Truth That Changes Lives

JP Jones: And the spirit who lives in you is the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead. And if he lives in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your bodies through his spirit who lives in you.

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 part two of your identity in Christ.

JP Jones: Galatians 4:4-5. "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 sonship." That first part of Galatians 4, it's 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. 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."

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 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 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.

If you redeem a coupon, the concept is really 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 to the counter and they scan it and then the price comes up on the screen. That's the lutron.

When you pay that price, the Greek word for that is lutroo: 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. And 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. And when someone purchased a slave from the slave market, that's the application of the verb agorazo: to buy a slave.

We were slaves to sin, slaves to death, slaves to our ego, slaves to the devil, slaves 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 all on everything that he could think of and fully gave himself to a hedonistic lifestyle. For a while it was awesome, and then he spent all of his money and he had nothing. And he got hungry. The only thing he could do was feed pigs. So he's out there feeding the pigs and he said, "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. 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." 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. And he jumps off the porch and he runs out and grabs him and he put his robe on his son and he ordered a big party.

He says, "We gotta 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 didn't work. The world's value system doesn't work. So we think, "I gotta get right with God. I gotta come back to God. I gotta 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 into bondage to the law. All these religious things I gotta do for God, all these sacrifices I gotta make, all these spiritual disciplines I gotta follow, and all this stuff I gotta 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. And 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." The truest thing about us is what God says is true. 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.

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 at night.

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. 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. Right now this morning, if you've given your life to Jesus Christ, God's spirit lives inside of you. If you're here and you're curious and seeking and wondering what this is all about, and you realize this is what I'm in search for, this is the truth, and you give your life to Jesus Christ, you believe in Jesus Christ, the very moment that you believe in Christ, God's spirit, the spirit of God's son, will come into your heart.

That's what we're told here. And that's why this passage is paralleled in so many other New Testament passages. In Ephesians chapter one, it says, "You also, having heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit." In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 13 and 14 says, "For we were all baptized by one spirit into one body. We were all given the one spirit to drink." In John chapter three, Jesus says, "You must be born again. Don't marvel that I said you've got to be born again. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to spirit. You've got to be born of the spirit. You've got to be born again."

Titus chapter three, verses four to seven says that we were dead in sin and slaves to various kinds of lusts. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us and justified us and poured out his Holy Spirit upon us richly and rejuvenated us by the Holy Spirit who's been given to us by God. Romans chapter eight says, "You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the spirit, if indeed the spirit of God lives in you."

If the spirit of God lives in you, you are sons of God and the spirit who lives in you is the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead. And if he lives in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your bodies through his spirit who lives in you. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, "Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit whom you've received from God?" Over and over and over again, all of these scriptures are speaking to the fact that the sign of this new covenant relationship with God is that God has sent his spirit into our hearts.

We're not slaves anymore. We're sons. And as sons, we have the spirit of God living within us. That's why you can say with Paul, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Paul said that in Philippians 4:13. If it was just me trying to struggle and live the Christian life in my own efforts, I couldn't say that. But it isn't just me trying to live the Christian life in my own efforts. It's me as a son having the spirit of God's son living in me and I can say with Paul, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

In fact, let's all say that. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Let's say it again: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." You see, the spirit of Christ lives in you if you're a believer in Jesus Christ. You can be a slave to the law. You can be a slave to the elementary principles of this world. But Christ redeems us, sets us free so that we're not slaves anymore. We're sons. And as sons, we have the spirit of God's son living in us.

Paul concludes this statement in verse seven by saying, "So you are no longer a slave but a son. And since you're a son, God has made you also an heir." We are heirs of all that God has, every spiritual blessing. My first day in India, we traveled to India, flew down, got into Delhi, flew down to Vizag where I was staying for the entire time. Got there at night, got up the next morning, went and preached at a service where all the orphans that are there in that city that are part of this ministry and some of the people were gathered together.

I talked about being a child of God from Ephesians chapter one, the fact that we're blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Part of our spiritual blessing is that we're a child of God. Afterwards, one of the songs that they sang is, "Yes, I'm a Child of God." I got to see this room full of orphans and people who have come from all kinds of backgrounds to faith in Jesus Christ, and they sang that song that, "Yes, I'm a Child of God" in the Hindi language.

They're singing, "Yes, I'm a Child of God," and you could just see this joy on their face. "Yes, I'm a Child of God." "Yes, I'm a Child of God." And even more. Even more. The Bible says in John 1:12, "But to as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to them that believe in his name." So whenever we believe in Jesus, we become children, but not only children, we become sons. You're getting the scrambled eggs and the milkshakes.

A son was a legal term meaning the heir of all the inheritance. It's true we're all children of God, but more than that, we are sons of God. We are heirs of every spiritual blessing that God has to give, now and in the life to come in heaven. It's already ours. It's already ours because the truest thing about us is what? What God says is true. We're not slaves anymore if we're believers in Christ. We are sons. And because we are sons, we've been made heirs.

That truth, that transaction takes place the very moment we turn to God in Jesus Christ. The very moment we cross the line. The very moment we put our faith in Christ. That very dynamic moment of faith, we go from being slaves to being sons and as sons to being heirs of all that God gives. My last day in India, we traveled to a village about four hours away. We hired a driver to take us there. Conducted a pastors' conference during the day and did an evangelistic meeting at night.

Our driver was a Muslim man. For four hours, this Muslim man is driving with three Christians, two of us from America, one from India. He spoke a little English, so he was picking up on what we were doing. Obviously, he knew that we were over there for religious purposes, Christian missionary purposes. Then our host, Dr. Wesley, who runs the ministry, he was kind of translating and speaking to the man. We asked him some questions about his background.

Then we just were involved in talking during our ministry and he took us to the pastors' conference and I spoke at this pastors' conference. Then we drove to the place where we're having the evangelistic meeting and there were quite a few people that had requested prayer. I had the privilege of praying for these people. When we would go to one of their homes, Dr. Wesley would ask our driver to go and inquire about what's going on and are the people there and are they ready for us?

We asked Dr. Wesley, "What does he think?" He's a Muslim and yet he's kind of helping us out in what we're doing here in this ministry. Dr. Wesley jokingly said, "Oh, I'm training him to be one of my pastors." So we all laughed that here's this Muslim guy being trained to carry on ministry. Well, what we didn't realize is he was taking all of this in all the time that we're involved. After praying for different people, we went over to the place of our evangelistic meeting and I spoke at the meeting.

Then we got back in the car and our driver said, and he spoke in Hindi and Dr. Wesley translated it, he said, "I was standing outside on the porch when you were praying for these people." And in particular, I knew he was talking about this last time where I was praying for this little girl who was sick and I was praying and asking God to do a miracle in her life and for her family. He commented, "I was really moved by listening to you pray for this little girl."

Then he said, "I went to the evangelistic meeting where you were speaking." So I asked Dr. Wesley to ask him what did he think about the meeting. And so he asked him and he said, "I learned something." So he said, "What'd you learn?" He said, "I learned that Jesus died for my sins. And I learned that I need to get closer to Jesus." So I continued to kind of ask some questions and share some scripture and Dr. Wesley was translating and communicating that to the guy.

That was our last day. Spent the night, got up in the morning, I'm at breakfast time with Bill, the guy that I was over there with, Bill Perkins, and I said to Bill kind of over breakfast laughing, "You know next year when we come back here, that driver, he is going to be one of the pastors for Dr. Wesley." And we laughed about it. We got our stuff all packed. The driver picked us up. We're driving to the airport to leave and I turned to Dr. Wesley, who was sitting in the back, and I said, "You know, we were joking over breakfast that our driver's probably going to be one of your pastors next week."

And he said, "Oh, he's already working for me." And I said, "What?" He said, "Yeah, God spoke to him in the middle of the night. And when he showed up to pick me up this morning, he said he had quit his job and asked if he could come to work for my ministry. And so I just hired him to be the driver for me and for our ministry." And we just were like blown away. Here's the deal: in less than 24 hours, this guy went from a devoted Muslim to a seeker to a believer in Jesus Christ to someone involved working full-time in Christian ministry in less than a 24-hour period.

Now, you know what God says? In less than a 24-hour period, in fact, in a moment, when you turn to Jesus Christ and you believe in Christ, you go from being a slave to being a son and an heir. This morning, if you've given your life to Jesus Christ, the truest thing about you is what God says is true. If you've given your life to Jesus Christ, you are a son and an heir. And if you haven't given your life to Christ, you can do it this morning. And the very moment that you do, you will become a son and an heir because the truest thing about you—let's say it together—is what God says is true.

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 25 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. You know, the Bible's very clear. It says that every person is either a slave or they're a son. We are either in bondage to sin or we're being set free because of our relationship with Jesus Christ. We come into this world dead in trespasses and sins. We make personal choices that keep us enslaved to sin. But when the gospel of Jesus Christ is presented to us and the hope of God is made real, we can by faith receive Jesus Christ into our life.

And when we do, we are set free. We move from darkness into light, we move from slavery to sin into freedom, and we are set free to be sons of God. Not a son like Jesus is the son of God, but a son like someone in a family, someone whose father is God. We have a relationship with God. We are called his sons. In fact, the Bible says this in Galatians chapter four, "When the time had fully come that God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive the full rights as sons."

When we were redeemed, when we were set free by the blood of Jesus Christ, when we were born again spiritually, we became sons of God and we have all the rights and privileges as sons. We have the very inheritance of God our Father. Jesus Christ is our Lord and we are blessed with every spiritual blessing, we are made new. Old things have passed away, new things have come, and we are no longer enslaved to sin. We're set free, we're sons.

Let me ask you a question. Are you still in slavery or are you being set free as a son? It's as simple as saying yes to Jesus Christ, surrendering to Christ, trusting in Christ. If you want to be set free from your sin and if you want to live as a son of God in all of his freedom and inheritance, would you ask Jesus to come into your heart right now? Pray this prayer with me. Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. Thank you that you died for my sins. Thank you that you redeem me. Set me free and make me a son of God. 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.