Truth That Changes Lives

JP Jones: Providence is the fact that God works in history. God answers prayer. God moves in circumstances. God has a plan for our life and he constructs things in such a way that that plan gets fulfilled.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the senior pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California, and a professor in biblical studies at Biola University. Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled Galatians. Let's listen in as JP gives us part one of Your Identity in Christ.

JP Jones: If you have your Bibles, would you open to the book of Galatians? Galatians chapter four, we're going to look at Galatians four verses one to seven. This book, one of the first written by the Apostle Paul, lays out the foundation of the gospel. Paul said in Romans chapter one that I am not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God to salvation, and in the book of Galatians, Paul unpacks what that means.

His theme is that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. It's the grace of God that reaches down to every person and it is our faith that lays hold of that grace and God's gift in response is salvation, forgiveness, redemption, hope, the presence of God's spirit in our life, the certainty of eternal life. All that we long for and all that God wants to give us is in that gift of salvation and the means that we experience that is through grace and faith, and that's what the book of Galatians unpacks for us.

Now in chapter four, Paul is in the midst of defending this principle that salvation comes by grace through faith. He wants to make a case that this was the truth that was revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures. He has been using in the previous context Abraham as the example. What he's going to do in the book of Galatians chapter four is talk about how Abraham's children, Isaac and Ishmael, they represent two covenants.

He's going to describe in greater detail an allegory that one child was born the natural way and the other child was born on the basis of God's promise. In the same way, we can try to come to God naturally in our own ability through our own efforts and it always ends in failure and condemnation. Or we can come to God based upon the promise, what God provides, grace through faith, and that leads to life, abundant life right now and eternal life. Paul is going to use this allegory to make a case.

But before he does that, what he wants to tell us is the birthright that we have as children of God. We aren't slaves anymore, God says. We've been set free from slavery and in fact now we're sons. That's a term that's not used interchangeably as son and daughter. It's a unique position because it was the son in the ancient world that was the heir of all the inheritance and God has said every believer in Jesus Christ is a privileged son and therefore we're an heir to all that God has for us. This is a passage that reminds us of the truth that we talk about here a lot: the truest thing about you is what God says is true. This passage is going to tell us the truest thing about us as sons.

Many of you know I married into the greatest family in the world. The Riley clan is filled with love. Don and Carol Riley, who greet out on the front, are just the most loving, wonderful people. Dino, our children's pastor, married Karen, I married Donna, and there's another Riley offspring, Roger. Roger's sitting back here and the joke in our family is there's so much love from Don and Carol, but whenever we'd get together in family gatherings, somehow Roger would be the one that Carol would say, "Roge, can I scramble you some eggs? Can I make you a milkshake?" Even among everybody who's receiving love, Roger was that special son that got that extra love.

A few years ago, Roger got married to his wife Shelley. Now Shelley was there to take care of Roger. But my son Taylor is the only male grandson. Now when we get together for family gatherings, everyone gets love, but Taylor receives from Carol, "Can I scramble you some eggs? Can I make you a milkshake?" Because he's like that privileged son. Do you know what the Bible says? Every one of us as believers in Jesus Christ are in God's eyes that privileged son and we are heirs of all that God has to give and what God gives is a lot better than scrambled eggs and milkshakes.

This passage in Galatians chapter four is going to tell us that we have been made heirs of God because we are now sons in his family. Galatians four verses one to seven says this: "What I'm saying is that as long as an heir is a child, he's no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, the spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father.' So you are no longer a slave, but you're a son and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir."

Paul is drawing upon the custom and practice of his day. Slavery was part of the lifestyle. He's not condoning it; he's just speaking about it because it is. He says this: When someone is a child, even though they're an heir, their actual childhood experience is not that much different from the children who are born as slaves. They kind of grow up together in the family, in the household and though someone might be an heir, their experience is really not much different from being a slave. He's talking about Israel.

He's saying that Israel, though they were heirs, they were the elect people of God, they were under a system of slavery and he calls it tutors and guardians and masters. They were under the tutelage of the law, but there came a time when God in his providence chose to set them free from that and he sent his son Jesus Christ. But if someone continued to live under slavery even though they had the opportunity to be an heir, their experience was still that of a slave. He's saying we don't have to be slaves anymore. We've been set free by the gift of God's son Jesus Christ.

Verses one to three says, "What I'm saying is this, that as long as an heir is a child, he's no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. He's subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the most basic principles of the world." You see, apart from the salvation and freedom given by Jesus Christ, every person is a slave. We come into this world as slaves to sin.

If we come out of a Jewish context, we're slaves to the law. In the world, we're slaves to the basic principles of this world. It says here in Galatians chapter four the elementary principles of the world. Paul uses this same phrase over in the book of Colossians and describes it a little more as the world's value system, the world's philosophy, the world's way of understanding success. John gives us a little more insight to this in First John two because he says, "Do not love the world nor the things in the world because all that's in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the boastful pride of life, it's not from the Father, but it's from the world and the world is passing away and also its lust, but the one who does the will of God abides forever."

In other words, there is a value system of the world. There are the basic principles of the world. It's how the world says you ought to live and how you can be successful and what you ought to value. What God says is that's slavery. Think about it. Here we are at the season of the year where on the one hand, we celebrate God's greatest gift, Jesus Christ, the birth of Jesus, and it's also a season when people become so tied to greed and materialism and selfishness, the value system of this world.

Even people who are trying to find some kind of freedom, if they try to find that freedom through a worldly mindset and a worldly perspective, it just leads to more bondage. You can be in bondage to the law or you can be in bondage to the worldly value system that's presented to us. Both of them lead to slavery. What Paul says here in Galatians four verses one to three is that you could actually be an heir, but if you put yourself back under the bondage of something, your life is like a slave.

Do you know that someone can actually cross the line, open up their heart to Christ, be set free, be made a son, actually be an heir in Christ, but put themselves under the slavery of the elementary principles of this world so that their experience is not one of an heir? Their experience is one of a slave. Let me just ask you, you don't need to name any names, but how many of you here have ever met someone who is a Christian? They know Christ, but their life is really like a slave, not like an heir. How many know somebody like that or have ever met somebody like that? Yeah, all of us. Maybe that's actually us who we're thinking about.

Here's the good news. Whether you are a slave because you've never yet been set free or whether you are a slave because you have been set free but you've put yourself under bondage, what God's going to say in this passage of scripture is that you're actually a son. You can become a son through faith in Jesus Christ and as a son you are an heir of everything that God has to give. What God wants to do for every one of us here this morning is to liberate us and set us free and God would delight in every person here internalizing his grace and living in the freedom that's ours in Jesus Christ and living out of what's true about us in Christ because the truest thing about us is what God says is true.

Galatians four verses one to three says here's this principle: every person comes into this world as slave. Some are slaves to the law because they're the Israelites; they're Jews. Some are slaves to the elementary principles of this world; they're Gentiles. Yet God wants to make us sons and wants to make us heirs. Galatians four verses four and five: "But when the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons."

That first part of Galatians four is amazing. But when the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law. When the time had fully come. You know, this is the idea of providence. We don't hear much about that term anymore. Providence is the sovereignty of God applied to time. Providence is the fact that God works in history. God answers prayer. God moves in circumstances. God has a plan for our life and he constructs things in such a way that that plan gets fulfilled.

Have you ever seen that? Have you seen God answer your prayers? Have you seen God manipulate circumstances to put you at a certain place at a certain time for a certain thing to happen? That is providence. What this says is that God in his providence knew exactly the perfect time for Jesus Christ to be born. It wasn't an accident. The Trinity wasn't sitting around going, "Oh boy, Jesus, you better go down there now." God sent Jesus Christ at the right time, in the right place, for the right situation.

But when the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. You see, the reason Jesus Christ came is to redeem us. This is an awesome term in the Bible. We don't use the word redemption much anymore unless you think about redeeming coupons. Got any coupon cutters here? You know, you get the paper out and you cut all those coupons and then you store them up and then you go to the grocery store and you're like standing in front of me and all I want to do is buy some Altoids and I have to wait 30 minutes as you go through all your coupons and put them out and they scan them.

Anyway, what is a coupon? If you redeem a coupon, the concept is really kind of similar to what the Bible has as a concept. If you redeem a coupon, there's a price of an item and you give them the coupon and you either get that price reduced or you get it completely taken away because the coupon somehow pays down or buys out the price of the item. That's what the word means, redemption. In fact, there's two Greek words for the term redemption. One is *lutron* and the other is *agorazo*.

*Lutron* is actually the purchase price. So if you're buying something, whether at the store or at Home Depot, you go through the counter and they scan it and then the price comes up on the screen. That's the *lutron*. Now when you pay that price, the Greek word for that is *lutrao*, paying the purchase price. All right, here's what God has done. Our sin, my personal sin, went across the scanner and what came up was the purchase price. What was on the screen was the blood of Jesus Christ.

So what did God do? He paid the purchase price. He sent his son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my sins and to rise again from the dead. The price has been paid; I've been redeemed. God redeems us through Jesus Christ and that was why God sent his son. We were slaves; he paid the price for our sins so that we might be set free.

I told you there's another word for redemption in the New Testament. It's the word *agorazo* from the word *agora*. The *agora* was the marketplace and in particular the slave market where slaves were bought and sold. When someone purchased a slave from the slave market, that's the application of the verb *agorazo*, to buy a slave out of the slave market. We were slaves to sin, slaves to death, slaves to our ego, slaves to the devil, slave to the elementary principles of this world and Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins and purchased us out of the slave market.

We're not slaves to sin anymore if we've come to believe in Jesus Christ because now we're sons and we're heirs of all of God's blessing. The truest thing about you is what God says is true. What God says is that we have redemption in Jesus Christ. Paul is unpacking this for us in the book of Galatians and he says whether you're a slave or an heir, if you're still under the bondage of the law or if you're still under the bondage of the elementary principles of this world, you're living like a slave, but you don't have to be if you're an heir.

If you've put your faith in Jesus Christ, you've been redeemed from slavery. You're now a son and as a son you're an heir of everything that God has to give. Christ came for us that we might receive the full rights of sons, verse five says. The full rights of sons. Remember the story of the prodigal son? Jesus told this story and he's illustrating God's love for sinners. He uses three stories: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, and he's trying to tell the Pharisees God loves sinners. He searches out sinners; he receives sinners because God loves sinners.

In the story of the lost son, the heir, the son, he wanted it all right now. He wanted to go spend it on wine, women, and song. So the father gave him his inheritance and he went out and he spent it on everything that he could think of and fully gave himself to a hedonistic lifestyle and for a while it was awesome and then he spent all his money and he had nothing. He got hungry and the only thing he could do was feed pigs. So he's out there feeding the pigs and he said, "You know what? These pigs have it better than I do."

He started reflecting on his life and he realized he blew it. "Gosh, I'm a son and an heir and I took all of that and I wasted it. You know what? I need to go back to my father. I need to ask his forgiveness. I need to humble myself before him. I need to make myself one of his hired men. I need to be a worker and that's going to be a better situation than I got now." So he marches off and you know the story. The father's out on the porch and he's standing there and he sees his son coming.

He jumps off the porch and he runs out and grabs him and he put his robe on his son and he orders a big party and he says, "We've got to rejoice because this son of mine has come back and now I have a new worker." Is that what he said? No. "Now I have my son back." This is what I think happens for a lot of us who are heirs but for whatever reason we put ourselves in bondage again. We come to a place where we realize it doesn't work. The world's value system doesn't work.

So we think, "I've got to get right with God. I've got to come back to God. I've got to make myself right with God," and we come back to God, but we don't come back as sons. We come back as workers, workmen. So what we're really saying is I want to get out from bondage to the elementary principles of this world and we come right back under bondage to the law. All these religious things I've got to do for God, all these sacrifices I've got to make and all these spiritual disciplines I've got to follow and all this stuff I've got to do.

It sounds better than all the worldly stuff we've been doing, but it's still all about me. It's what I'm trying to do to earn my way back to God. God is standing there like the father. "I want my son. I've redeemed you. I've already paid the price. Jesus shed his blood on the cross. The Holy Spirit's been given to you. You're a son. Receive all the inheritance of being a son." See, the truest thing about us is what God says is true and God says that Christ was sent to redeem us, to set us free.

We're no longer slaves, but we're sons and we have the full rights of sonship. So verse six tells us of Galatians chapter four, "Because you are sons, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts and it is the spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father.'" You see, what has closed the deal for us that we truly are sons is God's Spirit, the Spirit of God's son, lives in our hearts. That answers that theological question that my daughter asked me so many years ago that I shared with you about when Ashton was a little girl and praying for it at night and she said, "Daddy, how can Jesus be in heaven and Jesus be in my heart at the same time?"

God has sent the Spirit of his son into our hearts and every believer, every believer, has been made a son of God and the sign or seal that every believer is a son of God is that the Spirit of God's son lives inside of us.

Guest (Male): What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP provides us with great insight. That is why we'd like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today's date. We'll send it your way for just five dollars. Or if you'd like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653, or give us a call at 949-916-0250. That's 949-916-0250.

For your gift of twenty-five dollars or more, we will send you a signed copy of JP's new book, Facing Goliath. Please join us every Sunday at 9:00 or 11:00 AM at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills. The address is 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653, or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com. We're going to get to the address and phone number again in a minute, but before we do that, Pastor JP, do you have any insight from today's message?

JP Jones: Thanks, Greg. In the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul says the gospel is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. What God has done is he's given us a seal, a permanent reminder that this grace has been applied to our lives and the seal of God's grace in our lives is the presence of the Holy Spirit. God's Holy Spirit lives inside of us. He's the Spirit of Jesus Christ. He's the third person of the Trinity.

At the moment of salvation, the moment we put our faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit seals us, the Holy Spirit baptizes us, the Holy Spirit regenerates us and gives us new life, and the Holy Spirit comes to permanently indwell us. Galatians four six says, "Because you are sons, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, the spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father.' So you're no longer a slave but a son and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir."

God has made us heirs of all of his promises, heirs of all of the identity of Jesus Christ, heirs of all of Christ's blessings and righteousness, and the sign, the seal, the presence of the Holy Spirit is what guarantees that that is a true promise of God. The Holy Spirit lives inside of you if you're a believer. The Holy Spirit lives inside of you to make Jesus real. The Holy Spirit lives inside of you to guide and instruct and empower your life.

The Holy Spirit lives inside of you to produce his spiritual fruit. The Holy Spirit lives inside of you to give you victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. The Holy Spirit lives inside of you to lead you into worship and intimacy with God, and the Holy Spirit lives inside of you to make you a bold witness for Jesus. We could not live the Christian life apart from the Holy Spirit. We couldn't come to know Jesus apart from the Holy Spirit.

He is God's gift to us and because the gospel is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, the Spirit of Christ indwells us and marks us out as followers of God. Let's give thanks for this truth. God, thank you that you have given us the Holy Spirit and he lives in us by faith. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Guest (Male): We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653, or call us at 949-916-0250. On the internet, you will find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.