Sound Doctrine

Guest (Male): For us human beings, it's a good thing we don't have to follow the rules to get to heaven. Here's Pastor Jeff.

Jeff Johnson: You know, when you get into the law thing, that's what it's all about. I earned this. I deserve this. It's something that's in us that it's hard to get away from. But yet the law was sitting there telling us what to do, how to do it, how to act, what to give, what not to give. It did everything. And we were bound by the principalities and powers of this earth. That's the elements of the world to go its way. It's cause and effect. You get what you deserve.

Guest (Male): As we begin a new month, we begin a brand new chapter in our series through Galatians today on Sound Doctrine. When God laid it on the heart of George Müller to build orphanages in Bristol, England, he had only two shillings to call his own. Without making his needs known to anyone but God, over $7 million were sent to him for the building and maintenance of the homes. Now, there's a man who is not only saved by faith, but also walked and lived by faith. Tonight, Pastor Jeff Johnson will urge us to do likewise. Join us in Galatians chapter four.

Jeff Johnson: We're in Galatians chapter four. We're starting a new chapter in the book of Galatians. But I was thinking about how the Lord said, I'm going to send my spirit and he will guide you into all truth. He will open your eyes, your ears, your heart. He will teach you. Do we need pastors to teach us? Sure, we need to we need to go somewhere where there's the word of God is being shared, broken apart, and and given out to us. But after all, let's let's face it. It's a spiritual book that we have in our hands this morning.

And so it's spiritually applied, spiritually given to us to those that have ears to hear. So Lord, give us ears to hear this morning. Galatians chapter four. Now, remember in Galatians chapter three, the last verse there, if you be Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise. If we be Christ, descendants of Abraham, heirs of God, not according to the law, not according to works. If we're Christ, we are a son of God. Amazing statements. Kind of answers the question, who am I? You know, who am I? This is my identity. If I be in Christ, I'm an heir of God, Abraham's seed.

Patrick Henry said this, give me liberty or give me death. A cry, a desperation. Paul said the same thing. Turn with me to Galatians chapter five. In verse one, he says, stand fast therefore in the liberty wherein Christ has made us free. And don't be entangled again in the yoke of bondage. So what is he saying? He's saying, stand fast in the liberty or you will die under legalism. That's what he's talking about. The spirit brings life. The letter is the thing that kills. Legalism. This liberty bell is ringing to be free from religion. Do you hear it?

Do you see it? Have you experienced it? We have a relationship of love with the Lord that love motivates us. It doesn't hold us. It moves us. Religion causes us to be drained, dried up, spiritually frustrated. That's what it does because it's cut out to do that. Legalism. Don't listen. Don't allow anybody to put trips on you because they're going around constantly trying to lay on us things that God would never have laid on us. Cuz listen, let's be truthful. We can't live this life that he's calling us to live. We need a savior and we desperately need his power in our lives.

So legalism looks very spiritual and those that get into it, they they're thinking that they're doing something really good. Reality is is we're going to learn this morning that's being very childish to walk that way. Very childish. The those back then that they were following it even today that they desire to grow, their motives can even be right. And I think back then their motives was right. They wanted to do good. They wanted to live for God. But their methods were wrong. They were bewitched, remember? They were deceived that law marks or excuse me, makes them better Christians that law, later on, Paul says it puffs up.

It gets you thinking, I've got this thing down and I am way more holier than they are. And we start judging like that. It's a it's an evil thing that takes us down. They thought that they were going forward. Well, reality is they were receding. They were they were coming more and more like children. Legalism is not needed. We need Jesus Christ, period. It's all we need. There's three facts that Paul in chapter four wants to hand out to us. The first one is in verse one and two. Let's look at it. Paul says, now I say that the heir as long as he is a child.

This is a child that can hardly speak. You know, it's just young, very immature and childish, okay? That's the word in the Greek. He is a child. Differs nothing from a servant or a slave, though he be Lord of all, though he be the master of the house, he's no different than a slave that's taking care of him and wiping his rear so to speak. I mean raising him. Okay? But is under tutors, governors until, this is an interesting statement, until the time appointed of the father, of the father. So the first fact is an heir as long as he is a little child, he's under a slave's tutorship.

He's held accountable. He's under bondage and guardianship even though he is the next master of the house until he is what? Of age. And I like that part where it says until his father says he is of age. Once mature. Now, Romans it was said that the age was 22. You know, ours was 21. It used to be now it's 18. You get to do everything you want to do just about, you know. Isn't that something? What's the difference between 18 and 21? What's the difference between 21 and 45 if the person's still a kid?

A lot of people don't grow up until way and then some people never grow up. Come on. Or when the father says, keep that in your mind, he's old enough. And the Romans believe that also. When the dad, you know, I mean comes in after war, he's you know, been out there in the battlefield for two years, slaves taking care of everything throughout the house. They do the accounting, they do the shopping, they watch the kids, they do everything. He comes back after two years and goes into the bathroom and sees that there's a razor in there.

It's his kids' bathroom. He calls in the servant immediately and says, what's going on here? My kid's not old enough to shave. And he goes, you've been gone for two years. Hmm. So they have this ceremony that in order for them to kind of go on from childishness to manhood, it's a ceremony of the toga changing. They wear the young little child's toga, but then they have this ceremony where they put on the adult and they change into the adult toga. The boy gives up the ball, the girl gives up the doll. They put away childish things.

There's something changing here. It's the same way with us. Our school master is the law until time appointed, until Jesus, and this is the point he's trying to make, until that time appointed of God, the father, when he sends his son, then everything changes. Adulthood comes in immediately. So let's look at verse three now. He says, even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world, the law. So he gives this compare comparison here. We are the sons of God. Notice, go over to chapter three verse 26. He says, for you are all what?

The children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. So we're children of God in Christ Jesus. Through faith, heirs of the promise. The law used to be our tutor. We were under legalism and we were children, but in a in a sense that very childish because of what we were under. Over us was the elements of the world. The whole thing of earning and deserving. You know, when you get into the law thing, that's what it's all about. I earned this. I deserve this. It's something that's in us that we can't it's hard to get away from.

But yet the law was sitting there telling us what to do, how to do it, how to act, what to give, what not to give. It it did everything. And we were bound by the principalities and powers of this earth. That 's the elements of the world to go its way. It's cause and effect. You get what you deserve. And Paul was trying to fight against this whole worldliness. Over in just mark it down, Colossians 2:8. Colossians chapter two in verse eight. Listen to what he says here. He says, beware lest any man spoil you, take you captive through philosophy, vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ.

Be careful. You don't start thinking like a earthling. You start you know, you get away from that that mind of Christ. All of a sudden you're thinking, you know, logically like Spock. He was logic, logically thinking. Worldly. That's worldly cuz you you figure it all out and well, that's you know, cause and effect. That's just the way it is. And and you're caught up in it. You get what you deserve. It's it's almost like, you know, the army where you go in the army and they do everything for you and they tell you where to go, when to go to the bathroom, when not to you know, I mean everything.

You just are at their beck and call. And that's just the way it is. But grace grace is his doing. It's not ours. We're not doing anything. We deserve death. That's what we deserve. But he gives us grace in Christ. I am crucified. I've identified with what he did on that cross and I put myself in that place. I am dead to this world and to the what he the elements of the world, totally taken away from it. The law tells us what to do, how to do it, and don't do. But it gives no power to do it.

You see, it tells you what to do. Thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. But it doesn't give you the power not to do it. It just leaves you hanging and under condemnation. There's no hope. There's no reality in that. There's no grace. But notice verse four of Galatians four, but when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law. The second fact he wants to make here is what God did in our situation that we were stuck with. What did God do to answer that?

He gave us our liberation. God's perfect time. Way back when God intervened in the world's affairs. Now, God's got God had a perfect time back then. Do you think God has a perfect time today and for what's coming? See, he was perfect in that time, his first coming. How about a second coming? How about the rapture of the church? Is that going to be perfect or what? In the fullness of time, right at the end when the church was seeing everything coming to an end and everything prophetically being fulfilled, they're looking up cuz the redemption is drawing near.

Oh yeah, that's going to happen in his perfect time. But the world was ready back then, 2,000 years under the curse, 2,000 years under the law. And now they find themselves under Rome, the Roman Empire. But it was at the end of the taking of the world. It was Pax Romana. What is that? The world was at this incredible hundreds of years of peace. Unreal. At a time of such peace, the roads that were being built by Rome connected all of Europe with the Middle East and Africa. Unbelievable roads. Today you can go down in a bus on the the paved road that they've made.

But then right next to it, they point out that's the old Roman road with the steps. They're still there today. They're all over the place. Unbelievable connection connecting the whole world. Greek and Latin were spoke by the world then at this time. Everything was lining up. All the the the the people were reading this these languages and and it was spread abroad. And so that opened the door for the timing. The world at this time was in gross immorality though. I mean there was a lot of bad stuff coming down, gross darkness the people, so corrupt that even the pagans cried out.

They said, this world is so dark. And they were crying out. Very much like our day today. There's great spiritual hunger. There was a great spiritual hunger back then. Perfect time for Christ to come. And then we read that Psalm 85, revive us again, oh Lord. Hey, it's be a perfect time, Lord, for you to revive your church, to speak to us, to change our hearts that we would turn our hearts towards you. You would show yourself strong and that you would cause us to be bright lights in a dark world. We can touch somebody else for you.

After 483 years, those of you that have been with us through Daniel, in Daniel chapter nine, there's that 483 years that Daniel said, and he he didn't know what he was talking about, but he wrote it down and he told of Christ coming to the very day when he would come. They're in Daniel nine when he would make his coming as Messiah on the scene. Incredible prophecy. And then notice he says there in verse four, he was born of a woman. Genesis 3:15, the seed of the woman was spoken of way back then. She would be a virgin.

Isaiah seven verse 14. A virgin would conceive this Messiah under the law. That's interesting. To free us from the law, of course. He would come. Then verse five to do what? Why did she come? Well, to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. To redeem us. Now, look at chapter three verse 13 of Galatians. Look at Galatians 3:13. Christ has what? Redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree. And that's in Deuteronomy 21:23.

Quote from there that he would come and hang on that tree and become a curse for us. That all the sins of the world would be laid on him and he would redeem us. He took a position on the cross so we could take position as sons of God. What happened on that cross is unreal. He became our kinsman redeemer, that which we had lost in the very beginning and sin destroyed. Started with Adam, the Adam bomb, remember? Desecrated all humanity because of his disobedience. But a kinsman redeemer could gain back that which was lost.

A kinsman redeemer is one that becomes he's called the son of man, son of God. He became our kinsman redeemer. Ruth is all about that. Now, our adoption, and that's exactly what took place, is different than a child adoption. My wife has been in child adoptions for 30 plus years. And so she'll tell you all about child adoption. It's when parents can't have any children, medically reasons or whatever, they they go and and there's a child that's given up for adoption and the couple does the paperwork and receives them as their own. But this adoption, notice going on in chapter four verse well, verse six we'll get into in a minute.

But this adoption which we're going to talk about in a moment is the adoption of an adult son. It's different than a child adoption. And we need to understand that. It has the privileges and rights that go along with it. In other words, Roman law back then protected their citizens. And it just so happened such a time as this, the citizens were protected and they kept the peace. So it helped the gospel to get out. Now, it did turn ugly. The Caesars, I mean they they they persecuted greatly. But at that time it was still, you know, able to get out.

When we are saved as far as a child, the scripture says that we are we have been regenerated. We had become a child of God. Now, when it says we're a child of God, that means we need to grow in his grace and knowledge. We need to mature as a child. And we've always talked about that and we understand that. But this adoption is different. It's positionally we are an adult. We enjoy the inheritance immediately. And that's what Paul is trying to convey here. He purchased us. This word redemption is what they would do in the slave market.

They would buy slave. They would redeem the slaves purchased from the bondage that they were in. And here he's talking about the bondage of the elements of sin that made us orphans. Sin orphaned every human being. They need this adoption, believe me. This is powerful. There there's a story of John Newton. John Newton wrote the and which we sang about this morning, amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. He wrote this incredible song. And he wrote it to remember his testimony of what God did to him. He went to sea at 11 years of age.

He became a captain of his own slaveship. And eventually, you know, took on his own ship and he was a part of the degradation, the inhumanity in the slave trade. Can you imagine being a part of something like that? Taking people from their home, from their family, putting them in chains in a ship that just piled with human cargo, laid them down next to each other. And you've seen some of the movies that were made. An incredible thing to happen. Well, he was part of that whole thing. At 23 years of age, his ship was in danger of sinking off the coast of Newfoundland.

He cried out for God to have mercy and to and to to show himself to him. And he found the Lord. I mean he had this incredible experience with the Lord. And he never forgot how amazing God was to save him as bad as he was and what he had done.

Guest (Male): Your story can have the same outcome as John Newton's. You can be saved from whatever sins you've committed by God's amazing grace. This is Sound Doctrine. And today we heard a message from Pastor Jeff Johnson taken from his study in Galatians chapter four. If you enjoyed today's message from Pastor Jeff Johnson from the book of Galatians, I'd like to remind you that you can hear it again on several different venues. First, you can go online to sounddoctrineradio.org where you can hear today's study and more as well as make a donation to this radio outreach. That's sounddoctrineradio.org.

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