Deo Gloria
Sermon for December 29, 2019
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Galatians 4:4-7
Theme: God Sent His Son!
- To redeem us
- To make us his sons
My dad doesn’t have many memories of living in the orphanage, but the ones he does have are not very pleasant. One of his memories is of children crying at night. You see, all of the children at the orphanage had to sleep in the same room. And whenever it would storm, the younger children and the babies would just cry and cry and cry, and there was no one there to comfort them. Another of his memories involves oatmeal. It seems the only thing they ever had for breakfast was oatmeal. And to this day my dad can not eat oatmeal. But then at age 4 he was adopted by John and Olga Bentz, an older German couple who didn’t have any children. He lived with them on their farm about 4 miles north of Gibbon. And the rest, as they say, is history.
You and I were also orphans. At one time we too were separated from our heavenly Father and his family. We were alienated from God and his love. But all of that changed at Christmas, when God revealed his great love for us and sent his Son as a baby born in Bethlehem. God sent his Son to redeem us. And he sent his Son to make us his sons.
“When the time had fully come,” Paul says, “God sent his Son”(v. 4). God had a plan, a plan he had devised already in eternity, a plan he had revealed to his Old Testament people through prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, a plan to send a Savior one day. Finally, when the conditions were right, when everything was in place and the exact time had come, God set his plan into motion. He sent his Son into the world to be our Savior, to be our Redeemer.
As we heard this past week, his Son was born of a woman, born of a virgin, in fact, in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. But what is every bit as important and in keeping with God’s plan, being born of a woman also meant that he was born under law. Obviously God is not under the law. He made the law. He is not subject to obey its commands and decrees. We are. By becoming one of us, however, by being born of a woman and becoming a true human being, Jesus placed himself under the law. Now he was subject to the law, just like you and me. Now he did have to obey its commands and decrees, just like you and me. The difference, though, is that he succeeded where we failed.
God says in his Word, “Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy”(Lev 19:2). The problem is we haven’t been holy. We haven’t obeyed God’s commandments. He says, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord, your God.” And we have. He says, “You shall not steal or covet what other people have.” And we have. He says, “You shall not murder.” And we have. We have hated and hurt others in our words and actions. He says, “Honor your father and mother.” And we have not. We have broken God’s laws time and time and time again. We have not lived a holy and righteous life. And, therefore, we have disqualified ourselves as members of God’s family. By our sins we have separated ourselves from God. And unless something dramatic happened and changed our situation, we would remain separated from God forever.
But then something dramatic did happen. God sent his Son. He sent his Son to do what we could not. He sent his Son as a true human being, born under the law just like you and me, so that he could obey the law, so that he could keep its commands and decrees, every single one of them, so that he could live a holy and righteous life in our place as our Savior. That was part of God’s plan, that his Son would be our righteousness.
Of course, the other part of the plan is that Jesus would suffer the punishment for our sins, that he would pay the penalty for our sins and redeem us from sin and death. A number of years ago, just a few days before Christmas a 9-year-old girl from Pasadena, CA was kidnapped. Two men broke into her home while her mom and dad were gone. They tied up her grandparents who were staying with her that night, ransacked the house, and then kidnapped her. They demanded $200,000 in ransom money. Two days later, after her parents had dropped off the money at the designated location, the little girl was set free. The ransom price God the Father had to pay for our release was far more costly. It’s wasn’t $200,000 or $200 million or even $200 billion. The price he had to pay was the life of his own Son. And yet, it’s a price he was willing to pay because of his great love for us. In love he sent his Son to pay the price to set us free. We confess that truth in the words of the explanation of the 2nd Article, “He has redeemed me…not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood, and with his innocent suffering and death.” Yes, God sent his Son to redeem us.
He also sent his Son to make us his children. “But when the time had fully come,” Paul says, “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons”(vv. 4+5). Through his Son Jesus Christ, God has brought us back into his family. He has adopted us as his own sons and daughters. For many of us that took place on the day of our baptism. When we were still just tiny babies, God washed away our sins and made his own son or daughter. For others it may have happened when they were older, when through the Word of God, the Holy Spirit led them to believe in Jesus as their Savior. That’s when they became children of God. As the apostle John says in his first letter, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”(3:1). “[We] are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus”(Gal. 3:26).
Being a child of God, or a son of God, does have its privileges or blessings that go with it. Paul refers to this at the end of v. 5, where he says, “…that we might receive the full rights of sons.” What are the “rights” or privileges of sonship? In the next verse he mentions the first: “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts”(v. 6). Think about that for a second. God could live anywhere, couldn’t he, anywhere he wanted? He could live on a tropical island down in the Bahamas. He could live on a sprawling ranch out in Colorado or Montana. He could live in a majestic castle, high on a mountain in Switzerland or Austria, or on a planet like Saturn million and millions of miles away; but he chooses to send his Spirit to live your heart. Talk about a wonderful blessing!
A second blessing or privilege we enjoy is the close relationship we have with God. “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,” Paul says, “the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father’”(v. 6). Little Hebrew children—ages 1, 2, 3 years old–would call their father, “Abba.” Abba is the word for daddy. “Abba, would get me a drink of water?” “Abba, would you hold my hand?” “Abba, will you push me on the swing?” That’s the kind of relationship you and I enjoy with the Father in heaven, the almighty God who created the universe, the God who rules over all things. We can call him, “Daddy.” “Daddy, will you watch over me today?” “Daddy, will you provide for me and my family? Will you give us each day our daily bread?” “Daddy, will you hold me in your arms and wipe away my tears?” Again what a wonderful blessing!
And a third “right” or privilege we enjoy is that we are heirs. “So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir”(v. 7). An heir is the one who will receive the inheritance. So what inheritance will we receive one day? 500 shares of Microsoft stock? Our mom’s china hutch? A cabin up north on the Lake of the Woods? Something far better. A place in the Father’s house, the right to live forever with the Father and the Son in unending joy and glory—this is our inheritance. This is what we have to look forward to when our time in this world draws to a close, because we are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
I’d like to share a little story this morning. It’s a true story that took place back in 1994 at a Russian orphanage.
The holiday season was fast approaching—time for our orphans to hear, for the first time, the story of Christmas. We told them about Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem and, finding no room in the inn, going to a stable, where the baby Jesus was born. The children and staff listened to the story in amazement.
Upon completing the story, we gave the children cardboard, cloth, and paper to make mangers and babies. As they worked on their crafts, we walked among them to assist those who needed help.
When I looked at six-year-old Misha’s manger, I was startled to see that it contained not one but two babies. I had the translator ask the lad why he had put two in the manger. Crossing his arms in front of him, he began to repeat the story of the Nativity very seriously.
For such a young boy who had heard the Christmas story only once, Misha related the happenings quite accurately—until he came to the part where Mary put Jesus in the manger. Then he added his own ending. He said, “When Maria laid the baby in the manger, Jesus looked at me and asked me if I had a place to stay. I told him I have no mamma and I have no papa, so I don’t have any place to stay. Then Jesus told me I could stay with him. But I told him I couldn’t, because I didn’t have a gift to give him like everyone else.
“And yet I wanted to stay with Jesus so very, very much, so I thought about what I had that maybe I could use for a gift. I thought maybe if I kept him warm, that would be a good gift. So I asked Jesus, ‘If I keep you warm, will that be a good enough gift?’
“And Jesus told me, ‘If you keep me warm, that will be the best gift anybody ever gave me.’ So I climbed into the manger next to Jesus. And he looked at me and he told me I could stay with him for always.”
As little Misha finished the story, tears welled up in his eyes and spilled down his little cheeks. Then he put his hand over his face, dropped his head to the table and began to sob. The little orphan had found someone who would never abandon him nor abuse him; someone who would stay with him—for always.
You and I don’t ever have to worry about being abandoned either. Our orphan days are over. We are God’s children, redeemed by the innocent life and precious blood of God’s own Son. In this life God lives with us. His Spirit dwells within our hearts. In the next life we will live with him, in his heavenly home for always—all because God sent his Son at Christmas. Amen.