Sermon Transcript
Well, let’s take a look at the passage in Scripture that our teaching will be based on this morning. We are continuing through Galatians, so we’re at the end of Galatians chapter 3, starting in verse 26. It will be up on the screen if you don’t want to turn there in front of you or scroll on your app, starting in Galatians 3:26. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
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. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything. But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of this world.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Today we will see one possible part of the reason why when Christianity is first introduced into a new culture, the poor in the culture will very quickly embrace it, and the rich and ruling classes will often resist Christianity. We’ll see why women are often more likely to accept it than men initially when it’s first introduced into a culture. Why the socially rejected will turn to it faster than the social elites. Christianity breaks down barriers between races, classes, and genders. We just read, in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile.
That’s the race barrier. There is neither slave nor free. That’s the class barrier. There’s neither male nor female. That’s the gender barrier.
Christianity says, whoever you are, you can have the same unrestricted access to God and blessing from Him. Whoever you are, God has a purpose for your life and welcomes you as a treasured prince or princess into His kingdom. Christianity says, you matter. Your work matters. And you’ll live forever, meaning both you and your work have eternal significance.
Even if you don’t feel very significant here on earth. Now, if you’re someone who’s been marginalized your entire life because of your race, your class, or your gender, that’s a pretty attractive message. God doesn’t look at you the way everybody else looks at you. Everyone else ostracizes you, but God cherishes you so much He was willing to die to be with you. Now, people can get a little cranky, and I don’t really blame you, but we’re going to work through it, over the use of the word sons in this passage.
We are adopted as sons through faith in Christ. Why are we sons of God instead of children of God? Why use a translation that says sons instead of children when some say children? And for that matter, why aren’t we all daughters of God? What would you be talking about?
Women are usually the first ones who adopt this. This is clearly so patriarchal when it’s just talking about sons. Well, actually, what’s going on is important and is the exact opposite of that. And we need to slow down to kinda catch the meaning of what Paul’s saying here. In the time that Paul was writing this letter, women had no rights at all.
They couldn’t own property. They couldn’t testify as a credible witness in a courtroom. They were nothing. In fact, if a dad had only daughters and he was getting older, he would start looking to adopt a male heir, started looking to adopt a son, maybe one of his servants, so the son would be able to inherit the estate because women couldn’t inherit the estate. And into that culture, Paul says, women, with God, you have the same rights as sons.
You have the same perks and privileges that men do. Using the term sons to refer to both men and women was radically inclusive for his day. It meant everyone could get in on the inheritance, not just the sons, not just the men. Everyone could get inheritance from God. The message of Christianity always elevates the poor.
It elevates the outcasts. It elevates the marginalized because it shows the people in those groups who they are in God’s eyes, which is always way much more status than who they are in the eyes of the world. All the good fairy tales follow a similar plot to Christianity. And what I mean by that is, along with other plotlines, one of the plotlines in fairy tales is worth is granted to people who are usually excluded or shamed by their communities. So, for instance, Cinderella, story of essentially a slave girl who ends up a princess.
Because the prince fell in love with her, and then he went from door to door trying to find her until he finally did, at which point he marries her and gives her his royal status. With us, Christ falls so in love with us that he comes and knocks on our door, pulls us out of our miserable story, and gives us his royal status. Beauty and the Beast. Belle’s love for Beast, despite the fact that Beast is a selfish, angry, hostile monster, and he’s unable to change himself, her love for him changes him into a sacrificial, loving prince. And at the same time, her love breaks the curse, and while she’s at it, she transforms some inanimate objects back to life.
With Christ, how He loves us, He loves us despite the fact that we are selfish, angry, hostile monsters. And Christ’s love transforms us to be more like Him, a sacrificial and loving Prince. His love breaks the curse of sin which has power over us and raises the dead back to life. All that’s pretty fantastic news. Which you will quickly embrace if you view yourself as a beast, or if you view yourself as a slave, like Cinderella.
Hearing that someone will love you even if they know all your flaws is pretty great if you feel like you have a bunch of flaws. It’s pretty great if maybe you’ve been rejected because of your flaws by other people, or if you’ve been outcasted, in some way. Hearing you can be included, and not only included, but highly favored, is awesome if you’re currently excluded. But it’s actually not appealing at all if you’re Gaston. You remember that guy in Beauty and the Beast?
He’s the bad guy in Beauty and the Beast who thought he was entitled to Belle’s love. Why wouldn’t Belle love love him. He was popular, influential, rich, handsome. He even had a song about it, which I asked Beth if I should sing, and she’s like, no, definitely don’t touch that. He thinks Belle would be crazy not to love me.
But all of those seemingly positive characteristics that he has made him arrogant and self-sufficient. Now, he was just as much of a mess as Beast was, and he needed the same transformation that Beast needed. The only difference was he couldn’t see it because everything else in his life was going so well. Christianity doesn’t sound that great unless you know that you have need. If you’re privileged or if you feel pretty worthy, the thought of someone giving you his royal status won’t mean that much to you.
You’ll wonder, why would I want Christ’s status? When what I already have is pretty great? The thought of Christ knowing all your flaws and loving you unconditionally, that’s not that transformative unless you think you have a lot of flaws. Of course Christ would love me. He should.
I’m pretty awesome. And you could come up with your own song. An example of where I saw this in action. My last year at Georgia Tech as a campus minister, our campus ministry teamed with 6 or 7 other campus ministries for a combined campus-wide worship service. And we did our best to promote the event to our entire campus.
Invite your friends, invite your professors, invite your fraternity, invite everyone. Posters everywhere, emails to every group on campus, emails to every faculty person on campus. Large-scale event promotion. Many people came, so it was a success. Hardly any professors came.
There were a couple, not many, not many professors at all. But do you know who showed up? You know who showed up in large number? Who showed up and loved these events that honestly I wasn’t really expecting? The lunch ladies, the cafeteria workers, the people who served food, wiped down tables, took out the trash from the food court area.
They came both times we had one of these events in my last year, and they brought an energy and a joy and an expectation of God’s presence with them. The elites on campus, the professors, distinguished scholars hardly gave notice to the events. But the forgottens on campus, the people most of the Georgia Tech community probably took for granted, they came to praise Jesus. In order to come to Jesus, to really come to Him, to seek Him for rescue and salvation, you must know that you have need. You must know it.
Like we talked about last week, that’s the purpose of the law. It shows us that we have need. It shows us, whether we want to hear it or not, we are moral failures. And then equipped with that information, we are then willing to receive rescue, to seek Jesus for rescue. In our community here in Silicon Valley, I’m concerned we have more professors than lunch ladies.
I’m concerned we have more Gastons than Beasts, more people who are self-sufficient and unwilling to admit fault than we have people who know that they have need. If you don’t know your only hope is a God who will forgive you and grant you acceptance on the basis of sheer grace alone, and not on anything you’ve done. Because, hello, what you’ve done, what I’ve done, is a mess. So obviously acceptance can’t come on the basis of what we’ve done. That’s completely obvious.
I can’t believe that anybody would ever argue with that, yet people do. Obviously it can’t be on the basis of what we’ve done. If that’s not already up and running for you, I’m fairly certain I will never be able to say anything to convince you otherwise. I just hope it ends better for you than it did for Gaston.
I hope it ends better for you than it did for Cinderella’s stepsisters. I hope at some point you can say, yes, I’m a beast, I’m a moral failure, and I need outside rescue. I need outside, undeserved, unmerited Rescue. But if you’re here and you’re someone who knows that you have need, if you can admit to God and others your moral behavior does not qualify you for anyone’s acceptance, especially God’s, and you have accepted Christ’s free offer to take your guilt away from you and in return give Him— or give you His status, then today is for you. Today is for the lunch ladies.
Who want to hear about their new status in Christ. Today is for the Cinderellas who are still smashed by their sisters and hoping the prince will be knocking on the door soon. Today is for the Beasts who know that they are unlovable but are hoping that someone might be able to love them anyway. Today, we’re talking about what we have received from Christ. If we have received Him.
In these verses, in these couple of verses we just read, Paul gives us 4 pictures of what we have in Christ, what we have received, what our inheritance is, which will be a big deal for you if you know that you have need. So, number 1, a picture of what we have in Christ or what our inheritance is in Christ, In Christ, we move from slaves to sons. And remember, ladies, we say sons so we don’t miss how radical and inclusive his message was when he first said it. We move from slaves to sons. There was a moment where we went from being a slave to being a son.
Verses 1 through 5 are talking about that. Once we were in slavery, trying to prove our worth through our actions and our moral performance. We are trying to get rid of shame and guilt by trying to do better and better and better, but failing to do better and better over and over again, so we still have the shame and guilt, so in some sense, we’re still in slavery. But when the time had fully come, verse 4, God sent Christ. That’s both in the history of the world and into our lives.
When the time had fully come, God sent Christ into the world, and God sent Christ into our lives to redeem us, to set us free from trying to earn our worth or trying to earn our way out of shame and guilt through our performance. Now, I want us to look at verse 5, because when Christ comes into our lives, we are more than just redeemed. And the more can make all the difference. But we often miss it. Verse 5, God sent His Son to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
Redeeming us is one thing. That is the first half of verse 5. Becoming a son is another thing. That is the second half of verse 5. Cleaning our record from all the immoral things we have done, that is redeeming.
That’s the first half of it. But then Christ gives us his record. That’s the second half of it. It’s not like God only forgives us for the bad things we’ve done and then stops there. Okay, that happens, but then there’s more than that.
After he forgives us, he gives us Christ’s perfect status with all the perks and privileges that come along with Christ’s perfect status. In the slave to son illustration, it’s not like he only paid the price to free us from slavery and now we’re freed slaves needing to make our own way in the world. It’s after he frees us, he adopts us, meaning we have his full inheritance. Everything he has is ours. Freeing a slave on his own, that would be pretty great, right?
Like, the slave would be like, oh, awesome, I’m not in slavery anymore. But then what’s unbelievable, what’s so much more than that, is after He does that, He adopts us as sons. He signs over His entire estate to us. You want to talk about free, right? Slaves who are simply released from slavery don’t have any idea what free is compared to the slave who becomes a son.
That’s free. It’s like— this is everybody’s example, so I’m sure you might have heard it before— it’s like you were in debt to Wells Fargo, and yes, they cancel your debt, which, hey, that would be pretty great if you have a couple-million-dollar mortgage around here, right? They cancel your debt. Hallelujah, pretty awesome. But then something else happens.
It’s not like you walk around with zero balance from then on and it’s up to you to be careful not to go back into debt. It’s not that. It’s after they cancel your debt, they transfer every resource Wells Fargo owns into your account. Your account balance is way better than debt-free. You are way better than out of debt to Wells Fargo.
You are Wells Fargo.
Everything they have is yours. The person who simply had debt paid off doesn’t have any idea what true freedom from debt is. True freedom is we can never be in debt again. We own the place. Our last name is Wells Fargo.
That’s freedom. That’s how God sets us free. Second picture Paul gives us is in verse 27, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. When Christ redeems us and makes us sons, God sees us as He sees Christ. We put Him on.
We are clothed with him, some versions say. God doesn’t see us as the guilty sinners we are. He doesn’t even see us as some morally neutral creature. Well, it’s not really good or bad, somewhere in the middle. It’s not that.
Remember, it’s not like he simply wiped our slate clean and now we’re at zero. And then now because our slates are clean, it’s up to us to fill up our slates with our own actions again. It’s not that. After God wipes our slate clean, He fills it up with something else. God writes all of Christ’s accomplishments and moral perfections on our slate.
They are credited to us. God sees us as blamely— excuse me, as blameless, as holy, as perfectly righteous, as if we had done everything completely right in our lives our entire lives. Remember in the Old Testament, Isaiah tells us that all of our righteous actions are like filthy rags? That’s the best clothes that we can come up with through our own actions. That’s the best that we can put on through our actions.
Filthy rags. Left to our own efforts, that’s the only way God could see us because that’s That’s what we are.
And I know this is dead on arrival for some of us because we live in a time and a place where we don’t really want to admit that we are sinners. And I know most people can’t listen to a phrase like all of our righteous actions are filthy rags, and they think that churches who say that people are sinners are being oppressive and somehow harmful to people if churches will say those words. I know people think that. I don’t get it. And I really almost don’t have time for it.
Because the fact is, the fact that I’m a mess, that fact, the fact that I’m a mess, is the most self-evident truth on the planet to me. Nothing is more obvious or less in need of proof. Nothing. Look, the sky is blue. I question that.
You’re a mess. Yes.
Unquestionably. Genesis 8 tells us every inclination of our hearts is evil since childhood. Every inclination of our hearts. And I’m like, that’s me. You know, I don’t know about y’all, that’s me.
Told you I was from Georgia, y’all, you just heard it. This is what I know about me. Because even when I’m doing something good, Even when I’m doing something good, I know I have a mixture of motivations for doing that good thing. Some of my motives are pretty good. Some of them aren’t so good.
Like even when I’m standing up here preaching, some of my motives are good and holy and helpful, I’m proud of. Some of them I’m not so proud of. Everything we do is at best tainted Nothing we do is without the stain of some percentage of sin, and God sees all of our motives. He not only sees what we do, but He sees why we do it. He sees a lot of the good that we do is really pretty self-serving.
If others could see all of our motives, they would see our good acts were really just filthy rags. As well. But at the cross, Jesus takes our rags and gives us his righteousness.
We are clothed with his goodness and virtue because he was clothed with our shame. He wore our rags. He wore our filthy righteousness. He bore our sin. And now we wear his gleaming spotlessness.
Third picture of our inheritance that we see in these verses, verse 29. We are co-heirs with Christ. We reign with him in his kingdom. He takes our inheritance so we can have his. Our inheritance is banishment and death.
His inheritance is honor and praise and royalty. And he takes ours so we can have his. Christ serves our sentence so we can reign with him. I can’t think about reigning with Christ or being an heir with Christ without thinking about the classic children’s book/movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. When I saw that movie in theaters, that’s confession time, now the book had been out for decades, and I was familiar with the book.
But when I saw the movie in theaters, I cried. And not in some kind of manly, misty, single tear down the cheek kind of way, not in that. More in like a lose control of the muscles in my face and blubber all over the place kind of way. And if you couldn’t guess this, I’m not a big movie crier, but Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I was in a small puddle of my own tears. If you would like to keep a record of the movies that I’ve cried in like Beth does, it’s still only 3 movies: Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Passion of the Christ, and just recently she took me to Into the Brave, and I was like, ah.
So fair warning if somebody takes you to that movie. If you aren’t familiar with the plot of Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, it is an allegory for Christianity. And these 4 siblings, there’s 2 boys and 2 girls, enter into a magical land called Narnia, where an evil witch has taken control and made it always winter but never Christmas. But there are rumors that the rightful good king is on the move. He is taking back his kingdom from the evil witch.
His name is Aslan, and he is the lion in the story. That’s great news. Aslan is on the move. But one of the siblings, the younger brother, Edmund, who is a whiny little brat that you cannot help but hate if you are reading the book or watching the movie, he decides he’s going to try to help the witch. Of course, by trying to help the witch, he finds out that she is cruel and evil, as all witches are, but by that time, the damage is done.
Because he tried to help the witch, he now stands guilty and deserves to die under the laws of Narnia. But then we are surprised, or not so surprised if we’re familiar with Christianity, that the Lion King Aslan volunteers to die in Edmund’s place. So, Aslan, the majestic noble lion, he’s mocked, beaten, shaved, killed so that bratty little Edmund, can go free. But that is not the end of the story. Aslan raises back to life, just like someone else did, and places all 4 siblings on thrones in his kingdom.
He puts all 4 siblings on thrones. So, at the end of the movie, we see Edmund sitting on a throne in Narnia. And every part of me just wanted to yell, you don’t deserve that, you sinful little weasel! I probably actually thought something else, but I can’t tell you what that might have been.
Watching the movie at that moment, it hits me, right? I’m the sinful weasel.
I’ve aided the enemy of the true good king. And Christ The true good King has died in my place. And on top of that, He has given me His status in the kingdom, so to speak. We are seated with Him in the heavenly realms, Ephesians 2:6. He didn’t just die for me so I could be let off the hook from the punishment I deserve.
That happened. But on top of that, He gives me a throne. So to speak. We are heirs with Him. So that hit me in the movie, and hence the crying.
A 4th picture of our inheritance in Christ, verse 6, because you are His sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, Abba, Father. Now, Abba, as some of you know, was the most intimate term a child could call a father in Jesus’ time. Today, it might be close to Daddy or Papa. It’s probably what a toddler would first learn to call his or her dad. Now, as a dad, I can tell you, there are a very limited number of people who get to call me Dad or Daddy or Dada.
The list is 2. 2 people get to call me that, except, well, maybe a third with Beth if she’s, like, referring to me in front of the other 2 and we’re trying to, like, keep our names consistent because you know, kids. Nobody else gets to call me that. If you try to call me Dada, it’s going to be a little weird. Right?
I mean, I love you, right? But I don’t that kind of love you. We are not that close. And we never will be.
The Dada circle is the closest-knit circle I have. And again, don’t be offended, but you aren’t in it. It’s like, here’s the circle, here’s the dada circle, right, between the circle of intimacy between me and my boys. Here’s the circle, and here’s you. Okay?
Like circle, you over here. And that’s not going to change, right? And I’m not in yours either, and that’s okay. Whatever your dada circle happens to be, I am not in. You’re deadass circle.
But God put us in His.
God gives us His Spirit who cries out, Abba. Jesus teaches us to pray, Abba, Father. As close as the Father, Son, and Spirit are to each other, you are in with God like that. What kind of access did Jesus in the Spirit have to the Father? Complete access.
That’s the access you have to the Father. You are in God’s Dada circle because of what Jesus did. God’s circle, you, right there in the center. God’s circle, here’s you, right there in the center. Now, you might say, But I’m a mess, and I don’t deserve to be there.
God wouldn’t want to be that close to me because of how sinful I am. Well, I’m glad you brought that up. Thank you. You’re right. We are a mess.
All of us. And we don’t deserve to be there. That’s true. But you’re wrong about God not wanting us there.
God so wanted us there that Christ took our rejection so we could have his access.
Jesus took our don’t deserve to be there so we could have his deserve to be there. Jesus took our out of the circle so we could have his in the circle.
You know, when Jesus prays in the Bible, he always refers to God as Father, except one time.
On the cross, Jesus didn’t cry out to his Father. On the cross, he asked, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because he’s out.
Of a circle.
Tim Keller observes, Jesus’ loss is our gain.
Jesus losing his Father means we gain the Father. Jesus losing his access means we gain the access we don’t deserve. Again, Christ takes our rejection so we could have his access.
If you’re wondering if God would love to chat with you right now, the answer is yes.
If you are wondering if you need to wait for God to forget about some of the stuff that you’ve done before you guys talk again, the answer is no.
At great cost to Himself, He has put you in His inner circle. He wants you there.
So, for everyone who walked in this morning feeling like Beast, Christ is here to love you even though you are unlovable.
Christ is here to pay the debt you owe to God and give you the full measure of all of His riches. He is here to serve your sentence of death and banishment so we can live in unbroken harmony with God forever.
Let’s pray together.
Father, thank you for Jesus. Thank you for welcoming us into your inner circle, Lord.
Thank you for taking our banishment. Thank you for taking our rags. Thank you for taking our rejection so we can have your access and status and riches.
Lord, we love you. It’s in your name we pray. Amen.
