Word of Salvation – Vol. 35 No. 10 – March 1990
Children And Adults In The Family Of God
Sermon by Rev. F. L. Vanderbom on Galatians 4:1-11
Singing: 327, 204, S63, H801
Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ,
Paul here in this passage is talking about Jews and Christians. Jews living under the Old Testament and Christians. And of course, there weren’t many second generation Christians in the days of Paul, but there were Christians who were grown up but who didn’t grow up. I guess that even though there wouldn’t be many Jews here today, there are quite a few Christian people here among us who grew up as Christians but who perhaps haven’t grown up the way God wants. So Paul is talking to all of us here, whether you are a Jew or not, grown up Christian or not.
Paul says: under the Law, under the Old Testament, or if you like, when you were a child in a Christian home, you were like a child in a wealthy family. Just imagine a little kid of Alan Bond in Western Australia. One day you will own air-ships and breweries and companies and TV stations and newspapers and maybe a lot more. But for now says Paul, although one day you are going to be rich, you’re being treated just as a slave is treated. And how is a slave treated? He has to do what the boss says. How is a child treated? He has to do what Mum or Dad says, and if he has wealthy parents he has to do what the gardener says, do what the kitchen maid says, do what the cook says, do what the cleaner says. In other words, a child, (and boys and girls don’t you know it) a kid is under orders from teachers, parents, leaders at Youth Club, Cadets or Calvinettes. And sometimes even people you don’t know boss you around because you are a child. Sometimes you feel like a slave, and Paul says that’s exactly the way it was for the Old Testament Jews, and still is for many of God’s people.
And yet as Christians we know that we have tremendous promises and a great future. The people of Israel certainly had those things. But for the time being, God’s people in Old Testament times, during those 1200 years between Moses and Jesus, were treated like slaves or little children. We read earlier in chapter 3 verse 24 that the law was put in charge of the Old Testament people to lead them to Christ. In other words, the law was put there by God before the Holy Spirit came, to keep the people of God in Old Testament times under control. God knew that they couldn’t be trusted to be responsible, to be treated like mature people, so He gave them the Law. Not just the Ten Commandments but many, many other laws as well.
But in verse 3 he says something different. Paul says, “when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world”. By that he means: by evil spirits, by the powers of Satan, and that’s a problem for me. Why does Paul say just a few verses earlier that we were under the control of the Law, and here in our text he says that we are under the control of Satan? Brothers and sisters, when you put those two things together you realize why the Law was such a miserable thing to be under the control of. Paul is saying here that often God’s Law was more effective to do Satan’s work than to do God’s work.
Don’t you know it? Satan can often take good things and turn them into bad things! Just like God does the opposite. He can take bad things and make sure that you still get a benefit from them.
Let’s go back to Alan Bond. Alan Bond can think that he has a good gardener, a good cook, a good housecleaner. But those good workers in Alan Bond’s house could treat his children very, very badly, so that his kids hate those people. And don’t you know people who hate God’s Law, because either the church or their father or mother have used the law of God in the wrong way? To annoy them, to aggravate them, or as Paul says somewhere else, to frustrate or aggravate their children. I know people who have grown up in a Christian home who have turned right against the Lord Jesus Christ because unfortunately, even without Mum, Dad, or the church knowing it, Satan was using the laws laid down by Mum, Dad or the church to drive those kids to tyranny or rebellion. To bring out the worst instead of the best in kids. This is one of the main reasons why so many young people and former members of some Reformed churches have left. Turned off by the law of God! Things that can be good in themselves, can be used by Satan against God and against the salvation of people, including perhaps many of our children, let’s face it.
That’s why Jesus was so hard against the Pharisees of his day. That is why the church has to be so hard against a modern pharisaical attitude of fathers and mothers and churches that go wrong with the law of God. Laws that discourage people instead of encouraging them. Laws that make them slaves and rebels instead of setting them free and teaching them to be responsible under the Word and Spirit of God. The Heidelberg Catechism reflects the teaching of the Bible when it says that God gives His law to unbelievers to show them their sinfulness. To teach them that they need the forgiveness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the Christian use of the law for an unbeliever.
When Satan starts to use the law, people don’t see their sin but they see a tyrannical God in a tyrannical church or tyrannical parents. So when Satan uses the law, we see people angry, rebellious, rejecting Jesus Christ.
And that’s basically what Paul is saying in these first three verses. It happened to the Jews and it happens among Christian people too. While God intended the law to bring people to salvation, it is so easy and so common for Satan to use the law to bring people to condemnation. Let me repeat that not only the Jews of the Old Testament but people in Christian churches, in Christian homes, today too, have to go through this stage of spiritual childhood, of being kept under control. But God wants to bring them to adulthood. God wants to bring people to responsible, mature adulthood. That’s the next thing that Paul talks about.
In verses 4 to 7 he talks about Jesus’ coming and the Holy Spirit’s coming. In verse 4 Paul writes, “When the time had fully come, God sent his son.” In other words, there was a time before that, that is, the 1200 years between Moses and Christ. But then John the Baptist announced, “the time has come, (Mark 1:15) the kingdom of God is here”. The time has come! Paul doesn’t just say the time had come. He says the time had fully come. In other words, it was ripe for God to do something.
What was so special about the time of Jesus? When God sent his Son, the time was fully ripe because of the Roman Empire basically. The Roman Empire was in total control of the world as it was known in those days. At the time Jesus was born, every nation that was known, every town that was civilized, was under the control of one government, the Roman Empire. Not only that but the Romans were very good road builders and they built a network of roads all over the known world. And those roads were safe because Roman soldiers were in control. They guaranteed safety to travellers everywhere.
The time was also fully ripe because in those days the world had one language, which was not always spoken but certainly understood everywhere. That language was not Latin or Italian but Greek. So there were many things that made the world one world in those days. There was one basic culture. People could travel all over the Roman Empire and their customs would be accepted. They wouldn’t offend people all that much. There was also one legal system. That means that you knew what the law was, what you were allowed and what you were not allowed to do wherever you went.
There was another reason the time was fully ripe. The old gods, the old legends, the old myths, the old religions of the world up to that time had started to lose their influence and there were many people who were hungry now for a religion that was real. They could see that the law of Moses really wasn’t a saviour, and they were looking forward to the Messiah, to someone who could really change things for them. And so Paul says: Now that the time was ripe God did two things, (verses 4 & 5), He sent His Son, and verse 6, God sent the Spirit of His son into our hearts.
God sent his Son so that we might hear the teaching, the stories, the truths. And God sent his Spirit so that we might feel, experience, enjoy, understand, and accept the truth. Can you see how these two things are so important, brothers and sisters? You and I need not only the Lord Jesus as our teacher and our saviour. That can be almost all outside of me if I’m not careful. It’s only through the work of the Holy Spirit that everything that Jesus said and did becomes mine. There’s something tremendously important about that, isn’t there? God wants you and me not only to know, but also to receive and to enjoy and to show that I am no longer a child or a slave. God wants me, not only to know that I belong to the family, but also to show it, to experience it. So Paul concludes in verse 7, “So you are no longer a slave but a son, a child, and since you are a child, also an heir.”
So we come to the last part of this text, the verses 8 to 11, where Paul starts to spell out the consequences of the fact that because of the fullness of time, because God has given us his Son and his Spirit, we are no longer to be regarded as children but we are to behave like grown-ups. In verse 8 he says, “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles?”
Paul is saying here that many of the Christians in the churches in Galatia, (…and that was a part of the Roman Empire. Galatia wasn’t one town or one city but a region, say like Victoria)… that the churches in Galatia had a lot of people in them who were not behaving like grown-ups, but who were going back to the Old Testament type of religion. Now what does that mean?
Paul gives an example here: “You are observing special days and months and seasons and years” Somewhere else he says that they were still hanging on to circumcision. That just in itself, without telling us anything else, reminds us of the Old Testament, doesn’t it!? In the Old Testament we have all those rules about special days, the Sabbath day, the feasts that they had, and the various routines they had to perform on those special days. We also read a lot about the rules of circumcision, when a child had to be circumcised, what happened if he wasn’t circumcised, who had to do the circumcision etc., etc. “Weak and miserable principles”, Paul calls all those things.
I think we don’t have too many hang-ups about special days. We still have our special times like Christmas and Easter. But let’s face it, if we want to go on holidays, then we go on holidays. If we feel like a weekend away, many of us take it. Many of us are a bit too easy when it comes to coming to church on a Sunday, even once. God doesn’t want us to live by strict routines, but he wants us to enjoy the things He has given us to do, to want to do the things the Lord enables us to do, like going to church, or like celebrating the birth of Christ or the resurrection of Christ. That’s why as church we never want to be too strict in saying, “you must” or “you shall” or “you won’t come to the Lord’s Supper if we don’t see you h church weekly”. That would be treating people like slaves, saying, “you shall do this, and if you don’t, then: BANG!”
That’s the way Reformed churches used to operate. That’s the way they do still operate in some churches. But, how can churches operate that way in the light of the New Testament? Remember the things which Jesus says about pharisaic religion? What’s the problem with pharisaic religion? It traps people into thinking that as long as you do this, this, and this, you will be OK. You get people who can’t talk to God, who can’t give you the central message of the Bible, who don’t care about Bible studies, but who think that as long as they go to church and do this, that, and the other, they will be OK. That is Pharisaism. People who say, “Lord, I have done this, I’ve done that, I tithe, I worship, I observe the Sabbath. Thank you that I’m not like that wretch out there, that tax collector, that sinner!”
Brothers and sisters, we still have a problem like that in our congregation too, haven’t we? I somehow suspect that for some of our people, religion is basically a matter of you shall or you shall not, I have to go to church on Sunday, I have to give a certain amount in the offering. I have to help with Cadets or Calvinettes, I have to go to catechism. A religion of routines and rules and regulations: the Old Testament revisited.
Now think of the parable that we read earlier from Luke 15. Can you see how that parable fits in with what Paul is saying here? Jesus in Luke 15 is thinking of the Pharisees and he is thinking about sinners and tax collectors, when he says there was once a father who had two sons. Let’s look at the younger son first. After his sinful binge and his foolishness, he goes back to his father and says, “Father, I used to be your son, but I don’t deserve to be your son anymore! But please accept me back, just let me be your slave!” Does the father say, “Right, from now on you will be my slave, that’s what you deserve”? No, the father hugs him, puts new clothes on him, organizes a celebration, and says, “I am taking you back. You are my lost but found son!” That’s the way God treats you if you’re a Christian. Now, can you imagine that son saying to his father, “No Dad, I don’t want to hear about a celebration, I don’t want those nice clothes, and I don’t want you to think of me as your son anymore. Dad, I want to be a slave now. For the rest of my life I want to pay for my sins. I want to obey your servants. I want to sleep in the slaves’ quarters. I want to eat a slave’s food. I thank you for your kindness to me, but I want to stay as a slave. I don’t trust myself anymore father, I might do the wrong thing. Stick a nail through my ear to show that I want to be a slave rather than a son!”
That’s not what God wants you to be like. God really wants you to come back to him, again and again, as His child. But also to take on the responsibility of not falling back into your old ways.
Now let’s think about the older son. The older son is invited to the party, but he refuses. “Dad, I’ve always done the right thing and I’ve never enjoyed anything special about living with you. Why all this hullaballoo about my younger brother?” He also has missed the boat. He parades his goodness. “Dad, I’ve never done this, I’ve never done that, and I’ve certainly not been like your younger son. Why haven’t you ever given me anything to say thank you for, or to be happy about?” This son, even though he is regarded by his father as a son is really a slave, isn’t he? He runs around thinking all day about all the good things he has done and how he has missed out on the good things of his father. He doesn’t realize how rich and yet how wrong he is.
We learn in this text what the Christian life is. The life of a New Testament child of God is the life of a son or a daughter, not of a slave. That means freedom, and responsibility. Freedom and responsibility are sometimes misused and easily mishandled, but God still wants you to be free, and to be responsible.
We also read earlier that there is a place for serving God. Paul calls himself a slave” or a “servant” of God and we read earlier that we are slaves and servants of God. That’s thinking about something entirely different. If I love my wife, I will serve her best interests, I will do anything for her. And that’s the context in which the Bible speaks about a Christian being a slave or a servant. The Christian life does not depend on being slavishly obedient to rules, to traditions, to customs, to forms. And that’s why I can accept a Christian in another church. I can accept a person who may feel happier in say, an Anglican church, a Charismatic church, a Baptist church. Because there is freedom. Our salvation doesn’t depend on the exact details, even of our doctrine, (as long as we are Christian believers), or on the exact traditions of our church when compared with other Christian churches.
Can I just tell you very briefly about John Wesley, the man who started the Methodist church which is now merged with the Uniting Church? John Wesley, as a student at University, used to think that he was a Christian. He belonged to a group called the Holy Club and the Holy Club members were quite orthodox in their beliefs, they lived a Christian lifestyle; they were very busy doing good things. They used to visit prisons and orphanages; they worked in the slums among the poor giving them food and clothes and a bit of an education. John Wesley and his friends kept not only the Sunday as a Sabbath but also the Saturday as a Sabbath. Every Sunday they went to church whenever they could. They went to Holy Communion, they gave away money, they studied the Bible, they used to fast, they prayed a lot. But there came a point in John Wesley’s life when he realized he was doing all these things out of slavish obedience instead of out of a living, warm, fruitful faith. Later on when he looked back at these early student years he said that then he did not trust in Christ and in Christ only for his salvation. He says that even though he was doing all these good things, he had the faith of a servant, not of a son.
Where does this leave you? If I could send you home with one thing to remember, it’s this. Keep telling yourself who you are, what you are because of the Gospel. Never think of yourself as a Christian without realising that you are a Christian because of the Gospel, the good news. This is why it is so important for you to come to church and belong to a Bible study or a fellowship group where you read the Bible and talk about the Bible together. This is why it is so important that you learn to pray. It’s only by meeting with other people that we become warm. It’s only by opening myself to God’s Word that I keep being reminded of who I am because of Jesus Christ. Once I was a slave, but God has given me his Son, and through Jesus, not through what I do, I am forgiven. God accepts me. I know that I have his Holy Spirit and therefore I know that God trusts me to live his life.
How could I possibly go back to the old ways of thinking that I am a Christian because I’ve never killed anyone or committed adultery? That’s pharisaism. When you talk to your children; make sure that you point them to Jesus Christ. And give them the freedom and the responsibility to be Jesus’s followers in their own way. Not according to your ideas, your rules, your regulations, because in that way Satan will be quite easily using you to drive people away from God.
John Newton (remember? – he was the man who wrote ‘Amazing Grace’) became a Christian at a later age. Before he became a Christian he was involved in the slave trade, going on sailing ships to Africa and taking shiploads of Blacks to America to work on the plantations. When he became a Christian he never forgot how good God had been to him, to forgive him, even for all he had done to other people. He could see his past perhaps even more clearly than you and I can. He put on the wall of his house one of the verses we read earlier from Deuteronomy 15: ‘Remember that you were once a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God set you free.’
That may be a good verse to put on your wall. Is it true of you?
AMEN