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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) This sermon was used for Christmas Day and so it is broken up into two parts with a suitable hymn to sing in-between |
GALATIANS 4:5
(Readings: Matt.1:18-25; Gal.3:26-4:7: 1 Jn 2:28-3:10)
Perfect!
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ…
With our previous four sermons, based on the four phrases in verse 4, we saw the wonders of divine love and mercy towards us.
God the Father specially sent his Son into the world to redeem and save us.
God the Son endured the greatest humiliation and suffering for us.
And verse 6, after our text, shows God the Holy Spirit actually coming into our hearts, living in us as part of God’s great purpose!
Verse 5 is the bit in the middle.
And it might seem a strange thing to say, but verse 5 is actually what this whole business is all about.
Why say it is strange?
Well, because verse 5 is about you and I.
Now this does seem out of place, doesn’t it?
We know who is really the subject of Christmas.
And it is certainly not about us.
Much as we may have been pounded by all those commercials about buying gifts for each other and enjoying ourselves, that’s not the real Christmas message.
That’s not the reason for the season.
Children will tell you that.
The entries from boys and girls a few years ago for a series of Christmas stamp designs were overwhelming in showing who it’s about.
They know it’s all about the baby Jesus!
There’s that stable, and the angels, and the shepherds, and the wise men too.
They’re all around that baby.
And what a glorious scene!
But, then, what a name to give that baby – “Jesus”?
Matthew 1 verse 21 said that name means “he will save his people from their sins.”
“Sins”?
That’s a word you don’t hear much in this world or in many churches these days.
And if you do hear it out there, doesn’t it take on a kind of cute naughtiness?
Like, ‘I’m going to eat this sinful chocolate cake!’
That kind of sin fits in with Christmas, doesn’t it?
I mean, you over-eat a bit, you enjoy your drinks, and, after New Year’s Eve, you get back to normal.
You don’t want to take yourself too seriously, do you?
There’s the rest of the year to do that.
But that’s precisely what verse 5 is about.
Because of what we’ve seen in verse 4 – Christ’s coming, Christ’s character, Christ’s calling, and Christ’s completing – we are cleared of the curse!
This is our first aspect.
Here we note from the phrase “to redeem those who were under the law” that … THROUGH CHRIST WE’RE CLEARED OF THE CURSE.
You see, Christ’s first coming is the most serious thing.
Jesus didn’t come to be born among us to have a good time with us all.
In fact, his life shows quite the opposite!
Galatians 3 verse 13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written” ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’”
So, when our text in verse 5 speaks of Jesus having come to redeem those under the law, it means Jesus took our place.
So, what kind of law is this?
Congregation, this is the law which convicts us all.
This is the law under which we all stand condemned.
As Paul said in Romans 3, the verses 9 till 12, “Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.
As it’s written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.
“‘All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there’s no one who does good, not even one.’”
If this all sounds a bit like we’re caught in a trap, you are exactly right!
It is a trap of our own making.
A trap we aren’t going to get out of.
In fact, the harder we tried, the worse it got.
A lot of traps are made to do that, aren’t they?
Because they are traps – you aren’t meant to escape from them, and if you do try it is made to remind us we can’t get out!
Then it takes someone outside the trap to come and free you from it.
Our trap is also called the curse.
“Curse” is the word we heard Paul using for this in chapter 3.
It was the curse we got because we broke the covenant with God.
That’s why Jesus saves us by taking our place.
Christmas has to confront you with him!
Friend, has Jesus saved you?
Do you believe he took your place, even though you know you deserved to die for your sins?
That’s another misconception people can have about Christmas.
They can think it means God is going to save everyone.
I wonder if that is where they got the idea for Santa Claus and Father Christmas from.
You know, a kindly old grandfather type of figure, someone who’s going to give you your present anyway.
But all this couldn’t be further away from Christ clearing us of the curse.
In the words of one Christmas hymn, “Mild, he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.”
The subject of Christmas may well be the Christ-child, but the object is you and I.
The first phrase of verse 5 presses this.
“To redeem those who were under the law,” is in the original more like, “that he might redeem those who were under the Law.”
You see, it may be that you aren’t saved.
We say this because not every sinner will be saved.
God’s people, those Jesus came to redeem, are only those people who have come to believe in him.
It may be hard to take, but it is true nevertheless – Christ’s birth is not for everyone.
For those who believe, though, Christmas is the most wonderful thing.
For you it’s not only then Christ’s human birthday, it’s your spiritual birthday!
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law…”
Hey, that’s good news!
You have to shout it from the roof tops!
No wonder the heavenly host sang those words in Luke chapter 2.
In verse 14 they sing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favour rests.”
Let’s also sing it out loud – right now!
“Hark! the herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the new-born king; Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!’
With this hymn let’s stand and sing out our praise to our Saviour and Lord.
SCRIPTURE READING = 1 John 2:28-3:10
Congregation...
THROUGH CHRIST WE’RE CLEARED OF THE CURSE.
We are those redeemed from being under the law.
And this brings us to the second part of our text in verse 5 of Galatians 4.
This is the part which says, “so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
Verse 5 now turns us to see, secondly … THROUGH THE SON WE’RE ALL SONS.
Congregation, because of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we are now ourselves called the sons of God.
That has happened because we have been adopted.
Many of us know what an adoption is.
It is when children who are not the natural children become the same as those who are the actual children.
Just like God does with us!
For we who are not the natural heirs, we who have no rights at all to any inheritance – let alone to citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven – we now have the status of sonship by sheer grace!
THROUGH THE SON WE’RE ALL SONS.
This is what another apostle so joyfully responds to in one of his letters.
For in 1st John 3 verse 1 we read, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are!”
The one and only begotten Son of God came down to us.
And he came down with the express purpose of us rising up with him so that we would be his brothers and sisters before the Heavenly Father.
But some may still wonder – what’s the difference?
How has this changed things for believers from how it was before Jesus came?
Weren’t they saved by faith too?
Why couldn’t those Galatians hold on to all those ceremonial laws?
Well, let’s compare what it is to be a child with, say, a servant.
The servant is accepted and appreciated on the basis of what he does.
The child is accepted and appreciated because of who he is.
The servant starts the day anxious and worried, wondering if his work will really please his master.
The child rests in the secure love of his family.
The servant is accepted because of his workmanship, the son or daughter because of the relationship.
The servant is accepted because of his productivity and performance, the child because of his position as a person.
At the end of the day, the servant has peace of mind only if he’s proved his worth by his work.
The next morning his anxiety begins again.
The child, though, can be secure all day and know that tomorrow won’t change anything!
If that servant fails, he could even get fired!
When a child fails, he’ll be sad because he’s hurt his parents, and he’ll be told off and disciplined.
If he has biblical parents that is!
But he’s not afraid of being thrown out.
You see, he’s in the family.
He belongs.
And whatever he does or doesn’t do won’t change that one iota!
We who were by nature – in our very characters – slaves of wrath and disobedience, we’ve become by grace children of love!
All because, congregation, he who was God’s Son by nature willingly became a slave.
Hebrews 2 verse 11 says, “Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.”
Paul is very concerned that the Galatians were in danger of losing this very privileged position.
Later in this letter the apostle will express his fear that they will become slaves all over again!
Congregation, Paul openly wonders.
I mean, could they go back to something which could never satisfy?
But we can do the same.
Anyone with an addiction, of one kind or another, will tell you how hard it is to stop and how easy it is to slip back.
I have a friend who calls himself a non-practicing smoker.
He hasn’t smoked a cigarette for years.
If he smokes just one cigarette, though, he’s hooked all over again!
And we can be like that spiritually!
It’s interesting that this phrase also has the word “might” – “that we might receive the full rights of sons.”
It’s the same word we get if we literally translate the first part of verse 5.
For that says, “that he might redeem those who were under the law.”
In other words, there’s the thought that not all those reading or hearing this letter would actually get the full rights of sons.
So it’s nothing you can take for granted!
It’s not ours by natural right – and let’s not forget it!
As Paul says in 1st Corinthians 6, verse 20, we are not our own anyway!
We’ve been bought to honour God.
The highest thing any man can do!
Congregation, this is the message of Christmas!
As someone once described it, “Christmas is based on an exchange of gifts: the gift of God to man – his unspeakable gift of his Son; and the gift of man to God – when we present our bodies as a living sacrifice and, like the Macedonians of 2nd Corinthians 8:5, first give ourselves to God.
“No one has kept or can keep Christmas until he’s had a part in this two-way transaction.”
It’s quite covenantal, isn’t it?
There are two sides to this deal.
Two parties, quite unequal, but by the grace of the One the other receives the right to also be his sons.
Congregation, there were many millions of children born on the day the Christ-child was born.
And perhaps you’re thinking; how would you know that?
Aren’t those figures more than a little inflated?
There weren’t that many people on the earth then!
Well, if it was just about physical births, you would be quite right.
But that’s not what it’s about, is it?
It is because of Christ’s birth that there have been countless spiritual births.
I mean, you’ve been born again, haven’t you?
You know, when you come down to it, Christmas is not really a date at all.
It’s not one day a year.
It’s what you actually are everyday!
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray…
O Lord Jesus, do stir us deep within by your Spirit today.
Remind us, quicken us, and direct us to the things of eternity, not the things of today.
O Father, we stand in awe of your working through your Son.
Sometimes we may think we’ve done something particularly loving, but it all pales into absolute insignificance when we see your love shown in your Son.
And as Jesus has saved us, Father, may his example also light up the way we go in following you.
In his precious Name, we pray, Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Sjirk Bajema, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright 2024, Rev. Sjirk Bajema
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