"Talk to the Father Like the Son" Galatians 4:1-7 Sunday Morning Worship Service

I'm grateful to be here to open God's word with you.

If I don't know you, my name is Dan.

I'm the pastor of college ministry here.

We're going to pause our study in the book of Ephesians this morning briefly to look at the book of Galatians.

So would you grab your Bible and turn with me to Galatians chapter 4?

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

The Pew Bible, it's on page 974.

As we study one of the most precious truths of the gospel, our adoption into the family of God.

Let me read for us, Galatians chapter 4, starting in verse 1.

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he's the owner of everything.

But he's under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.

In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.

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, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

So you are no longer a slave, but a son.

And if a son, then an heir through God.

Only one little boy gets to live in my house.

Only one little boy eats my food, pulls out my hair, literally.

Can you tell?

Only one little boy has seen me spitting mad, has seen me weep, has brought me unspeakable joy.

Only this one little boy feels free to belch in my face.

And one time to stick his finger in his mouth and then put that finger in my ear.

Only one little boy calls me Bapi.

Who is it?

It's my son.

Wouldn't it be awfully strange if the answer to that question was your son?

Or someone else's kid.

Of course it would.

That would be very strange for a parent and someone else's child to relate like that because of this really simple point that we relate differently to people who are inside of our family than people who are outside of it.

Kids relate differently to their own parents than they do to other people's parents.

Inside a family, there's familiarity, there's closeness, there's a freedom, there's an intimacy that would be entirely inappropriate for a stranger, for someone else.

But what if I took another little boy and brought him into my family and made him my son through adoption?

Well then he would be my son.

And he would get all the rights and privileges that come with that.

In this text, Paul shows us that through glorious spiritual adoption, Christians are in the family.

We are sons, we are daughters.

And because we have been adopted into the family of God, Christians can relate to the Father intimately, like a son to a father.

And specifically, what Paul is saying in this text is that as a Christian, you get to relate to God like his own son, Jesus Christ.

There are a number of Christians who don't take advantage of this, who relate distantly to God.

Who see God as some kind of boring chore or a taskmaster.

He's a boss and they're the employee.

My burden in this message is that you would see just how world-shattering, how life-altering and utterly amazing it is to be adopted as a son or a daughter of God.

And that would explode inside of you with a passion for your heavenly Father and change everything about how you specifically talk to him.

And you may say, well, how do I know what my relationship with God is like?

I want to have a kind of closeness with God.

I want to have a familiarity with him, like a son to a father, but how do I know if I do or if I don't?

Well, here's one barometer.

What's your prayer life like?

I've never met a godly man whose prayers sound distant.

And I've never met an ungodly man whose prayers sound familiar.

So how do you talk to your Heavenly Father?

Is he just some random 911 operator?

You call up when things get tough?

Or do you talk to him like a dad?

Have you been adopted by God?

And if so, do you talk to him like it?

And that's the big takeaway for this text.

If you have been adopted by God, you get to talk to him like Jesus does.

To make this point, Paul walks through the whole of redemptive history, really, and applies this plan of God's adoption to the Galatian Christians and by extension to us.

And there's a sense in which this passage does focus on the broad drama of redemption, but Paul does not leave it there.

He takes what is expansive and he makes it personal.

He applies it to each one of us.

And to understand how he does that, we need to get our bearings in the book of Galatians.

What's going on in this letter?

Well, Paul is upset when he writes the book of Galatians, the letter.

Because the people in the church in Galatia, Paul's word, have been bewitched.

That false teachers have come in and have told them that if you really want to have a relationship with God, what you need to do is follow the law.

Particularly, you need to get circumcised.

And Paul says, no, no, no, that's not the gospel.

The gospel that I preach, which by the way, I did not get from man, I got directly from Christ Himself.

That gospel says that it is not by the law that we are justified.

It is not through the law that we have intimacy with God, but instead, chapter 2, verse 16, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Christ.

And in chapter 3, he goes on to then say, what was the purpose of the law then?

Why have all of these rules, the Torah, with all of its intricacies?

And he argues that the law is a good thing.

But it was not a saving thing.

The law doesn't nullify faith, it just doesn't give you intimacy with God.

That's what Christ does.

That's what faith in Christ does.

The law was intentionally temporary, and in Christ alone we have intimacy with God through what he says in this text: adoption.

And adoption here is the spiritual means by which God takes us from being distant strangers outside of his family and brings us into close, intimate fellowship as sons and daughters bought by the blood of Jesus to experience all the spiritual blessings of heaven.

John Owen would write that it is adoption by which we have all of the spiritual privileges of being a Christian.

Countless blessings of being adopted by God.

But Paul here in this text, in chapter 4, focuses just on one.

How you talk to God.

So as we look at this text this morning, I want you to be thinking about your own relationship with the Lord.

How do you talk to God?

If you know God as your father and Jesus as your brother, then this earth-shattering truth will not let you live in devotional lethargy.

It will not let you stay prayerless.

And if you have not been adopted by God, then this text is begging you.

Come into the family.

Know what it is to be a son or a daughter and receive this glorious adoption today.

And to do that, Paul is going to show us three steps in our spiritual adoption that lead to this closeness with God.

And here's the first step.

This is where all of us start.

Slavery.

Slavery.

Look at verse 1.

Galatians chapter 4, verse 1.

Galatians 4:1

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he's the owner of everything.

But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.

To show us what spiritual adoption looks like, Paul starts with an illustration of a rich kid.

We know he's a rich kid.

It's kind of implied because he's an heir, he's got tutors, he's got managers.

You know, there used to be this really horrible television show called My Super Sweet 16, where 15-year-old girls would start spewing all kinds of complaints at their parents because they didn't have champagne at their 16th birthday party.

It's inexplicable.

That's the American idea of a rite of passage.

Or in Latin culture, you have a quincinera, or in Jewish culture, you have a bar mitzvah.

In Roman culture, in this day, they had an event called the Liberalia Festival, where boys who were 14, 17 years old would come, they would bring all of their toys, lay them on the altar, they would get a new adult toga, they would cut off their hair, which I'm sure there are plenty of parents in here that would love for that ceremony to happen with their sons.

It's a rite of passage.

You get the idea.

Paul is using this picture of a rich heir before that rite of passage, before that definitive moment of becoming a man or becoming an adult, before that transition, this is what life is like for that rich kid.

And he describes it as slavery.

Slavery.

He says they're a child, it's a minor, they're too young to get the inheritance.

And he says they're no different from a slave.

Though obviously in time he'll be wealthy, he'll inherit the entirety of the estate.

Right now he's treated like a slave.

And that may sound shocking to you, because when we think rich kids today, we think spoiled.

We think doted on.

That was not so much the case in the ancient Near East.

In the Greco-Roman world, kids were not so beloved by their parents, usually.

They were put under guardians and managers, tutors, people who take care of them.

Think of it like boarding school but at home.

This is like your teachers tucking you in bed at night.

They're just labor.

They're useful later.

They're not good for us right now.

And so Paul uses this illustration to show us that before coming to faith in Christ, before the spiritual adoption, what life is like is distant from the Father.

There's a gap, a relational lack.

And Paul says that this is like the law of the old covenant.

It was intentionally distant.

It's a temporary way of relating to God.

It was mediated by his prophets.

I mean, just think about Mount Sinai.

Only Moses could go up to the very top.

It was thunder and lightning.

The people down at the base shuddered just to see the glory of God manifest.

They couldn't go near.

And then Paul does an interesting thing.

In verse 3, he applies this kind of broad illustration to us.

Look at verse 3.

In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.

He says, when we were children, he's reminding us this was life for us too, during that long stretch of time, however long it was, before you were adopted.

And he says, we were enslaved because we were under the elemental spirits.

People debate what that means.

I think, think of it this way: it's the ABCs.

The beginning, the rudiments.

It was not meant to be the fullness.

It was meant to be the start, the beginning.

For Jews, this was the law.

For Gentiles, this was their own conscience.

It was the law written on their hearts.

The point being, they don't have intimacy with God.

All they have are a law condemning them, exposing their sin, showing them their need for God, but not giving them God.

It's a reminder of this distance.

And he says, in a word, we were enslaved.

This is all of us outside of Christ.

Our relationship to God was not one of joyful obedience, it was one of slavery to sin.

Jesus says, whoever practices sin is a slave to sin.

And if you're a slave to sin, well then of course you're far from God.

Listen, if you think that all God cares about in your life is that you pay your taxes, you're nice to your family, and that you don't commit any major felonies, then your prayer life must be as dead as your religion.

God to you is a slot machine.

Not a dad.

That is distant, it is cold, it is unfeeling.

And friends, God hates it.

That's the kind of attitude that says, God, you're only as good to me as you make me feel the way I want to feel.

So if rule following is the primary way that you relate to God, then you're a slave.

And let me take this one step further.

If that's true of you, that the only way that you relate to God is just rules.

Jesus says in John chapter 8, your dad isn't God, it's Satan.

John 8 · chapter mention

The world is your mother, sin is your sister, death is your brother, and hell is your home.

You're a slave, and you think that you're free.

That's why your prayers feel distant.

That's why they feel hollow.

Because God isn't your father.

That's all of us outside of Christ, enslaved to a law we cannot keep.

But that's not where this passage ends.

And oh, I pray that's not where your life ends.

Because Paul says in verse 4, but.

Don't you love the passages in the Bible that say but instead of and leads us to our second stage in spiritual adoption, substitution.

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

There was a waiting.

In verse 2, he says, until the appointed day.

And the appointed day, verse 4, comes in the fullness of time in God's infinite wisdom, and in his plan, he brings it about such that the substitute is sent around 4 BC.

And the emphasis on this text is that the wait is now over.

The time has finally come when God sends forth his son to solve the problem of your slavery and mine.

God sends his son to become like a slave, so that you could become like a son.

He says, born of a woman.

There's an implication there of the virgin birth.

He says, born under the law, that he was bound to obey the very law that he himself created.

And notice the text says, God sent his son.

This is an affirmation of the deity of Christ.

He didn't create his son.

He sent it.

He already existed.

And he calls him the Son.

The very Son of God.

Just consider for a moment what Jesus' relationship with the Father was like before he came to earth.

Joy.

Perfect fellowship.

When he is incarnated with all obedience and reverence and submission and total freedom.

And Jesus Himself says, John 10 30, I and the Father are one.

That's intimate.

That's close.

That's not like us.

And he does it, verse 5, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Why did Jesus have to become a slave like us?

Why did the law keep lawmaker have to become the law keeper?

The answer, so that he could be our substitute in life and in death.

We see his death here in the word redeem.

It's a picture of the cross.

The idea is buying a slave from the slave market of sin.

And that's what Jesus does when he dies on the cross.

His death purchases our freedom.

But he does not simply purchase us in order to leave us as orphans.

He also purchases us to adopt us that we might receive adoption.

Adoption literally means in the Greek to put as a son.

He bought you out to take you in.

Jesus became like us to make us like himself, a child of God.

He a slave, we as sons.

Jesus had to be human, like a slave, under the law, in order to take the place of human slaves under the law, to make our relationship with God like his.

The song His Robes for Mine has this precious line.

He as though I accursed and left alone, I as though he embraced and welcomed home.

Davien spent most of his life in foster care.

He was born in prison and from then on spent all of his days going from one house to the next.

His caseworker, a woman named Connie Going, caring for him at every step.

At one point, she even put him in the pulpit of a church and had him plead with the congregation to adopt him.

And he got picked up by local news and the national news, and then he was on the view asking people to adopt him.

And they had a bunch of requests that came in, and one after another, they kept falling through.

Until one day, when he was 15, he was adopted.

But not by the person he expected.

He was adopted by his own caseworker, Con and Going.

And when she was asked shortly thereafter, with your biological children and your adopted child, she actually had two at that point.

Is there a difference in the way that you relate to them?

And her answer was, I only have sons.

Brothers and sisters, God has no grandchildren.

God has no stepchildren.

God has no second-class sons.

He only has sons.

This is what happens when we are adopted by God.

We become sons like Jesus.

Of course, not in every way.

Let's not roll into heresy.

But in so many profound ways, your relationship with God becomes like the relationship between the Son of God and the Father.

Jesus didn't die to make you a gardener in the house of God.

He died to make you a child.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God.

And so we are.

That's why J.I.

Packer says this astounding statement.

Adoption is the highest privilege of the gospel.

The traitor forgiven, brought in for supper, and given the family name.

Friend, if you're here this morning and you do not know him, oh that you would.

Would you come to the Father through the Son and receive this blessed adoption?

He has already signed the adoption papers with his own blood.

Will you receive it?

But that's not where Paul leaves us.

He goes on then to explain what are the implications of this adoption.

And that's the third step is sonship.

Sonship.

What now?

If you have been adopted as a son of God through the Son of God, what does that mean?

What does that look like?

How does that change things?

And that's what he says in verse 6.

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba Father.

What he's saying is that the life of the Christian is marked by bold, intimate, son-like calling to the Father.

Because you are sons, he says.

Notice the shift intense.

Now it's present, it's an implied certainty.

It's true now.

All the waiting is over.

You're in Christ and you're a son right now.

And because of that, God has sent the spirit of his son.

The very life of the substitute becomes the life of all of his sons and daughters.

And just marvel for a second at how God Himself is the initiator in all of this.

And what happens when the Spirit comes in, a child of God?

Well, a lot of things, but one of the things is that they cry out, I'm a father.

The passage we read earlier in Romans 8, this is the Spirit witnessing inwardly, confirming the marks of sonship, giving us assurance that we are sons, we are daughters.

There's a kind of confidence and a boldness that comes with this, such that you would talk to God and call him Abba.

Abba, the Aramaic for father.

It's in the native tongue.

There's an intimacy to it.

And if you've heard sermons on this before, you've probably heard someone explain that it's kind of like the word daddy, but that sounds weird to me.

I don't like that, so I prefer just to use the word dad.

That's the word I would use in that moment.

The word Abba here, it's not just an address to a father and uh sir.

This is an intimate kind of word.

This is like the first time my dad got cancer, and he told me.

My response was, okay, dad, what are we gonna do?

It's that word.

Abba.

And he uses this word crying.

It's a loud, desperate calling out.

It's often used when people in the Bible are in anguish.

And that, brothers and sisters, is how you and I get to talk to God.

Like Jesus in the garden.

You remember in Mark 14?

In the greatest moment of anguish in his life, he pulls out Abba.

Abba, Father, I know all things are possible for you.

Would you take this cup from me?

But not my will, but yours be done.

Do you see?

Just the intimacy of that moment, and yet still full submission to the will of the Father.

Paul says that this is what God's Spirit in us allows us to do, to talk to God like the Son of God talked to him, because your sons like him.

No temptation is too strong that you cannot bring it to him.

There is no sadness and no heartache and no grief that you cannot lay at his feet.

And if you cast all your cares on him, Peter tells us he will hear us because he cares for you.

Like a father to a son.

You get to talk to your father like Jesus talks to the Father.

Is it astounding?

And yet, so many Christians have a distant relationship with God.

I think it's because we're looking for love and acceptance wrongly.

We're like the other prodigal son.

You remember the first one who came back with the pigs and everything?

You remember there's a second son in that story that Jesus told in Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

The second son, the older son, who was outside in the field, and when he heard that there was a party, he was indignant.

And so the father comes out to him and entreats him to come in.

And do you remember the son's response?

Listen, dad.

I have slaved for you all of these years, and you haven't given me so much as like a goat.

But when this son of yours, notice not my brother, when this son of yours shows up having devoured all of your estate with prostitutes, not to put too fine a point on it, Dad, you throw the biggest party in the world, you slaughter the fat and calf.

Do you remember the father's response?

My son.

Everything I have is yours.

Christian, don't you dare talk to God like a boss.

Of course he is.

He's in charge.

Sinclair Ferguson, however, says that slaves can only enjoy freedom from duty, but children can enjoy freedom in duty.

So don't you talk to God like He's just your boss.

He's your father.

So talk to him like that.

Go to Him, lay all of your burdens at His feet.

He understands and He cares.

Because verse 7, you are no longer a slave.

So don't act like it.

You're a son.

And if a son, then an heir through God.

We don't get to see the fullness of our adoption now.

There's a day coming.

Paul says in Romans chapter 8 that we're longing for the full adoption as sons.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

And on that day when you walk into your Father's house, you will receive the warmest welcome that you will ever know.

And eternal bliss and joy with your brothers and sisters and your elder brother, Jesus Christ, reigning forever and ever.

Is it good to be adopted by God?

How sweet.

To no longer be a slave, to no longer be distant from the Father, but to be a son, to be a daughter, to be able to plead with the Father like Jesus does.

So why then?

Why would you go back to treating God like a system of rules?

Is it not better to be adopted?

To be a son?

Is being God's adopted son so boring that you need slavery to enjoy your life?

Is our delusion of independence better than intimate fellowship with our own Maker?

No, it's not.

So cry out to Him.

Throw yourself at His feet.

Today, revel in His presence, enjoy your adoption and talk to Him like a son.

Because that's what Jesus has purchased for you.

A number of years back, my wife was on Facebook and saw a post about a little boy named Tommy who was put up for emergency adoption.

He was born with microcephaly.

Most of his head was malformed, not a full brain.

And his mother couldn't take care of him.

So she put him up for adoption and they sent it to a Christian adoption agency, and they sent out the call through Facebook.

And so we emailed him.

What's happening with this kid?

And we got a response the next day.

An email from the Christian adoption agency that said, oh no, we're fine.

Because 3,000 people have already offered to adopt him.

What kind of people would have that kind of love to be willing to enter into that kind of suffering and extend that kind of care.

I'll tell you who.

People who have known the love of the adoption of the Father.

And you say, What's that love like?

Well, Jesus tells us in his high priestly prayer in John 17.

Praying to the Father, he says, I and them and you and me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me.

And listen to this.

And that you loved them even as you loved me.

If that weren't in the Bible, I'd think it's blasphemy.

For God to love me like He loves Jesus, it's almost too much to bear.

The highest glory of adoption, brothers and sisters, is not in what you get, but in whose you are.

And that has to change you.

That's Paul's point in this passage.

If you really have been adopted by God, that has to change you.

He wants Christians to stop living like they're spiritual orphans, like they're slaves, and start living like they're sons.

No longer a slave, but a son.

My guess is that some of you here this morning have been holding God at arm's length.

Maybe for your whole life.

Would you allow me then to give you the invitation that Jesus gives to come home?

To come to the Father.

Put down your chains.

Stop fighting with God.

Receive glorious adoption.

And become a son or a daughter of the Most High.

I get it.

You're enslaved to your work.

You're enslaved to approval.

You're enslaved to your future.

Your own pride.

Friend, lay it all down.

Jesus wants you to come into the family.

He wants you to come into the home.

He wants you to come into the arms of the Father.

So would you come?

Would you know the glory of this blessed adoption?

Would you talk to your father today like your father?

Would you embrace the love of your heavenly dad?

Let's pray.

Oh Father.

God in heaven.

Thank you for these precious promises.

Thank you for being willing to look on enemies and rebels and sinners like us.

And to bring us home.

God, we know we don't deserve it.

But oh how we want to receive it.

Help us, God, to pray.

Help us to talk to you with the same kind of intimacy as the only begotten Son.

Grow us in our love for our family, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Draw unto yourself the strangers who have strayed.

And give them all the full rights and privileges of being a son in your house.

Father, make us more like Christ, we pray.

We pray this in your son's name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.