Galatians 4 - Sons and Heirs
Tom Shrader explains how Christ came at just the right time to redeem those under the law, making believers adopted sons and heirs of God rather than slaves. He outlines six key teachings about Christ's coming - the perfect timing, His deity, His humanity, His perfect obedience, His redemptive purpose, and our adoption as sons. Believers now have the privilege to cry 'Abba, Father' and receive an inheritance as fellow heirs with Christ.
“The privilege of adoption presupposes pardon, acceptance, and permanence.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Galatians
Recorded: 2012
Duration: 53 min
Themes: adoption, inheritance, freedom, identity, sonship, redemption, grace, privilege, new believer, doubting salvation, feeling insecure, struggling with identity, questioning worth, parent, mentor, seeking assurance
Scripture: Galatians 4:1-7, Galatians 3:29, Galatians 1:4, John 1:12, Ephesians 2, 1 John 3:1, Philippians 2:6-7, Isaiah 6, 1 Corinthians 13:11, Colossians 2:8, Romans 8:15, Romans 8:16-17, Romans 8:1, Romans 8:14, Romans 8:23, 2 Corinthians 4, Ephesians 1, John 15, Philippians 3
Theological Themes: adoption, justification, christology, incarnation, redemption, sanctification, soteriology, divine timing
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles to the book of Galatians. We're going to be looking today at chapter 4, verses 1 through 7. This is one of those lessons that has a boatload of information in it. If you need a Bible, raise your hand. If you get a Bible from us, it's page 631.
This is one of those lessons that has a ton of information in it. So I want to convey the information to you and then give you some application along the way. I can tell you this: if you are a note taker or a list lover, this is paradise for you today. I have a whole bunch of stuff to throw at you. Two lists that we'll give you. One has the six teachings that we get in this passage about the reason Christ came, what we can learn from it. Another list: the six privileges we have as heirs.
The Context: Heirs According to the Promise
As we look at this passage, it left off last week at the end of chapter 3, verse 29, and it's been talking about the fact that if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants. And the phrase that we said last week, we'll unpack this week: heirs according to the promise.
You'll see the idea here that we are adopted into the family of God. That we are now His kids. I'm going to read you a Keller quote, Tim Keller, and I think I probably used this quote four times in the lesson, so we'll come back to it. The privilege of adoption, so the idea that I'm in the family of God, presupposes pardon, acceptance, and permanence.
What we discovered, and we're going to look at it again this week, what we discovered at the very beginning of the whole study in chapter 1, verse 4, is that Jesus gave Himself for our sins that He might rescue us or deliver us. That Jesus had rescued us from the relationship that we had in terms of bondage to sin, and put us, restored us, we become new creatures. Also is the idea of redemption, that He bought us back to redeem. You might take something that you've pawned, you come back with your ticket, you redeem it, you free it. It's the idea that He has rescued us, redeemed us, and that that is a permanent relationship.
Questions About Permanence
I'm doing this in Priority Living. I've got eight weeks, and I've got a seven-week study, so what I'm doing in the eighth week is just a Q&A. But what I do are written questions, not because I'm embarrassed to say I don't know, but a couple of things. One, it prevents somebody from making this long speech as they ask a question. It prevents the idea of a whole bunch of questions in one area, and it allows me to grab the questions and go, here's five or six out of these. We'll get questions in writing that people would never ask in person.
So last week was the first week, and I said, if you have questions, then get them up here afterwards, and we'll collect them, and we'll do them in eight weeks. And this week I must add three of them that went along the line of, if I'm a Christian today, do I know I'll remain in that state? So it's Keller's idea of permanence.
What the Bible teaches is that we're separated from God because of our sin, and the wage of that sin is death. I'm separated from Him. I will one day die physically, but I'm dead spiritually. And the Bible teaches there's nothing I can really do about that, though I will try. That's the work under the law, work of the flesh, try to be good enough, whatever it is. But the Bible teaches that Jesus then came, lived, and died, and whoever believes in Him will have eternal life. John, gospel writer, chapter 1, verse 12: "As many as received Him, believed Him, He gave them the right to become children of God, those who believe in His name."
The Challenge of Teaching
I was talking to somebody this week, and they were talking, what's the hardest part about teaching on Sunday? And they were looking for like the length of the day. So last night was just one of those nights that sleep was just not going to happen. Saturday it's just for whatever reason, and it's because the way I do it. I'm the only guy I know that does it this way. I write the lesson on Sunday morning. Not because I haven't thought about it or prepared, but I just, I don't know, for me, I like bringing it together Sunday morning. So that means I have to get up at, you know, a little before 4, be in here, get it done, and all that.
And so people heard that, so they go, gosh, you start at 4, you leave at 7:30, or 8, that's a long day. Is that the hardest part? No. Is it physically hard? It really is. It sounds stupid, because all I do is talk. And I used to do seven services. I used to do 8, 9, 10, 11, 4, 5, 6. So now I only do 4. No, all those are hard. Here's the hardest part, honestly, about a lesson, even in the preparation, is that, and you would expect this, the problem is you. I'm assuming you would understand that. You know, it's going to be me.
Reaching Different Audiences
Here's what I mean by that. Some of you have Bibles that are all marked up, and you're looking for the deepest nuances of the Greek, and you want to parse every one. So that's one, and I'm not minimizing that. I'm saying that's great. You have other people that are here today, and maybe their very first time. So when I took Susan to church in 1980, it was, other than her sister's wedding, it was the first time she'd ever been in a church. So maybe that's you.
You're coming in with some level of experience. Maybe it's minimal. Maybe it's none. Maybe you're coming in, you come from like, let's say, a Catholic tradition. So you're kind of wondering, is this thing going to cave in on me when I walk in here? You come from a denominational experience. So you come with all sorts of questions.
When you take a lesson like the one we have, that honestly is fairly complex, I can lose you very quickly. And so here's what I do. So if this is the person that says, boy, just give it to me in the original language, and this is the person that says I've never been here before, I try to always flinch this way. And my assumption is, if you're that smart,
You'll figure it out on your own, you don't need me anyway. If you're that smart, we'll just find out how smart you are. So we come over terms again and again and again. Some of you would legitimately say, "Tom, I don't know why you go over those every week." The reality is there are people who come every week for whom this is brand new.
You may be this super saint, and I'm going to trust you, but this may be a person that God's touching their heart for the very first time, and that's really important. That's the challenge of this whole thing. I'm going to try really hard today to navigate my way through that. Let me read the passage to you, and I'll read it and make a couple of observations, and then we'll come back and tear it apart, and then I'll give you some lists.
The Heir as Child
Chapter 4, Galatians, verse 1: "Now I say, as long as the heir is a child"—so we're talking about us as heirs to the promises of God—"he does not differ at all from the slave, although he is the owner of everything, but he's under the guardians and the managers until the date that's set by the father."
So also, while we were children, we were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. I will just tell you up front, that phrase "elementary" or "elemental things of the world"—there's a whole bunch of disagreement on what exactly that means, but I think we can get some general agreement.
Verse 4: "But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His son born of a woman, born under the law, so that He, Jesus, might redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive the adoptions as sons." By the way, half of you, the women are going, "What about the daughters in here?" So why does He say "sons"? There's a really big reason. You're going to love it when we get there.
"Because you were sons, God has sent forth the spirit of His son into the hearts"—so we've seen already—"to cry, Abba, Father." We've seen already in these six verses Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the triune God. Verse 7, and look at verse 1 again—verse 1 and verse 7 bookend this section. "Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if you're a son, then you're an heir through God."
Understanding Greek Culture and Inheritance
We see language that's pretty familiar to us. It's the idea of slave, son, heir—that progression we've talked about. Verse 1, when you look at it, you go, "Wow, that doesn't make sense." But this is one of those that's just fun when you get in and study it. A little understanding of Greek law at that moment is really helpful.
Here's what it says: "Now, I say, as long as the heir is a child." We're talking about, in this case, in a Greek culture, of a father passing on an inheritance to his son. But in that culture, until the son reached 18, he was not considered a man. So the inheritance, though it was his legally, it wasn't his in fact.
He's saying, as long as that child is in that position, he doesn't differ much from a slave, although he's the owner of everything. A father would have usually a common slave or a tutor or a guardian who would be responsible for the child. He would determine everything for the child: when to get up, when to go to bed, when to go to school, what to eat, what to wear. If the father was dead, he'd be a trustee of that.
This son would be called a young master. In this system, it wasn't unusual for the child who was in that position to feel more like a slave than a son or more like a slave than the owner. At the moment where all of a sudden he reaches manhood, now that inheritance that was his legally is now his in fact.
Cultural Parallels in Jewish and Roman Traditions
The Jews had the same idea. A boy was bar mitzvahed at age 12. Here's what the father would pray on that occasion: "Blessed be thou, O God, who hath taken from me the responsibility of this boy." The boy would pray, "O my God and God of my fathers, on this solemn sacred day which marks my passage from boyhood to manhood, I humbly raise my eyes unto thee and declare with sincerity and truth that henceforth I will keep the commandments and undertake to bear the responsibility of my actions toward thee." You get the heaviness of it.
In the Roman culture, there would be the same idea. A boy would reach a certain age and there would be a ceremony where if it was a boy, they would take his toys. If it was a girl, they would take her dolls and they would sacrifice them to the gods as a symbol of putting behind childhood and ushering them into adulthood. That may have been what Paul had in mind when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:11, "When I became a man, I did away with childish things."
Our Inheritance as Children of God
What he's talking about now with us is the idea that we now as children of God are heirs. At that time, he's saying now that we come into this right relationship with God, now is the time that that inheritance is passed onto us. There was, in verse three, a date that was set by the father in which the child was now freed from this.
Going back to what we talked about last week, we talked about the law as a tutor. It was chapter three, verse 24. When we speak of the law, we speak of God's moral law, but when we speak practically, what we're saying is our efforts to somehow win God's favor. All that the law did when the 10 commandments came—all they did—they were not designed to save anybody. They were designed to show you how hopeless you really are.
The True Nature of Sin
The idea was not "I'm going to give you the 10 commandments and somebody's going to keep them and therefore be redeemed" because no person could do that. It's not a play on words, but it's important for us to see—and we'll look at it in a minute in depth—that we are sinners and therefore we sin. It's not that we sin and therefore we're sinners.
We are by nature children of wrath, children of disobedience, and so that makes itself evident. That will naturally come about.
The only exception to that, and we'll see in a minute, is Christ. Well, these elemental things kept us in bondage. I said there's all sorts of disagreement about what exactly they're talking about there. They talk about the world's laws or they talk about Satan's domination.
In Colossians chapter two, verse eight, Paul writes this: "See to it that no one takes you captive through the philosophy and empty deception according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ." So whatever it is, it's counter to Christ. It's counter to the things of God. Whether for the Greek, it's enslavement to the pagan idols, or to the Jews, it's this idea of keeping the law, whatever it is, it's contrary to what God has for us in grace. He says there's this point at which we grow up and all of a sudden, we become sons of God.
Understanding What It Means to Be a Child of God
Now, let's hit the pause button here and understand, as I said before, I've got a whole range of people here, so when we hear that term "son of God," for some, it's a bit confusing in this sense. How do I become a child of God? Because the common thinking, though it's a myth, the common thinking is we're all children of God. So that's a dominant thought in the world in which we live, that essentially, religion is like a wheel, and each spoke represents different religions and God's the hub and doesn't matter what spoke you have, it's all connected to God.
There was a guy who was speaking, I think this was a mistake, he was speaking at a Christian prayer breakfast and he said this: "There's a lot of ways to God. Like if I'm in New York and want to go to Atlanta, I can go United or Delta or Continental or American, Jet Blue, and that's the way it is with God." Well, we better stop and think about this.
You see it all the time, I love when politics gets into the God stuff. Like Bill O'Reilly, I can handle him. The minute he starts talking about religious stuff, he's a moron, he doesn't understand this stuff at all. It is amazing to me. He doesn't even understand his own Catholic faith, to be honest with you. And he clearly doesn't understand when you get in a Bible.
That's okay, so they got Rick Santorum and they're doing this, so they all, "God bless America." Whoa, what God? What are you talking about, really? So the idea is, we're all children of God. Well, in the sense that God is the creator of all, but not in the sense of worship, we're not all God's children.
Our Natural State Before Christ
As I said, in Ephesians chapter two, here's what happened. God identifies us through His word in our natural state. So if you're here today and you don't know Christ as Lord and Savior, you're not in a personal relationship with God through Christ, and for all of us prior to that moment, we were by nature children of wrath and children of disobedience, that's who we are.
Jesus looks at the Jewish leaders and He says, "You are of your father, the devil." Again, the passage I read earlier in John chapter one, verse 12, it said, "As many as received Him, He gave them the right to become children of God." First John chapter three, verse one: "See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us that we would be called children of God. And as such we are, for this reason, the world does not know us because it does not know Him. Beloved, we are now children of God," but we weren't naturally born that way. And so that's a big lesson for us to get our arms around. And again, not very popular in our culture.
I've told you the story and it was just, after 9-11, they decided to have a prayer service in Yankee Stadium, you remember it? And so it was presided over, the priestess presiding over it was Oprah. So Oprah presided, I'm making this up, Oprah presided over the platform filled with chairs and I said this, they did everything but sacrifice a goat that day. They had a little bit of everybody from everything.
God's Standards Don't Negotiate
Well, here's what I know, we could all be wrong, but we can't all be right because we're saying contrary things. You are not a child of God if you don't believe in Jesus, period. I didn't say it, God says it. "That's so narrow," it really is. I don't have any problem acknowledging it's narrow and if it were up to me, I might not have made it that narrow, but it wasn't up to me.
See, here's the funny thing about God, He never ceases to be God, so He doesn't let you define the rules, He defines the rules. And we're so accustomed to negotiating. So like right now, you want to buy a house, "Oh, there's no way, he's asking $100,000, oh, there's no way he wants that, I'll give him 65," and then you go through this process of negotiation till you have what we call a meeting of the minds.
Now we come to God and God said, "Here's my standard," you go, "Hey God, I get it, but come on, nobody pays retail. God, I'm gonna slide you in right down here," that's where we go, and God says, "No, I don't move, I don't negotiate. I am the standard, it doesn't move." That's why Jesus had to come, because all of us had sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
The Fullness of Time
So look at verse four. When the fullness of time came, in other places, that idea is that at just the right time, when the fullness of time came, when the completion of all this period of preparation, God's sovereign timetable of redemption was done. At that moment that God knew before the foundations of the earth, but was a mystery to us. At that moment that had been talked about for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
At that moment, Paul tells us, God sent forth His Son, Jesus, who was born of a woman and born under the law so that He might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Let me try to take a little pressure off, again, of the ladies who are going, "Why doesn't it say sons and daughters?" The greatest women's liberator ever to walk this earth was Jesus. And it's true understanding, Christianity...
is the great liberator. In that culture, and almost all cultures until recent times, women were seen as chattel and nothing more. To emphasize the point, remember last week He's talking about Jew and Gentile, no male or female. What He does is rather than say sons and daughters, because with that would have come this baggage. It was impossible for a woman to have any inheritance in the Greek culture. You couldn't pass on fortune to the woman. What He does is say, no, we're all sons. In that case, what He's trying to do is emphasize the point that male or female, Jew, Gentile, it doesn't matter—you're going to receive this inheritance too.
Jesus is the one who breaks down barriers, doesn't put them up. There are barriers, and we get it as a result of the Christian faith. That's what He said: "They persecuted me, they'll persecute you." But in terms of relational barriers, the design was not to build them up, but to break them down. It started deep from the time that Jesus rose from the dead, and the curtain in the temple was torn—not from the bottom up, but from the top down to demonstrate God had eliminated these barriers.
So for us to put up barriers between one another based on race or economic status or education, though we do it instinctively, don't we? We by nature look down on other people. And God condemns us in that, and He says, "I don't do that, and you shouldn't either."
The Coming of Christ
What we have in verse four and five is Jesus coming to this earth, that moment that we would mark at Christmas. So we have these two holidays that at least, I can only talk about here at Redemption, that we never, never, never, never separate. We'll talk about Christmas, but always at Christmas, we're talking about where we're going to celebrate six weeks from now, whatever it is—Easter. So Christ came, and I'm going to give you six things that are central teachings that we can learn about the fact that Christ came.
The Perfect Timing
Number one was the timing. It was the fullness of time. Again, under the ancient law, the father would determine when the inheritance would be passed on to a son. It's in that fullness of time. Frankly, when so many things had been done religiously, the Jews had grown weary. The Greeks even had grown tired of their trying to appease these gods. So there was religious fatigue.
The culture had come together. Alexander the Great had taken the world and made Greek culture and language known throughout the world. And that Greek influence continued to dominate as politically Rome takes over. So you have Pax Romana, where now you've got economic and political stability in the world. So you could travel around the world at that point relatively freely and with relative safety. So the timing was such that when Jesus came and lived and died, the world was ready for the gospel to begin to spread relatively easily. The religious, cultural, and political effects were in place. The Gentiles were weary of serving these pagan gods. The Jews were tired. And at just the right time.
By the way, God's timing is perfect. I've got something going on in my life right now and I don't like the timing. I don't like the timing of it. And everything in me is trying to find some way to move the timing up. But I'm convinced that the timetable is set according to God's timing. So here's a picture of the window into my soul: in my deepest, deepest heart, I want Tom's timing, not God's timing, but if you go a little bit deeper, I know God's timing is better, so I'll submit to that.
When were you born? At just the right time. Think about the sovereignty of God in your life. That you were born in this day, this age. You were born with that ethnic background. You weren't born in Calcutta, you were born in Bemidji. God's sovereignty all around us. So what we learn first about the coming of Christ is the timing.
The Origin of His Coming
Here's second. The origin of His coming testifies of His deity. God sent forth His Son. He existed. Philippians chapter two, verse six, seven: "Although He existed in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of man."
Here's how John describes it in his gospel. The idea of the Word, speaking of Jesus: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We saw His glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father." He begins his gospel with these words: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
And so when he said He emptied Himself, what he's saying is Jesus eternally existed. He is God. No beginning, no end. He emptied Himself, not of His deity, but of His glory. So some of you are familiar with that picture in Isaiah six, where Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up. That's a pre-incarnate Christ. He empties Himself of that glory, not of His deity.
The Manner of His Coming
And He becomes—it's the third point—it's the manner of His coming, He becomes a man. He is born of a woman. His humanity is all over this. When we look at the idea of the incarnation, it's that God became man. And it's mystery, I get it. He retains His deity, and yet He's in flesh, like you and me in every way except sin.
But we look at Jesus' life, and we see hurt and pain and sorrow. We see tears, we see Him thirst, we see Him hunger. We see the love that He has as He looks at the city of Jerusalem. He's fully God and fully man. That's what we learn about this in His coming. He is born of a woman.
The Condition of His Coming
It's the fourth thing, though: the condition of His coming is perfect obedience. He was born under the law. Here was the idea: that God requires perfect sacrifice be made for sin. The wage of sin is death. When I sin, I have offended a holy God. God will judge that. Every sin ever committed in the history of mankind has to be paid for, and will be paid for.
in only one of two ways. Either paid in full by Christ on the cross for those for whom He died, or by the person who committed the sin, never paid in full for all eternity.
Jesus is born under the law that He might fulfill the law. It's the fifth thing, that He came for this purpose, to redeem His people. He lives the perfect life. We saw it week one, Galatians 1:4. He gave Himself to deliver us from the sin of this present age. He paid the price for our freedom. He died on the cross. He redeemed us.
I'll give you the obvious here. Christ had to be born before He could die, and there was no Easter without Christmas. He's born of a virgin. So that, one author writes, Christianity is not a religion of stable and straw. It's a religion of thorns, nails, wood, and blood.
Christ dies after living the perfect life, sinless life. So He becomes the sacrifice. Not a picture, as we saw in the Old Testament, where there would be the sacrifice of lambs, and it was a picture of the lamb that would come. That's why John the Baptist looks at Jesus and says, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away sin." Not a picture of it. This is the perfect sacrifice.
John Stott writes, "The divinity of Christ, the humanity of Christ, the righteousness of Christ uniquely qualify Him to be man's redeemer. If He hadn't been a man, He could not have redeemed man. If He hadn't been righteous, He could not have redeemed unrighteous man. If He hadn't been God's Son, He could not have redeemed men for God or made them sons of God."
Christ Died to Save Us
Christ died. When He died on the cross, He actually saved people from their sin. That's why He came. Jesus said, "I didn't come to be served, but to serve, to give My life a ransom for many."
Here's the sixth thing, the last thing about this, is that the second purpose. The specific purpose of His coming is that we might be adopted as sons. That Jesus came, that we who were children of wrath could now become children of the king.
And so, as individuals, we have to understand that our righteousness was nothing but filthy rags presented to God. That all we do when we say to God, "I'm going to fulfill the law, or I'm going to live the best I can," or whatever your version of that is, anything other than biblical Christianity. Anything under that is just bringing my sin to God and saying, "Will you accept that?" That's all that is, because every sacrifice we have is imperfect.
John Wesley was a man who understood that, very much like Martin Luther. When Wesley was at Oxford, he started a group, helped establish a group called the Holy Club. And they went to church, and they studied their Bibles, and they fasted, and they prayed. They went into prison. They gave food, clothes, education to the poor. But as he looked back at life, Wesley understood that "I had even the faith of a servant, though I was not a son." He was saying, I didn't understand what it meant to be a follower of Christ in the truest sense of the word.
So don't ever, ever confuse your effort with being a son of the king. I'm there by adoption, and that adoption is through Christ.
The Spirit Confirms Our Sonship
Verse six, and then He says, I really want you to know that you're mine. I want you to know that you're loved and accepted, and you'll be protected and guarded by your father. So because you're a son, God has sent forth the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, so that we can cry, "Abba, Father."
We're told in the book of Ephesians, chapter one, that we have been adopted, and that the Holy Spirit has sealed us for the day of redemption. That there's that moment in time where God's Spirit comes into our heart, and now our relationship with Christ is unified in an unbreakable way. Romans chapter eight, verse 16, "The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God." We can cry out, "Abba, Father."
Again, to the Jews, revolutionary. They would not even say the name God. They would only write it, and then only partially, and now I can come in and cry out, "Abba, Father." It's literally the idea of daddy. It's a picture of intimacy.
It's the absolute contrast of almost every other religion that would see God as a distant, angry God, a God clearly to be worshiped, but a God to be feared, and a God that had nothing to do with us, nor was He interested in anything to do with us. But now I can call Him daddy. I'm in right relationship with Him. At just the right time, Christ came, lived, and died, so I can enter into this relationship.
From Slave to Son to Heir
Verse seven: Therefore, so because all of that's true, because you know Christ as Lord and Savior, because you've come into that relationship, because Jesus came and lived and died at just the right time, therefore, you are no longer a slave, but you are a son. And if you're a son, then you are an heir through God, that all of a sudden now, you have not this sonship, but with this sonship comes an inheritance.
Romans chapter eight, verse 17: "We are heirs, also heirs of God, and fellow heirs of Christ." Give you Keller again: So the privilege of adoption presupposes pardon, acceptance, and permanence. So because Christ died, because Christ freed His people from the bondage of their sin, because at a point in time, you now step into a right relationship with God through Christ, you now have this inheritance, and you're a fellow heir of Christ.
Six Privileges of an Heir
Let me give you the six things, six privileges of an heir. Number one, we participate in Abraham's promise. A promise of Abraham was the Spirit that would come. The promise of Abraham was protection that would be provided for. The promise to Abraham is literally what we now talk about in Ephesians one, is God gives to His kids every spiritual blessing. That God wants what's absolutely best for His kids, and all those blessings God has for us.
I will tell you, hit the pause button, because we're going on a little tangent here, and then for a kid, our desire, as the father gives us every spiritual blessing, is to please the father. When Sarah was in third and fourth grade, I taught,
Our Spiritual Blessings as Heirs
I coached her girls' basketball team, so it was a whole new experience for me. These third and fourth grade girls, and I'm working some intricate offenses and defenses. Before the first game, we practiced on Friday night, and the first game was Saturday morning. I got all the girls around, so I said, "Okay, here's what we're going to do," and asked if anybody had any questions. One girl said, "Mr. Schrader, tomorrow, are we going to wear red ribbons or blue ribbons in our hair?" Oh my golly.
I had one girl on the team that had absolutely no promise at all, but every kid played at least a half. This girl had nothing. The entire two years I had her, she never made a basket, she never did anything of any consequence. We're in a game, one of our last games, and the ball comes to her. Here was our strategy: if you can get it there, shoot, because what I observed is most of the time, neither team ever got a shot off.
The ball comes to her totally by accident. She looks at the ball, she looks at me, and I'm going, "Shoot it, shoot it." She just kind of went like this—it was one of those things. It goes right through. Nobody can believe this. I'm going, "Go, go, go, defense, defense." This girl was so excited that what she did was run all the way over to her parents and did a "Did you see that?" I want you to understand that affirmation.
In the midst of this, here's what He says: you get every spiritual blessing, all those promises that were made to Abraham of the Messiah that would come.
No Condemnation for Those in Christ
Here's the second thing: there's no condemnation for you. Verse four and five, we talked about it at length. You've been redeemed. Romans chapter eight, verse one: "Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death."
You're in bondage now, not to the law, but to Christ. That deep burden of sin has now been relieved. There's still guilt in our life, by the way, when we sin. I made that point last week, and I don't think we can make it enough. There'll be those times in your life when you sin, and that's going to be an indicator of where you are spiritually. If you can just go on sinning, sinning, sinning, something's wrong, but now there's no condemnation.
Rather than free us to go and sin more, the reality is when I'm overwhelmed by the deep love God has for me, all I want to do is respond to that love. There's something about love that's so compelling. That's why we're afraid even to say it.
Here you go, you're dating. You kind of like each other, and maybe it's different, and you both want to say it, but you don't want to, because what would be worse than going, "I love you"? "What? Love you, really? Wow, I got to go." That's no good. But when all of a sudden you see somebody who loves you, and they protect you, and they guide you, and they nurture you, your heart is not to break that, but it's to respond with that same kind of love. So there's no condemnation.
Led by the Spirit
Here's the third thing: we're led by the Spirit. It's the Spirit that indwells us. Again, Romans chapter eight, verse 14: "For all who are led by the Spirit, those are called sons of God."
Those are the fundamentals of our faith. By the way, that's an interesting word, fundamental or fundamentalist. In its broadest definition, here's what it means: strict adherence to any set of basic ideas or principles. Kathy Keller, Tim's wife, writes this: Christians are fundamentalists. Well, actually, most people are fundamentalists. It just depends on what your fundamental is. It could be recycling, nutrition, pleasure, politics, money. You could fill it all in, here's the difference: for those of us who are Christians, our fundamentalist is grace, forgiveness, and justice, and that is the result of the living God in us.
One author writes, "Legalists are led by the law, hedonists are led by desires, materialists are led by their possessions, but Christians are led by the spirit." Another author: we need to be less cause-driven and more cross-driven, more spirit-led.
Fellow Heirs with Jesus
Here's the fourth thing: we're fellow heirs with Jesus. It's the idea, again, that we have in chapter four, verse seven—we're heirs through Christ. It's Romans chapter eight, verse 16 and 17: "The spirit testifies Himself that we are the spirit, that we are children of God, and of children also heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ."
Now, if you're one of these amazing note-takers, this is like the greatest lesson you've ever heard, because you're writing a lot of stuff, and this will be really important now. I'm going to give you a subset of the list we're in. Point four is we're fellow heirs with Jesus, but as fellow heirs of Jesus, we're fellow heirs in three areas.
Kingdom Builders
We're kingdom builders. Go make disciples, John 17: "Just as you sent me into the world, I send them into the world." We're part of it. God is building His kingdom, and you are part of it.
We are the church, and the church is not just Redemption Church or Scottsdale Bible Church or Central Christian Church. It's the body of believers that God is using to proclaim this message to a world, to be salt and light in the midst of this. That's a great privilege you have. That's why the way you live matters. That's why this book, When Bad Christians Happen to Good People, that's why that book is so important—the discussion of how, in many cases, our lack of being salt and light has had not just a detrimental effect, but it has literally shut doors to the gospel.
Fellow Heirs in Suffering
Here's the second thing: we're fellow heirs with Christ in His suffering. John 15: "If they persecuted me, they'll persecute
Fellow Heirs in Suffering
Philippians 3 tells us that because of what Jesus did for me, I now have the privilege of knowing Him, of living in the power of His resurrection, and sharing in His suffering, and becoming like Him in His death. We, too, will suffer. We will suffer for Christ's sake. Because of our identification with Him, there will be times when we will be slighted.
Now, we have to acknowledge, it's nothing like we might see in some places around the world. We know, statistically—I don't know how they get them, but this is the estimate—that about 250,000 Christians are killed every year for their faith. Still, now, more than in the time that we're looking at here in the life of Paul. Some of you have experienced that sort of persecution and suffering. Maybe it's in the work you're in. Maybe it's in the general industry that you're in. The reality, or the workplace or the company that you're in. When your morals, ethics, your Christ-likeness gets in the way.
Which, by the way, if you're running a company, it's really stupid. If you're running a company, the people you should want to work for you would be loyal, hardworking, service-oriented people. Servant leaders, followers of Christ.
The Complexity of Christian Employees
Having said that, I have yet to meet a boss who hasn't shared with me the experience of hiring. Just talking to a guy and his wife two weeks ago, they had a little tech startup company, and they hired all Christians when they started. They've had to fire every one of them. He said, "I'm just telling you, that Bible, in a lot of ways, gets in the way. It becomes an excuse." So you get the complexity of that, right?
Here's the third way we're fellow heirs: we have favor with the Father. Jesus is baptized, voice from heaven says, "You're my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased." We're fellow heirs of His. We're fellow heirs in building the kingdom, fellow heirs in suffering, fellow heirs in favor with the Father. So here's the practical application: You have work to do and suffering to endure, and favor to live by. Now go do it, as a fellow heir.
Brand New Bodies
Number five, we get brand new bodies. This is good news. Romans chapter 8, verse 23: "And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the firstfruits of the Spirit, even as we ourselves, groan within ourselves, are waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body."
Second Corinthians chapter 4: "We don't lose heart, though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day." There is this idea that not just a new Jerusalem, but we will get these new bodies, these glorified bodies. We know a little bit about them. We know they're functional. We know they don't disintegrate. We know that apparently—this is good news—they'll be pleasant to look at, though that won't be important to us anymore.
The Good News of Glorified Bodies
That means no more gym, no more curls, no more squats, no more lunges, no more reps, no more cardio, no more diet, no more CrossFit, no more power pump, no more Zumba, no more Brazilian gluteus maximus exercise. That's got to be awful to look at over there.
I got a text from Haley, and it was three months—Susan had been dead three months—and she said, "Think about this. For 90 days, mama's had no pills, no chemo, no hurt, no pain, no sorrow." That's what you inherit. You inherit this new body in heaven.
The Right to Say Daddy
Here's the big one. We've talked about it, but we'll kind of close with it. It's the right to say daddy, it's intimacy. It's intimacy with God. Romans 8:15: "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear, but you've received a spirit of adoption by sons by which we cry out, Abba, Father."
I think it was two or three years ago, Haley had a kidney stone, and I always screw up how big it was, but it was really big. The nurse was saying there's no way she could pass this. By the way, the nurse was saying that she's seen Cardinal football players come in with kidney stones a fraction of the size and it cripples them up. We're in the emergency room, and Tyler's gone, and Susan's gone, and Haley's just there. It's that helpless feeling, you know how helpless that feels. She just looked up at me.
My kids call me Tom, which I've always liked that, I've always loved it, and they've done that since they were little girls. "Hey, Tom." But every once in a while, they'll say "Daddy." When they say "Daddy," we're entering a new level of conversation. Whenever I get a card that says "Daddy..." And she's laying there, and she's in so much pain, and they can't give her anything for it because they're not sure what it is yet. She just looked at me and she said, "Daddy, it hurts so much, help me."
Crying Out to the Father
Well, that's that intimacy that you can cry out to the Father. You can tell Him right now, because life right now may be very, very bad for you. It may be a relationship, it may be economic. Who knows what it is? You can cry out, and you can tell Him, "Daddy, it hurts so much."
Here's the cool thing. He encourages you to tell Him for two reasons. Number one, because He cares. Number two, because He can do something about it. He won't always relieve that pressure, but He'll join you in that pressure. Peace is not the absence of turmoil, it's the presence of God in the midst of that.
Living with Our New Identity
So, because we have those six privileges, we have a taste of security with Him, sealed with the Holy Spirit, a new identity. Our identity is no longer our stuff, or our status, or anything in this world. Our identity is in Christ. "I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me."
Here's a huge practical result of this: We have the ability to live with disappointment. Paul says, "I've learned to live with a lot, I've learned to live with a little." Doesn't mean, by the way, we don't work, and we don't strive.
We understand God is in control, and our call is to be obedient. We have been given an understanding that is huge: a true, perfect father.
It sounds amazing, but we're about fourteen weeks away from summer camp, and Justin sent out the topics for this year. The idea is God, and if it works right, Tim and I are going to co-teach it. I had picked the sessions I wanted, not the topics, because the topics weren't assigned yet, but I liked the Sunday morning slot. I tried to maybe say I've earned the right to teach on Sunday morning outside in the amphitheater. Some of you have been there—it's a beautiful setting.
When I got the sheet, what I discovered from Justin is the topic that morning is "God is Father." That'll be a great conversation with those junior high and high school kids who some have an okay dad, some don't have any dad at all, and some have a bad dad. When they hear "father," that was a big deal for Susan. I'll just be honest—I never understood this, but I've heard it enough to know it's real. Susan had a huge problem with God as Father because her father was so bad.
A True Perfect Father
You have an earthly father—he may be good, he may be great, whatever it is—but God is the true perfect Father.
Here's the last practical result of all of this: we're joint heirs, but we are indwelt, Frank Switzer writes, with the ruthlessly unstoppable desire to see others share the inheritance. There should be in us a desire to share this amazing good news.
Sharing Our Inheritance
I hurt my shoulder about six weeks ago. Every time I mention it, somebody has a cure. They've got this doctor, that doctor, this exercise, this thing over here, that cortisone shot, whatever—everybody has it. It's amazing how freely they'll just share this. I'll mention in the course of teaching that my shoulder was so bad that I could not turn on and off the radio in the car without just excruciating pain. I think I heard it again right now—I'm teasing. It's much, much better now.
But people just felt, who I barely knew, felt compelled to come up and give me the cure to my shoulder. I couldn't help but wonder: don't you have people all around you who aren't necessarily hurting in their shoulder, or their neck, or their back, but are hurting in their soul? Yet you're willing to tell them to go see this guy, but you're not willing to tell them to come to Christ.
The Privilege of Adoption
The privilege of adoption presupposes that we've been pardoned, we've been redeemed. This is amazing. You are accepted, those of you who are followers of Christ, by the one true holy God, because of the work of His Son Jesus. That's an unbreakable union.
We're not done—we have work to do. The Spirit fills us for that. There'll be suffering to endure, but we have enormous favor in God's eyes, as His kids.
If you're in the conference center, either Brian or Matt will close that time and give you instruction. If you're here in the chapel, Justin's going to come and lead you in communion. By the way, in both places, let me just encourage you, especially if today's one of those days where you're going, "Wow, that's a lot of stuff," and maybe that's brand new to you, and you either have questions or you just feel like you have to respond to that. There'll be men and women in front of the room after the service who are here to talk to you. Justin's going to lead you in communion, and then the band's going to come and close our time of worshiping the Lord through song.
We'll pick up right at that same spot, Galatians chapter 4, verse 8, next week.
Father, thanks for this amazing truth, and we love You, and we love You because You first loved us. Thank You for the power that You've given us through the resurrection, that we are forgiven and have the ability to forgive. God, thank You that You've adopted us, and we are heirs, and we can call You Daddy because of Your work in our life. You're an awesome God. God, thank You that we can be Your kids for one reason: because of Jesus. We pray to You in His name. Amen.