Christ Has Come To Make You Heirs

Please take your Bibles and turn to the book of Galatians and chapter 4

If you were sitting in a high church today, and we are somewhat a form of that this would probably be one of the

New Testament readings from the occasion the Sunday after the

Christmas the incarnation of our Lord so this text is keeping with the season believe it or not here in Galatians chapter 4

I'll begin reading in verse 26 of chapter 3 this is

God's holy and infallible word Galatians 3 26

For You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus 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, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise

Now I say that the heir as long as he is a child does not differ at all from a slave

Though he is master of all But is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father

Even so we when we were children were in bondage under the elements of the world

But when the fullness of the time had come God sent forth his son born of a woman born under the law to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons and Because you are sons

God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts crying out

Abba father Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son

And if a son than an heir of God through Christ Oh Lord we thank you for your word and we thank you that you are the

Lord of all creation As we have read and sung today Lord you are the one who takes away our sin and our shame and the sting of death you have reversed the curse

And Oh Lord We rejoice today to know that we are no longer

Slaves, but our sons and even more than that. We have the inheritance

We are joint heirs with Christ Lord, I pray that this would be impressed upon our hearts and it would fill us with joy and gladness

And I ask all of these things in Jesus name Amen Please be seated

No doubt you have been running on some of the energy of This great time of the year and had great celebrations together as the family and very much enjoyed our

Christmas Eve Service together and I hope that you or you are blessed in the

Lord when you consider the great works of incarnation Well, what happens now is we forget and we move on and then

January it's been our our theme to think about The kingship of Christ.

It's a very good January theme to consider will be reflected in the music and though some of the liturgy elements but today we focus on our privileges the inheritance the

Heirship that God has provided for us in Christ Christ came to save us from our sin

Christ came to Sanctify us to make us holy Christ has come to convey us into glory

But he's also come to share with us the unincalculable wealth of his kingdom

He's made you a heir a joint heir with himself in the riches of his kingdom

You are an heir of God Through Christ. I put a simple outline in Slack if you have need to reflect on it at another time

But here are the three elements that I would like to consider under this heading today first God sent forth his son that is derived from verse 4 of chapter 4

God sent forth his son God sent forth his son and there's some rich theology and Those five words

God sent forth his son secondly To redeem you and this kind of makes a continuous sentence the outline points to redeem you that you might receive the adoption as Sons, and we need to look into that concept a little bit the idea of adoption and finally as Sons you are an heir of God Through Christ as sons you are an heir of God through Christ Now What's happening in the book of Galatians?

We don't have time to do a summary of all the teaching But it's important to remember the context in order to have a proper understanding of what's happening here in our section there are

Judaizers who have come into the church at Galatia and they have said things like you must be

Circumcised in order to be a Christian You have to observe the

Jewish law in order to be a Christian And in fact, it seems that we could we may be able to do this if we have time

The false teachers were seeking people not so much to follow after the law of God, but to follow after them

Come follow us. We're the keepers of the law. We are the real Christians or we are the real people of God and Paul has some very stern and strong words to rebuke this false teaching they were placing an obstacle an impediment between the people in Christ the very

Obstacles the walls of separation that Jesus Christ had come to tear down It's a great evil

So let's consider it here One of the off -quoted

I Don't know who said this originally I've seen it in two older authors from the 1800s and 1700s and it's modern paraphrase that probably stretches back to someone like Augustine or someone like that and The the statements very fitting for us today and in this time of year

The Son of God became the Son of Man That the sons of men might become the sons of God It's one more time

The Son of God became the Son of Man That the sons of men might become the sons of God It's a very crisp summary of what

Jesus Christ has done coming in the flesh, isn't it now today? We think a lot about justification

The declaration that we are righteous in Christ. We we think about our sins

Have you meditated lately on your sins? How vast they are how deep they go how wicked they are

And this could be a cause for discouragement Why are we not making the progress in the faith?

But but our our Christian minds tell us that that Christ has conquered sin and death and we say hallelujah

Amen, and we say my sin no longer hangs over me because it's been laid upon Christ That's a great thing, isn't it?

And we also think about our progress in the faith and the sending of the Spirit and the work of progressive sanctification very important But what gets lost in all of this is the dramatic conveyance from a place of slaves of sin

If you're a Gentile strangers to the covenant of promise all the way to Sonship and forgiveness and even more so than that that every rank -and -file

Christian Enjoys the inheritance of the firstborn son because the firstborn overall creation has made himself one with us and Shared his inheritance with us.

It's quite a spectacular thing So today we're not thinking about the penalty of sin as much we must always keep it in mind

We're not even thinking as much about our progress in sanctification daily We must be putting sin to death

But today we are basking in the glow that we have been made joint heirs

With Christ. Christ has come to make you heirs

Let's look at verse 4 What may be lost because of time is the idea that a great

Thing in redemptive history has happened It's not business as usual with the covenant people of God there's something dramatic that has taken place

It says when the fullness of the time had come Why was

Jesus born in 6 BC 4 BC? Whatever it was. Why was that the time that was the fullness of time?

That was the time when Jesus must come in the flesh. Why was he born?

I don't know, but it is the fullness of time The creation was groaning.

The people were crying out They were heavy under the burden of sin just like they were in the

Egyptian exodus But God in his infinite wisdom and his providence

Determines that this is the time. This is the fullness of time. This is the occasion. We've just celebrated

That Christ would come I Want you to look at that next phrase at the fullness of time in redemptive history

Accepting John the Baptist again over 400 years without special revelation

Reminiscent of the Period of time that Egypt would be

I mean Israel would be captive enslaved in Egypt 400 years

Quiet God not speaking the Ark of the Covenant not in the temple

The people of God Wandering in the wilderness again spiritually false teaching in their midst, but then

God sent forth his son Now the thing I want you to take away from this that's a pretty simple phrase

But this language and the grammar Intimates that the son who was sent existed before Think of John 1 in the beginning was the word the word was with God the word was

God He was in the beginning with God So the one the son who was sent is none other than the second person of the

Trinity the pre -existent God the second person of the

Godhead of the Trinity Jesus Christ And God sends him forth the next phrase

Born of a woman so his eternal divinity is established He is himself

God of gods He's very God of very God Begotten not made all of those wonderful truths from the creedal statements

God has sent forth his son the second person of the Trinity born of a woman born of a virgin

And that born of a woman speaks to his real humanity he put on his

Human nature in the incarnation and that's very good news for us

Because the God who is Transcendent is now imminent his transcendence isn't lost

But his nearness is very real and in fact now that he's come in the flesh

I and you can be one flesh with him. I can be united to him.

I Can have that bone of my bone flesh of my flesh union with Christ That's what the

Bride of Christ has with Christ. Now. This is why and how we can be heirs

Christ is so united himself to us and our cause That he has made it possible and gay even more than that he's made it actual that we would be united to him

He was sent forth from God the eternal the monogamous eternal eternally begotten

Son of God born of the Virgin Mary and Then the last phrase born under the law now, this is very important in our

Context because The law is what the Judaizers are appealing to in order to be the righteous and earn your standing before God You have to be circumcised

You have to keep the Jewish law but we have here the

Christ coming and he's born under the weight of the law and He accomplishes and fulfills it perfectly

The first Adam was given a simple command and I believe the law of God was written more thoroughly on His heart and he failed the test

The law was added because it says in Galatians because of transgressions

But before the the formal codification of the law there were promises made

And even stretches back to Genesis chapter 3 that the seed of the woman we've talked about it in the

Advent season I'm not going to rehearse that again, but the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent

There's something that predates even the mosaic Economy, let's go back to chapter 3 really quickly go back to chapter 3 of Galatians What if I said to you?

Well, hopefully you would throw me off the pulpit, but I said to you today That you have to earn

God's favor or you can earn God's favor by the keeping of the law You'd say it does not follow because there is none who have done that save Christ, right?

Salvation is hopeless if it's achieved by men keeping the law because no man but Christ has done it

There is no salvation there and it was never intended to be that and that's what the

Judaizers are doing They're saying the way that we are righteous Oh that faith in Christ is important but the way that we are righteous is we keep his commandments and God views us as being righteous and his sight

Let's see the curse of the law look at Galatians 3 verse 10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse for it is written

Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them so in order to be

Blessed in this law -keeping scheme. You have to continue in all the things with a perfect precision

Nobody does that and here's the problem we we wrongly sometimes Characterize this as legalism.

The legalist doesn't have a high view of God's law. He has a low view

Because he believes he can attain it And that God would be obligated to accept him because of his righteousness that he performs

The antinomian has no regard for the law It's unimportant both are grievous errors both minimize the significance and importance of God's law verse 11, but that no one is justified by the law on the side of God is evident

For the just shall live by faith Yet the law is not of faith

But the man who does them shall live by them Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us

I want to read that again.

I Pointed this out at the outset in different words There is a curse hanging over us

But Christ has redeemed us from the curse and how has he done it?

having become a curse for us the best sermon that R .C.

Sproul has ever preached is his Preaching on the curse motif of the atonement you want to hear a good sermon by R .C.

Sproul the best one he's ever preached I believe is him explaining the curse motif of the atonement which speaks to this very thing

So the idea of law -keeping as a means of righteousness It's never been its intention.

And in fact, it's practically impossible Only Christ has done it but yet the

Judaizers are saying this is how we're right with God We get circumcised we keep all the ceremonies we tack on faith in Christ, but we're really concerned about these things

Christians can do this People who are great at keeping the

Sabbath they start taking their Sabbath keeping as their righteousness The psalm -singing churches whom

I love I'm so in tune with those brethren, but that becomes their right They only sing psalms.

They're the righteous ones We can do that for a host of things the grave danger for us

Our righteousness is found in Christ alone We have no righteousness our righteousness is but filthy rags

But we do have a righteousness because of Christ Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law and here it is

That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus That we might receive the promise of the

Spirit through faith Now what's lost on us about Abraham such an important figure the patriarch of the patriarchs

We have forgotten That though he can trace his genealogy just a couple of generations from Noah His grandfather is

Shem and you think okay Noah's in the godly line by the time

Abraham is a 75 year old man going from Ur and the land of the

Chaldeans up to Haran in the north country, which is now Syria He was a pagan polytheist

He will forget that His dad his family they were pagans

It's likely that father Abraham worshipped the moon

God So Abraham's righteousness comes because God does something with a he calls

Abraham He gives Abraham faith Abraham his only response is the reflecting of New life he believes

God and it's accounted to him for righteousness This is very important if we're appealing to the

Mosaic law We're really appealing to the promises given to Abraham But when we investigate the promises given to Abraham, it sounds like new covenant blessings in Christ and faith and This is what seems to be lost in the thinking of the

Judaizers in Galatia Listen again beginning in verse 15

Brethren I speak in the manner of men though. It is only a man's covenant Yet if is confirmed no one annuls or adds to it

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made

Do you notice in your Bibles the capital S? That is a very important translation feature for us in English He's not talking about just natural descendants here.

He's talking about his descendant who happens to be the Lord Jesus Christ You see for Adam and Eve and Enoch and Seth and all of these people for Abraham for Sarah They needed

Christ as a Savior They needed salvation from on high and at the right time in the fullness of time

God sent forth his son Not to Abraham verse 16 again in his seed where the promises made he does not say antecedents as of many but as of one and to your seed who is

Christ and this I say that the law which was four hundred and thirty years later

Cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ That it should make the promise of no effect you see it's the promise

For Adam for Eve for Abraham for Sarah, it's the promise

The promise is Christ It's no longer a promise, but God gave it to Abraham By promise it continues again,

I'm trying to set the stage for you to see the importance of our sonship and our new identity as heirs of the kingdom

What purpose does then does the law serve it was added because of transgressions?

Till the seed should come to whom the promise was made And it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator now mediator does not mediate for one only but God is one

So we could read Galatians and say well this law we have to throw it out because it's contrary to faith in Christ That's absolutely false.

What does Paul say is the law then against the promises of God?

Certainly not For if there had been a law given which could have given life truly righteousness would have been by the law

But the scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe

But before faith came we were kept under guard by the law. This is important for our context kept

For the faith which would afterward be revealed

Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ That we might be justified by faith, but after faith has come we are no longer under a

Tutor Now what the Judaizers in Galatia are doing is they're saying you guys have all of this liberty and freedom in Christ You think but now you have to go back under the tutor

You have to go under the schoolmaster again Now I want to point something out to you, which you might see this seems utterly ridiculous, but this is really what they're arguing for They're arguing for an older man like me to go back to kindergarten

Imagine me showing up at kindergarten I'd love snack time.

I love taking a nap Those parts would be good. I would breeze through the

ABCs. I got those It's utterly improper for me to go back there because I have progressed past Those childish times and and there's something bigger here happening from a redemptive historical perspective

The two covenants that are going to be mentioned in here in just a moment Referring to Sarah and Hagar What Paul is saying is the whole time that we were under the law

It was driving us the the schoolmaster of the law was pointing us and pushing us to Christ that we might see him and we might see our righteousness in him.

The law debased us the law Stripped us bare and caught us running through the streets without covering

And we see we need to run to Christ that we might be covered in his righteousness and clothed in his holiness

Calvin has given a very good articulation of the three uses of the law.

I know many of you are Familiar with this. I'm just gonna give you a brief summary of each of those uses to see how suitable the law is for The people of God, but it's never been intended to be the means of salvation the first Use of the threefold uses of the law is the law is a

Mirror, I hold up this word to my life

And I see all of the defects of my funny -looking face. I See all of the deficiencies

The Word of God pierces my heart and I read it and I meditate upon it and I see that I'm wanting

I'm lacking righteousness I See in this word the perfect righteousness and holiness of a holy

God Augustine said that the law orders

That we after attempting to do what is ordered and so feeling our weakness under the law may learn to implore the help of grace the law reveals our weakness so that we might seek

Christ It is a schoolmaster And he's harsh and he slaps us with on the knuckles with his ruler that we might be

Driven to Christ That's the first use of the law

And that first use there is no salvation for you There's no righteousness for you because you aren't second

The second use is to restrain evil There have been people that you've encountered in your life who have sought you harm, but their conscience

Restrained them because they didn't want to pay the consequences They know that they would go to jail people have wanted to harm you most likely

But the law and its restraint of evil holds them back

By means of its fearful Denunciations and the consequent dread of punishment it curbs those

Who unless force have no regard for rectitude and justice. This is the second use of The law it's a good use

But then there's the third The third use of the law is to reveal what is pleasing to God The Christian delights in the law of God as God himself delights in his law the the

Christian By faith in Jesus Christ is the one who's able to have the proper

Relationship to the law because he sees in Christ alone his salvation

He sees his need of Christ. He's driven to Christ. He runs to Christ.

He believes on Christ then he says this law is

Felicitous It's it's good Because this conveys the the holy mind of God and I long and I hunger and thirst for righteousness

So I want to now go follow After Christ and walk in his footsteps and Do that which is pleasing?

to God The Jewish people the economy the cultists of the

Jewish religion they were under guard They were under the tutelage of tutors

Waiting for the revelation of Jesus Christ, but we just celebrated it this week, but Christ has now come

He's come in the flesh He's fulfilled all righteousness He's come and he's died a satisfactory atonement atoning death for our sins on the cross he triumphs over the grave over sin and death and the curse in the resurrection and Even now he's sitting at the right hand of God reigning and ruling waiting for his enemies to be made a footstool

How can we go back to as if none of that? Incarnation God sending forth his son never happened

Very appropriate for us today, isn't it to think about that? Well The time is running short.

I need to go down to the second point look at verse 5 The fullness of time had come

God sent forth his son the richness of theology God and his Christ and his divinity

Christ and his humanity the hypostatic union of Christ the union of those two natures and one person

All of that theology all that systematic theologies here in the exegesis of Galatians 4

Look at verse 5. It says to redeem those Who were under the law?

His Blood is the purchase price of our redemption He has redeemed us from the curse of the law

Remember when Jesus and his parents we learned this early in the Advent season

They went to the temple to pay the redemption price for the firstborn So that the

Levites could support and go in the place of the firstborn son and serve for God in the temple in the temple

Service that was the economy. That's a structure Lamb or a pigeon or two turtledoves those those offerings had to be named to be made to redeem the firstborn

But now the firstborn himself has come to redeem those who were under the law and it's curse and it's penalty

It's dread That we might receive the adoption as sons now

In Sunday school a couple weeks ago. I Told you about the verbal plenary basis of scriptural interpretation

And it's so amazing to me after digging into this a little bit more depth than you might in your cursory reading

That Paul employs language that doesn't exist in the Hebrew And it's very fitting for this occasion

This kind of adoption for sons comes right out of the Greco -Roman world where in this economy an adopted son when he's of age a

Price could be paid Documents could be made with the court and he has all the rights and privileges of a son and Paul says my audience knows what it is.

They can see it with their eyes. These Judaizers don't understand it I'm going to invoke this

Greco -Roman principle to prove my point that Christ has done it very powerful

They're trying to cling to Hebraisms. He says I'm gonna speak in language You don't even have at your disposal almost

He redeems those who are under the law That we might receive

The adoption of sons There's a great old movie.

I Can't watch anything made basically after 1960. It seems I can't enjoy it

The there's a great picture of this in the movie been her if you never seen the movie or read the book been her

There's a picture of this Adoption principle you familiar ring a bell at all, too

He gets all the rights and privileges And this is what's happened for the for the blessed people of God Now the

Jews are having a hard time with this These are are not the sons of Abraham the way they are

But we learned that Abraham is not even a son of Shem like he ought to have been

Abraham was a pagan called out of the land of the Chaldeans He travels north to Haran then he comes down and he inherits

Inherits Canaan. It's like he went from Paris to the wilderness He was in a place of culture and grandeur and he had a place of status and wealth and he was sent to a desert

It was far better for him to be there to receive the inheritance of the land And to walk with the pagans, that's what the

Christian has We can go out and have the pleasures of the world, but we've been Redeemed we have a sonship and inheritance that it may be in this life and maybe in this moment

It's a little bit harder, but oh, it's so much more wealth It's so much better Our adoption is

The adoption as sons and this adoption as sons And I can't stress this enough in the

Hebrew world It's also true in the Gentile world. The firstborn son gets most of it my son

Jacob Tease him about this. He often Invokes this in our family discussions that he's the firstborn son and he has all the rights and privileges

Because he's the firstborn but my children now can have a good defense against him and say that the firstborn the real firstborn has

Distributed his wealth to all of us Because we're his heirs joint heirs with Christ look at verse 6 slaves of sin

Jews and Greeks alike confined under sin At the very best even though they might be masters of the house the the people the covenant people of God of Israel They were like slaves because they were under the

Tudor I imagine

I wish my daughter Savannah was here. I imagine a literary tale from the 1800s in England and the rich little girl had a governess

You must picture the story can't you the rich little girl?

She's maybe closer to the governess Than she is her own parents and the governess is this virtuous woman.

You can imagine a story, right? But in God's economy in his revelation with the revelation of Jesus Christ We have a father and an heir and a prince of peace and a king of kings.

Who's not relegated our care to governors and governesses

He's not said go play somewhere where I can't hear you He says come let me instruct you in the ways of the kingdom for you're going to inherit the whole world

This is why we can cry out Abba father We often reduce this to say daddy and that could be a little dicey

We can exclaim and cry out to God because we're sons

We're heirs the righteousness of Christ has been applied to our

Account. Let's conclude the exegesis with verse 7

Therefore you are no longer a slave. I want you to see the progression Slave probably not treated so well having to do that hard work

He's taken from being a slave and this is true for every Christian Even privileged covenant children like ours.

We've been taken from the slavery of sin And given this gift of sonship

But we're not like little David. We're not the eighth or tenth born kid who everybody forgets about We are the sons and daughters who inherit the entire kingdom

So we don't see how great this distance has been traversed by the people of God from slavery under the curse of sin and death

To sonship all the way to being joint heirs with the glorious one

The Lord Jesus Christ, that's what's happened when God sent forth his son few words for application will close

Christmas time is Actually still going on for many of you properly

But now we're distracted we got to go back to the normal things work and such

I Urge you to continue to meditate upon the incarnation of Christ Its importance spans the entire spectrum of redemption

Going back to the old ways would be like Abraham choosing

Ishmael and Hagar over Sarah and the son of promise

Isaac appeal to the flesh appeal to a work

We must continue to meditate upon the incarnation of Christ Second we always must remember those gospel essentials

Christ came to save to justify to sanctify to reconcile us to God, but He has also and this is what

I want us to take with us today. He's transformed you from an object of wrath a vessel of dishonor

And he's made you an heir of his kingdom. That is gospel good news this is a transformation like no other

From deserving his just wrath to being a joint heir with Christ and inheriting his kingdom and Who can even begin to plumb the depths how rich how wealthy is that kingdom?

we labor over that which rusts and moths destroy and We're inheriting the kingdom of God as his sons as joint heirs with Christ That should transform the way you live every moment of every day

And it seems you can ask the question. How great is the love of God for us in Christ Jesus but a word of Encouragement as we think about all of our blessings as members of the royal family it seems

We have to to follow the royal etiquette We need to be putting sin to death because it's contrary to us

I've told you this a dozen times in the last couple years we continue to say that we are as the people of God it's more natural for us to sin than to walk in righteousness as the redeemed in Christ our

New inclination is to walk in righteousness Walking in sin is the anomaly a great victory has been won to convey us from that life of death to a life of righteousness

We're believing a lie that says we have to always be a miserable sinner.

We are miserable sinners But we have the capacity for righteousness to walk in it because of Christ we should follow

His royal etiquette to love as he has loved to put sin to death

To walk in his ways to delight in worship to serve him And maybe what's most lacking for us in our context is to show others

Christ and proclaim the good news of his salvation Brethren the

Son of God became the Son of Man to Make the sons of men

The sons of God and even more than that Christ has come To make you heirs of God's eternal kingdom.

This is a cause for our rejoicing, isn't it? Let's pray together. Oh Lord, we thank you that you have done this great work

Lord if there be any Judaizing in us. I pray that you would show it to us and that we would put it to death

That we would highly esteem this work of Christ, which is even more spectacular than our wildest vision

Oh Lord, help us to see more and more of the glory of Christ in our salvation

I know Lord I pray that this status that we have this a state that you have conveyed us into Would cause us to love your ways to walk in your righteousness

And be a blessing to others and those who advance your kingdom for your glory