place Torah.
Under that age, that age of religion instead
of relationship.
Christianity is not a religion, you guys.
Academically, they'll call it one of the great
religions of the world.
Christianity comes and trumps all religions, for Jesus
says, I am the way, the truth, the
life.
And there's been ways, there's been truths.
There's been certain principles that have been good
in all the systems under the stoichia is
the elementary principles of the world.
And Torah is included in that, the law
of Moses.
But it's no longer valid now.
Because the one has come who has fulfilled
Torah, he didn't come to abolish the law,
but to fill it.
And he did in his life, death, resurrection
and ascension.
And he is our great high priest now.
And he didn't leave us as orphans, but
he sent the Holy Spirit to us to
animate us now.
And so you say, well, a lot of
the things you do in the Anglican Church
looks really religious to me.
It's because you're not reading our hearts.
You don't know how devoted we are when
we bow for the cross.
I'm worshiping the one true God when I
bow for the cross, it's not religion to
me, it's not form, it's reality.
It's reality, all of these are symbols that
point to the greater reality and we're worshiping
the greater reality through the symbols.
And so in placing Torah under the elementary
principles of the world, Paul is saying that
you need to be set free.
There's there's something happening here.
And he's going to start using Exodus language
back in the Old Testament.
He's drawing on the language of Exodus, the
Exodus from Egyptian slavery to proclaim a new
exodus, a new Moses.
When Moses and Elijah show up on the
Mount of Transfiguration, it says in Luke's account
that he's talking to them about his exodus
departure.
It's translated departure, but the Greek word is
exodus.
He's talking to them about a new exodus
in his atoning blood on the cross.
Christ, our Passover, he's passing over from death
to life in the literal resurrection from the
dead.
And he's the prototype, the first of all
of us who will be raised in him
in the same kind of materialistic body.
They can walk through walls, and so he's
using Exodus language and freedom to the captives
is the result of the new exodus in
Christ, Isaiah 61, the spirit of the Lord
is upon me to preach good news to
the poor, to release the captives.
He's come to set us free, you see.
The rescue affects freedom from the reign of
sin and death, freedom from the principalities and
powers, from the spiritual forces of evil in
heavenly places, Ephesians six, freedom from the elementary
principles of this world, freedom from living under
the law when it's already been lived out
for us so that we live anew in
Christ and Messiah, in the power of the
Holy Spirit.
That's what it's all about.
This is the new exodus in Jesus Christ.
Religion has been set aside for a new
way, a new life.
The law cannot bring life, Paul is saying.
Only God can bring life.
And that's why we say I believe in
the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of
life.
We we held that life, we we blew
it out when we became subject to sin
and death.
Death became normative for all creation.
Until the one who was to come in
that seed of Abraham that would undo death
and undo sin and establish our destiny again,
once again, what was intended in the Garden
of Eden is being recapitulated now in Jesus
Christ, the second Adam, who brings us into
a new relationship in the life of Jesus
Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
This is the new exodus in Christ, religion
has been set aside for a new way
of life in Christ, drawing us into an
intimate communion, an intimate communion of persons, Christ
in us, the hope of glory, God, the
father and the son and the Holy Spirit.
The father's family is being restored through two
sendings, verse four through six.
When the set time had fully come in
the fullness of time, right in the fullness
of time, the Trinity is revealed and God,
the father sent forth his son, born of
a woman born under the law to redeem,
to set free.
This is exodus language to redeem those under
the law that we might receive adoption.
That we might receive adoption to sonship because
you are his sons and daughters.
He's using son language, as we explained last
week, because the son got the inheritance.
It's theological language, sonship, the son got the
inheritance, but now we're in the son, male
and female, and we all get the inheritance.
And so that's one sending and that's the
incarnation.
God sent forth his son, born of a
woman.
It already is presupposing a preexistence in the
logos in the beginning was the word and
the word was with God and the word
was God, God, the father sent forth his
son.
Here's the next sending.
God sent the spirit of his son to
sendings here.
God sent the spirit of his son into
our hearts, the spirit who who calls out
of a father of a father, an Aramaic
word that Jesus used frequently to talk about
his relationship with God, the way Jesus addressed
his father and receiving the spirit of adoption.
The Holy Spirit brings us into the same
relationship with Abba as Jesus had.
It's the spirit of adoption that allows us
not only to say of a father, but
that's actually God himself praying inside of us.
The spirit of the son praying, crying out
of a father, that's just the beginning of
the prayer.
And then we fill it in of a
father dot, dot, dot.
That's prayer, we become a temple of the
Holy Spirit, we become royal priest because the
Holy Spirit, the spirit of the son, the
spirit of the priest, the spirit of the
great high priest is living inside of you
through your baptism and saying this is what
happened in your baptism.
Abba, father, the spirit is crying in our
hearts and it was used throughout to communicate
not the age of a person, not you
need to become more childlike and say Abba,
because in Aramaic Abba is used throughout life.
It's not just used by a young child.
You could be 80 years old or 60
years old and call your father Abba still.
And it doesn't sound like in the South
when, forgive me, I was raised in the
South.
And so this is a cultural thing.
But I have friends my age, right, females,
and it's appropriate to say daddy throughout your
whole life.
It's like Abba, but guys won't do it.
My father's passed away, but I don't know
if I would call him daddy.
I would call him dad, but it has
an affectionate ring to it, doesn't it, daddy?
But it doesn't translate for us because Abba
is used and it's not a it's not
a cultural disconnect.
Abba is something that you would just call
affectionately your father all of your life.
That's what Jesus had with his father.
He had this fond affection, this intimate relationship
with his father, and he came to reveal
that relationship.
No one called God father until Jesus showed
up.
It's very rare.
You'll see a couple of passages in the
prophetic writings in the Old Testament, but it
was not normative at all to call God
father.
And Jesus came to show us the father,
if you've seen me, you've seen the father.
And I still want us to speak affectionately
out of relationship about our connection, our communion
with Jesus Christ.
This is not some man upstairs.
You ever heard that?
Pray to the man upstairs that tells me
that that person has no relationship with Abba.
They need to be introduced.
They need to be introduced to the Abba
in the heart, the spirit of the son,
the spirit of sonship, crying Abba father.
Jesus spoke about two missions, his mission of
redemption and the spirit's mission of making the
work of Christ universal.
And this is why Jesus says it's really
important and good for you that I'm going
away because if I don't leave and ascend
to the father, I cannot send the spirit
of adoption.
And it's the Holy Spirit that connects us
to the Holy Trinity, not just to Jesus,
but to the father.
This is a Trinitarian work.
God sent the son and the son sends
the spirit.
God also says that, you know, the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the father.
It's the spirit of the son.
This is Trinitarian.
This is not Jesus only.
This is why our prayers are constructed so
tightly around Trinitarian language.
It's not to be religious.
It's to be relational, because to have relationship
with God is to have a relationship with
the Holy Trinity.
And that relationship is made possible by the
coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives.
The spirit of his son empowers us to
pray, Abba father, dot, dot, dot.
What's your prayer today?
Abba father, dot, dot, dot.
In the name of the father and the
son and the Holy Spirit.