The Street-Kid Adopted into the Royal Family

We come to really the apex, the climax of the series, something that Paul has been working towards this whole time. And it is something that you might know. It's something that you may know. If you've been in the reformed churches for a long time, you've done the catechism stuff, it may be sticking in the back of your mind somewhere. Here is the topic we're going to be looking at this morning, but it is really the heart of Christianity, what we're going to be dealing with this morning. So we're going to be looking at Galatians 3:26 to 4:7. So you can flick to that and have it open if you want.

But before we get to that, let's just close our eyes and pray. Heavenly Father, we ask that you will bless the reading of your word this morning. Lord, that you will impart on us a knowledge and an understanding of it. We pray, Lord, that you will open our eyes to the majesty of these words and the majesty and the magnificence of the truth that it holds for us. We pray, Lord, that we will be changed and rejuvenated by these words this morning.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. A few years ago, my little sister Christine, you've probably seen her. She's not very little. She's actually very tall.

She was in a school musical for her drama class called Annie. Has anyone seen that one? The orphan girl with the big afro, red hair. Now she was a little orphan, looking for her parents. And my sister was actually the one who played Annie.

And she had the lead role and she was just an absolute diva to work with. Now, it was all very cute seeing my little sister dressed up with this big red curly afro. But it was actually when I went to watch her, the first time I had seen the story or understood the story of Annie. What I really enjoyed about the story and obviously how it ended was the stark contrast between the evil, alcoholic mistress of the orphanage that Annie lived in, and contrasted with that, the kind and gracious and very wealthy Mister Warbucks who tried to help Annie find her parents, but who later adopts her as his own daughter when he finds out that they've passed away.

And just the contrast between these two, light and day. Mister Warbucks was a man with incredible wealth, and the poor orphan Annie came to inherit and share in that wealth, in that comfort, in that security with him. Well, this morning we're going to be dealing with a theme of adoption. We've talked about the gospel and about grace a lot in these past few weeks, but the apex, the climax of the gospel is found in today's passage, and it comes down to the word adoption. Let's have a read of Galatians 3:26 to 4:7.

Paul says, you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who are baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. What I'm saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate.

He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave but a son.

And since you are a son, God has also made you an heir. So far our reading. Now you'll see that it's a weird sort of breaking up. We start in Galatians 3:26 rather than, you know, a nice neat starting point of 4:1. Really, the theme is the same starting in verses 26, and that's why the NIV, if you have that, has clumped it all together.

But obviously the earlier writers who put the verses and numberings into our biblical system right now saw that they were different. In essence, they are the same, but what we're going to be doing first is dealing with verses 4:1 to 4:7 first because Paul really fleshes out this idea of adoption there. And verses 3:26 to 3:29 is the summary statement of that. Paul begins in verse 4:1 of chapter four with an illustration of a young child who he says is an heir of a great estate. But when he is a child, when he is a minor, he is no different than a slave since he is subject to guardians and trustees.

But when this minor comes of age, he comes into an inheritance. In the ancient times, in the Greco-Roman world, the process of coming of age started or happened at the age of 14. Before that, you had slaves, you had workers in your household that generally would look after you, were entrusted with your raising, with your education, and so on. So it was a very well defined process. Age 14 was when you moved from being a minor and you sort of came of age.

But even till the age of 25, there were still restrictions on you. Really, you didn't inherit everything at 14. These guardians and these trustees still had some influence over you. Not until then could a child exercise complete independent control over his estate. What does it mean to be a child no different from a slave?

What does it mean when Paul says that we are like a child, different from a slave? Well, the illustration here, like many of Paul's other illustrations, refers to a spiritual truth, a spiritual reality. This is a picture of all human beings. All human beings are spiritual slaves before coming to Christ. We're all in a sense bound by the law, even if we've never heard of the Bible or Moses.

Even if we don't know or can't quote the Ten Commandments. Why? Because what we've dealt with previously, we've realised that we are all bound to try to live up to certain standards and to earn a good life, earn some sort of salvation by ourselves. We are anxious. We are burdened, and our relationship with God is either remote or nonexistent.

We don't experience the freedom and intimacy with God that was our intention. So slavery is our natural state. But Paul is going to show how we come of age, how we move from this slave state into a child state or a son's or a daughter's state. How do we come of age? How do we move to that?

Paul says that through the work of the Son, Jesus Christ, we come of age. In verse 4:4, we read, when the time had fully come, in other words, at a particular point in history, in our time and space, this wasn't something that happened behind the ethereal scene. God sent His Son. When the time had fully come, God sent His Son. The Son redeems those under the law, removing all the penalty and all the debt that we owe.

All the penalty and all the debt that we owe. What exactly is that? Well, referring to our slavery, Paul says that we actually belong to another dad. We belong to another master. That master is sin.

That master is Satan. That master that acts as our guardian or our trustee is the law. We are obligated to keep it, but we cannot. So God sent His Son, born of a woman, he says, a real physical flesh and bone woman, and sent Jesus also born under the law. As a human being, God Incarnate, Jesus Himself was under the obligation of the law because He was a human being like the rest of us.

Jesus was born as all other humans are into a state of obligation to God's law, but Jesus was uniquely able to redeem those under the law. Now we've dealt with this term redeem that Paul uses here a few times. It's a technical term. It means to release a slave from his or her master by paying the slave's full price. It's a price you pay to remove or to release a slave from his master. Here, the slave master is the law.

And Jesus pays our full price by completely fulfilling the obligations of the law. Does that make sense? Jesus was born under the law like we are under the law, but because He was uniquely able through His perfection to live according to the law, He fulfilled all the requirements. And therefore He was able to pay the full price for us. But Paul says not only is Jesus able to redeem us, but He also procures for us the full rights of sons. In verse 4:5, so that we might receive the full rights of sons.

Literally, the phrase says we received sonship. Sonship. Again, like redemption, sonship is a legal term. In the Greco-Roman world, a childless wealthy man could actually take one of his servants, whether they were young or old, and adopt them as one of their own. At the moment of that adoption, he or she ceased to be a slave and received all the financial rights and privileges within the estate.

No longer a slave, full son. And they receive everything that would have gone to that son if he was able to have a physical biological son. On 29 January 2003, a young woman by the name Athena Russel became the richest teenager on the planet. She inherited a fortune estimated to be roughly $1,000,000,000. And it came to her from her Greek shipping tycoon grandfather, Aristotle Onassis.

Some of our older people might remember that name. When Athena was three, her mother died at a young age. All of her mother's assets, which would have gone to the mother from her grandfather, were now left in a trust so that only Athena would be able to claim it. She was the only child, but she could only claim it when she turned 18. So here was this vast $1,000,000,000 inheritance for her to get, but she had to wait until 18, until she could come of age to inherit this fortune.

It's the same in a way for us. Through Jesus, not only have we been taken away from the terrible, unloving dad called sin. We've been placed in a home with a generous, kind dad. It's easy for us to fall into the trap of thinking of our salvation only in terms of the cleansing or the redemption of our sin, getting out of that house. But if we're out of that house, we're still street kids. We're still on the road.

We're still homeless. The other part of the gospel, the other half of salvation is that while the penalty has been paid, we cannot forget that we have received the full rights and the full privileges of being God's adopted children. We aren't street kids anymore. We're not homeless anymore. We have a home.

But we have to understand that not only did Christ remove the curse we deserved, but He also gives us the blessing He deserved. In the gospel, discover that Jesus has not only taken us off death row, He's not only taken us out of death row, but He has taken us home and placed the Victoria Cross medal around our necks so that we are welcomed back as heroes. It's as if we had lived that perfect life. If we forget this, we might become anxious. We might become depressed when we sin, when we fail, when we stumble.

We'll think that while our slate has been wiped clean by Jesus' blood, it is now up to us to write good deeds on that slate in order to be pleasing to God, in order for God to love and accept us. But the gospel is that our slate has been wiped clean, and God has written His righteousness. Christ has written His righteousness on that slate. That billion dollar inheritance is not a prize that we have to win. It's a gift that we have to receive.

So Paul says we come of age. We are adopted into this inheritance. We're able to claim this family fortune through the work of the Son, Jesus. But the next part Paul wants to explain, not only that we've received this inheritance objectively, meaning whether we understand it or not completely, whether we grasp it completely, but Paul wants to explain that we can experience it subjectively as well. It's not just an objective reality.

It's a subjective emotion. And how that happens is through the work of the third person in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. It comes through the work of the Spirit. Verse 4:6 in chapter four says, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. And it runs in parallel if you see in verse 4:4 with God sent His Son.

God the Father sent His Son. God the Father sent His Spirit. As effective, in other words, as Jesus was, so effective is His Spirit going to be. As real as Jesus' sending was, so real is the sending of His Spirit. And the Spirit we see here brings the enjoyment and the peace and the gratitude and the appreciation of sonship, enabling us, in fact, to cry out, Abba Father.

Now firstly, if we just look at that statement, the sending of the Spirit into our hearts to cry out or to call out, Abba Father, we see some very profound statements. Firstly, the original word to cry out or to call out refers to a deep, profoundly loud cry. It's not like a little whimper. It's not like a little groan. It's a loud, audible scream.

And it points to a deep profound emotion. This is an emotional thing. Christianity isn't just a technical head knowledge thing. It's emotional. It's why people cry in church.

And it points to a deep passion, deep feeling. So calling out, the Spirit calls out on behalf of us. The second thing of that calling out, it refers to a communication. It's directed to God. More specifically, it's a communication we call prayer.

Just as a child doesn't prepare speeches to talk with his parents, so Christians experiencing the work of the Holy Spirit find a spontaneity and a reality in prayer. We don't have to sit there and write out what we're going to say to God and then read it to him. It's not mechanical any longer, but it's filled with passion. It's filled with spontaneity, with freedom. Thirdly, the phrase to cry out implies a sense of God's real presence.

Just as a little baby boy or a baby girl cries out to daddy when there's a problem or a question, so Christians experiencing this work of the Spirit feel the remarkable reality of the nearness of God with them. God is close at hand. He's no longer distant. He's no longer that impersonal force that we may have known to exist around us or at least somewhere. He is that dad who is just in the other room. Mom in the kitchen. Lastly, the word Abba Father is baby talk.

It's baby talk meaning papa, daddy. And it signifies the confidence and the love and the assurance of God being the Father. Just as a young child simply assumes that a parent loves them and is there for them, so Christians have an overwhelming boldness and certainty that God loves them endlessly.

The security and the openness of daddy's strong arms will never fail you. And so the Bible says that while Jesus enabled us to be adopted into God's family, while Jesus enabled us to be adopted, the Holy Spirit enables us to feel as though we belong there. Does that make sense? We actually feel like we belong to God's family through the work of the Spirit. We can call God, in other words, the Creator of the universe, the Man, the One who breathed stars out of His mouth, who flung the stars to the furthest reaches of this universe.

That Creator God is Abba Father, Papa, Daddy. Before we wrap up here, I want to go back to that summary statement that Paul makes in Galatians 3:26 to 3:29. The apex, the climax of the gospel and of what Paul is trying to communicate in Galatians is found here in Galatians 3:26. You are all sons of God. Sons is more than a gender thing.

And I didn't go into the sons and daughters thing because what Paul really is communicating here is not male or female. What he's trying to say here is inheritance. In those days, the firstborn male got the whole family inheritance. He got all the wealth. We are all those inheritors.

Verse 3:27 says that this means as inheritors of God's wealth that we are clothed in Christ. Our primary identity is in Jesus. Our clothing generally tells people who we are, doesn't it? It tells people what our gender is. If we wear a dress, generally we're a girl.

If we wear a suit, generally we might, yeah, in different circumstances generally wear a male. It communicates our class. It communicates our social status. It communicates our national group.

Christ being our clothing, being clothed in Christ shows that our ultimate identity is found not in those normal classifications of gender and class and nationality, but in Christ. It means that we associate closely with Christ. It means we have His Spirit and His character that infuses and permeates every nook and cranny of our being. Being clothed in Christ is the reality that Jesus is now our Brother. As adopted children, Jesus is our Brother.

This means that we are able to love Him, that we are able to be based in Him, to be able to be absorbed in Him. It's an amazing statement. It's an amazing reality. Lastly, Paul says now because of that, because we are sons of God, because we are brothers of Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, for we have all received. We are all one in Christ.

The cultural barriers, the class barriers, the gender barriers are all broken down. The good news of the gospel creates unity, oneness. The privileges we get in the gospel, sonship, the Spirit, union with Christ are so magnificent that they have surpassed the greatest earthly merit that we could gain through those class associations, through those gender associations. How can I look down on someone, in other words? How can I look down on someone and have that class difference when that person is clothed in Christ?

They can be the poorest beggar. If they are clothed in Christ, they are the wealthiest individual in the universe. Why would I ever be jealous of anyone else and want their wealth or want their status when I am a son or a daughter of the living God? How can I be jealous when I am inheriting far more than $1,000,000,000? If we are all street kids like Annie with a bad mistress called sin, and we're adopted into a family where dad is the warm father of Jesus' parables, Why look down at the street kids still struggling without a home?

Why look down on the sinners and be frustrated with them? And this is such a challenge even for me. When they're just like us, lost street kids, orphans needing a home. Two weeks ago, I don't know if you heard this or read this. Two weeks ago, I read a story of a 15 year old orphan named Davian Only, who had been bounced around the foster care system in America his entire life.

15 years old, had not really found a home. He stood in front of a church and made a simple plea for someone to be his family. He got up in front of everyone and said, my name is Davian Only and I'll take anyone. Whether they're old or young, dad or mom, black, white, purple. I don't care.

And I'd be really appreciative. That broke my heart. Like spiritual orphans, we have been taken in. But it's not merely out of pity, it's out of love. Street kids no longer.

We've moved straight from the street into Buckingham Palace. And not only have we moved into this amazing place, but we are now the princes and the princesses going to inherit this place. What an amazing truth. What an amazing reality. How vast the riches of God's love.

Let's pray. Lord, our inheritance is a lifetime and eternity spent with the One who is pure love, the One who cannot fail us, who will never disappoint us, the One who is worth far more than any gold or silver, any jewel, any status, any position could ever be. But we have inherited a great magnificent prize, a great magnificent gift. Help us, Lord, to understand the enormity of this. Help us to understand that not only have we been set free and has our penalty been paid for and the mess that we find ourselves in often, Lord, has been dealt with.

But Lord, we have been moved into a situation where we are completely accepted and loved regardless of what we do now, regardless of our failings. Well, we look forward to that one day where we will fully see and understand this wealth, this fortune that we have received. But we look forward to that day when our eyes will be opened, when You will return, and we will see the amazing Buckingham Palace that we live in. Lord, we ask You to come quickly. We ask You to reveal that thing.

But in the meantime, Lord, let us live in the peace and the reassurance and security that You are Abba Father, Daddy to us. And then we can cry out and call out to You like we would do to our mum, to our dad and that You will hear and that You will turn Your ear to us. Lord, build in us the humility and understanding of what this means for our lives. Give us urgency for this to be a reality for our family members that don't know it, our friends who are in the street still, the Annies in our life. We pray, Lord, that You will bring them to You as well.

Thank you for your warmth. Thank you for your reception. Amen.