Christmas Message 2020 Galatians 4:4-7

I come across this thing from a couple of years ago in what is known as the Grace Family Journal, which is from the Duluth Bible Church. And so I want to give Dennis Roxler credit for the basic outline of what we're going to talk about today. And it has to do with the verses that he covered that I thought were terrific, Galatians 4, 4-7. So that's what we're going to talk about today.

But in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that He might redeem those that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Therefore, you are no longer slaves, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. So the verses pertain a whole bunch of really cool information that has to do with the birth of Christ.

A couple of things about this, but when the fullness of time came, you can spend a lot of time in this just one phrase, when the fullness of time came, there were spiritual conditions that had to be in place. The fullness of time when man had fully manifested his evil in his heart and entirely failed to answer to God's responsibilities. When it has proved that all have sinned, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I really like the fact that Men don't realize that the issue is, did I come up to the glory of God?

Because most men gauge, well, I do some good things and I do some bad things, but God grades on the curve, so I'm going to be ahead of the game when I get to the gates. What God's excited about is The standard is the glory of God. Well, that's way out of my reach. That's way out of your reach. And all was over on man's side.

God was going to judge us based on the glory of His own glory. And it was God that acted because He knew we couldn't reach that level. It was Him who acted solely in sovereign grace. grace alone. When it pleases God to occupy himself with the world and to get involved with what is going on, it's marvelous to see how he acts and the instructions he gives.

With the fullness of time, everything changed. People didn't realize Most people didn't know what was going on that day, but people realized that in the fullness of time, with Christ coming to the planet, everything changed. It was, what do we call it today, a paradigm shift? It was more than that.

So, what was the problem with man? Unbelief, primarily. And unbelief never receives what the Lord of heaven and earth could never understand that the Lord of Heaven would be born in such circumstances and have the parents that he had on the earth. They couldn't understand it because it just didn't make any sense from an earthly perspective.

And what you find out is that when you study the Word of God is that most of man's, or I shouldn't say most, but probably always, Man's ways are in total opposition to God's ways. They're never in agreement. If you study the Old Testament, starting with Adam and then to the patriarchs and stuff, they're always trying to work a deal with God because they think they have a better idea than God does. They're never in harmony totally.

But it doesn't hinder God's divine grace heading towards us any more than it could deny God's grace. Except for unbelief, the divine glory of Him who was laying there in a manger, this little baby in a manger, is the epitome of divine glory and grace. In fact, for Christ to even be born, for the second person of the Trinity to be born, is really something that man can't get his hand around. How does God get born into the into humankind. And not only that, he comes in in an environment where he's scorned, where he's hated of men, and finally ends up on a cross. All this is just stumbling unbelief to the natural man. He cannot get his arm around, is this what God is going to come to do, if he comes at all?

But when the fullness of time comes, grace makes the proudest man or woman simple. No doubt, but it addresses itself to a peculiar rule that we looked at and we'll look at in Luke. To those that are despised of the earth as Christ was, The point is that if Christ is despised, those that are of Him are also going to be despised.

This is just the truth of God and only the truth that really makes known God and delivers man. Simplicity. Those who receive His truth are simple. When you think about the Gospel message, it's really pretty simple. And it doesn't take a genius to understand what it means, that God so loved the world that He gave, He gave His Son, that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have eternal life.

It doesn't get any simpler than that. The only thing I have to do is believe. Oh, there's nothing else? No, there is nothing else. All intelligence of the things of God comes from His revelation to us. and not from any reasoning that we would come up with. So consequently, the simpler go a lot farther in spiritual things than the wise and the prudent of the earth.

You ever notice that? I notice that. Because I'm one of them. God acts here so that to set aside all the appearances of human wisdom. So the first step here is the timing. God's timing to send Christ was in the fullness of time. And we've talked a little bit about the spiritual conditions that were in place at the time. The spiritual conditions were the perfect right time. Man needed the Savior right then more than ever at any other time. Our Lord Jesus came into the world at the exact time that the Father had determined and willed long before.

It wasn't an accident. It was by divine appointment only. But there were conditions in the world of why He came. And they're listed on the overhead. The first thing is that the universal language of the civilized world was one language. It was Koine Greek. How did that happen? You can thank Alexander the Great for that. Wherever he went, he conquered. The Greek culture went along with him. And so did the language. Guess what the language of the New Testament was written in? Koine Greek.

The second thing is the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire controlled the civilized world, and it had a unifying effect on the world in that there was peace. If you know anything about the Roman government, they did not like insurrection, and as a matter of fact, that was the thing that scared Pilate more than anything. If anybody got out of control, within a few days the Roman army showed up, and that was the end of whatever the problem was. So there was peace, which was a unifying effect through all of the civilized world under the Caesars. Single world government, Roman Empire.

And it allowed people to seriously consider the gospel in times of peace, apart from distractions of war. The third thing was that the Romans had built these incredible roads. I remember in the fifties, some of you remember the fifties, but I remember when Dwight Eisenhower said, Congress, we've got to start building these things called freeways. And the reason that he built the freeways wasn't so that we could get from here to Kansas City in a day, was so that if the country had to go to war, we could move military people around real fast. That's why the Romans did it. If they were going to have to go someplace to settle a dispute, they could get there pretty quick. And so they knew that building roads was a plus for them.

The next thing was that there was this huge spiritual vacuum in the world. Nobody really understood. The Jews were supposed to be God's example to the world about what He was about. But they were idol worshippers. The whole world was idol worshippers. What the Judaism that was practiced at the time of Christ was not anything like what God gave Moses on the mountain. But it created in the populace hungry hearts. And there was a need there that when the gospel came, it was received by many. The other thing was that it allowed prophecy to be fulfilled.

If you look at Daniel 9.24, the coming of Christ was prophecy fulfilled. And the last thing was that right about this time, the Hebrew Bible was completed and it was a translation from Hebrew into Greek. So all of these things are in play at the fullness of time. They're all there.

So what you have to conclude from that is that the entire course of the world is outside the current of God's thoughts. Nobody in the world could look at all of those events and how they were coming together and think, oh, God's in charge of this. It's like today we look around and say, how could God be in charge of a coronavirus? He probably didn't know that was happening or he was off that day or something. When you think about what's going on in the Roman Empire, though, you have the emperor of Rome, Caesar Augustus, and he is being used by God and has no idea that he is.

What does he decide to do? All of his citizens need to register. And you have to go to the town of your ancestors to register. Well, here are these two poor children of Judah, and what's the town they're supposed to go to and register? Bethlehem. Bethlehem. Now, why did they have to go to Bethlehem? Because Caesar said you had to go there. Well, who told Caesar what the deal was? Nobody.

He just decided to do this, and God used it. The degree puts the world in motion. God makes good His thoughts here below. And it's wondrous what He does. And if you've been a believer very long, you can say, Boy, you know, God has put some things in play in my life, and I didn't even realize it until I looked back. My goodness, God's hand was in the middle of this and this and this, and here I am today. And all along I thought I was the originator of all this wonderfulness. No, it wasn't. So all the world is in a movement to bring about this one event.

Who cared to notice these two poor kids from the house and lineage of David, Joseph and Mary? He's a carpenter, probably not very wealthy, and has a spouse wife who's pregnant. And they come to the city of David, which is the heir, and from 400, 500, 600 years before that, the Jews, if they were reading their Old Testament, knew and understood that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. But they were blind to it.

What's interesting is that things that are perfectly indifferent to us as men fill the heart and eyes of God. His focus was on his Son. The second aspect of this is who was the sender of the Son? It was the Father. God sent forth His Son. When we go through all of these verses, four through seven, we'll find that all three persons of the Godhead are involved in this one event. It was God the Father who was the initiator of the plan of redemption, and He sent forth His Son, the Lord Jesus, according to His plan. The word sent forth here is a really interesting word. It talks about Like right now, Joe Biden is trying to fill out his cabinet and people are vying to be ambassadors. So what's an ambassador do? He goes someplace to whatever country he's been assigned and he's got two jobs. One job is that he's supposed to only reveal and talk about what his government told him to say. He's not entitled to his own opinion.

And two, he's got to have credentials to do that. Well, God sent forth his son with credentials and a specific mission, redemption. And he condescended to do it. This word condescended is kind of interesting. It means descending from a superior position, rank and dignity. This is the God of the universe who has descended from his rank and dignity and put the Lord Jesus Christ in a manger in Bethlehem. That's what he did. We have a lesson to be learned here today.

When listening to God and believing Him is as important to us as it was to Christ to obey His Father, we shall go right on whatever is before us without regarding the world and how they think about it. Not that we shall be insensible to what the world is doing, But when Christ is the object of our life, we shall only be occupied with Him. What a difference, too.

A lot of us talk about, well, I think what I'm going to try to do is give up the world. I'm going to divorce myself from the world. Well, good luck with that. But then what happens is you wake up one day and you think, boy, as a believer, they've divorced me. I don't belong there anymore.

We may give up the world with comparative ease, but when we feel the world despises Christ, and despises us as much as it despises Him, we discover that unless Christ satisfies our heart, that we had value and esteem in Christ that we were not aware of, not at all. He's the valuable one. Happy is he who has seized the intention of God as to be identified with it, and who doesn't want anything but Him.

There was this group of people that were out doing their job, not paying attention to hardly anything, and they were the lowliest of the low. And these were the shepherds. What are shepherds called to do? Take care of the sheep. They were so low in society that you couldn't even call them as a witness in a trial because they wouldn't be believed. They are the scum of the earth. And they didn't care much about this. Oh, we got to get to Bethlehem or somewhere out of town they're from and register. They were just doing their job.

And who does God choose to reveal the birth of his son to? To these people. True wisdom is only what God reveals. From the manger to the cross, all is Christ. And Christ is simple. He just simply obeyed His Father. That's all He did. He did it all in God's way. And not only so, but I think that's where He's leading us. That we would only do it in God's way.

You can't get into the simple joy and power of the Lord until we accept the place of separation from the world. And there's humiliation involved with that. Until my heart and your heart is emptied of what is contrary to the lowliness of Christ. We never get the fullest blessing until we are where the flesh can't be relied on. And these shepherds We're in a quiet fulfillment in their humble job, and this is where the blessing comes, to these guys. Whoever is keeping on terms with the world is not walking with God, for God's not walking with us if we're walking in the flesh. We're sure hoping He is, but He's not.

The glory of the Lord starts to shine around these men, and an angel speaks to them. Now I'm thinking I would love to see the expression on those guys' faces when the sky starts to light up and an angel starts to talk to them and a sign is given to them. The message is really simple. You shall find a baby wrapped up in swaddling clothes lying in a manger and then there was a multitude of the angelic host praising God in the heavenlies.

And why were they doing that? Why were they praising God in the heavenlies? Because they knew the mystery. They knew what was going on. They knew that God had been manifested in the flesh. They knew that. And now they're telling the shepherds about it. and telling them in such a way that they can't hold it back. It's so exciting to them. To them, the hope of Israel has been revealed. Glad tidings, great joy unto all men.

Jesus Christ is the axis of all of God's counsels and grace. It all comes through Him. And even Adam, was really a figure in the mind of God. Christ is the prototype man. He's the man. So, you'll notice that such displays of glory like these shepherds saw, very few men see.

But God sent them before us in His Word. That's what we get to do. We get to see this glory in His Word. And we get to do it every single day. And we get to behold the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ reflectively in that word. Even that glory starts in this little manger in Bethlehem. A manger is an apparatus in which you put the hay in and the animals eat out of it.

If Christ filled your heart, occupies your eyes and your ear, how we should see the effects in the person and spirit and conversation and everything that we do. We don't realize that beholding the glory of the Lord has a residual effect on each one of us. It changes how we think. It changes what's valuable to us from whatever the system is to this person, the Lord Jesus Christ.

But God has found in that manger, though these things are beyond man's grasp, Who cannot walk with God nor understand His moral glory unless you behold the glory of that baby? And that's where faith comes in. It's like Paul wrote to the Galatians to defend the gospel against the inroads of legalist teachers. Well, what did law do?

It shut out this beholding of the glory of the Lord Jesus because Think about this. If I am in the Word, just reading it, I'm not trying to pass a test. I'm just beholding the glory of the Lord. And someone interrupts what I'm doing with some series of things that I ought to be doing. In other words, I go from beholding to performance. Where did the thought, where does the focus go? It goes from off of Christ onto me. Because as soon as I start thinking about what I ought to do, I'm not thinking about the glory of the Lord Jesus.

That's why legalism is so dangerous. In Galatians 2.16, Paul wrote, knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. With all this being said, it stands to reason that Jesus Christ could not have died for our sins and been raised from the dead if He had never entered the human race through physical birth. So why is this the method and how is it made possible? It's only made possible that God could save us through the finished work of Christ.

So the next is the person sent in Jesus Christ is God's son. Why is that important? His son expresses a lot more than a role that he had or the function that he was to carry out. Dennis Roxer made a really interesting point here. He said Christ Jesus possessed the exact same divine nature as his Father.

Dennis says, at times I have interacted with Jehovah's Witnesses at my door who have told me that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but He is not God's Son, seeking to deny His deity. However, a close examination of the New Testament makes it extremely clear that Jesus Christ is both the Son of God and He's God's Son. A couple of quotes. Romans 1, Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God, which is promised before through his prophets and his holy scriptures concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, born of the seed of David according to the flesh.

Verse 9, God is my witness whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son. Since Jesus is deity, it's certain that God's plan couldn't fail. And it also stands to reason that it could not have died for the sins and been raised from the dead if he never entered the human race through physical birth.

Hebrews 2.9 says, but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.

This word incarnate, I had fun with this word this week, It boils down to this, deity born in order for deity to die. You realize the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can't die? They're God. How does it happen then that God is going to die and pay the penalty for your sins? He's got to become a man first, because men can die. So, by what means would He accomplish this?

The means is, Jesus was born of a woman. Now Mary is an interesting girl because she's not sinless, but she was a godly woman. And the scriptures that she knew from the Old Testament she believed, and she was a woman of faith. Otherwise she wouldn't have gone along with the Holy Spirit's plan.

She was the one that God had called to fulfill the promise of the seed of the woman. in the Garden of Eden when God told Adam a virgin will conceive and that prophecy comes from Isaiah 7.14. So we conclude that God or Jesus Christ is 100% God and he's also 100% man and he's been sent forth on a mission sent by the Father. However, look how that plays out. He comes as a little infant who can only cry. What can an infant do that's a couple of days old other than cry and a few other things? They can't do anything. It's absolutely the perfect picture of weakness. Such a one born into this world is Christ the Lord. Such is the place God chose. The lowest degree of a place you could be born was in a stable.

Why is that important? Because it means that everything that's going to happen has to depend on God's power. It can't depend on Joseph or Mary. It has to depend on God. Otherwise, God's work can't be done according to his mind. One can hardly believe that one must be feeble to do the work of God. Well, get engaged in doing the work of God and you'll find out that you can't do it in and of your own strength and of yourself.

It is Christ who is born in weakness. It was Christ who was crucified in weakness. The weakness of God is stronger than the strength of men. Paul demonstrated that weakness through his whole ministry. We're studying 1 Corinthians normally on Sunday, and you see the weakness of him. But the Lord tells Paul, look Paul, my strength is made perfect in your weakness. For the work of God, we must be weak in ourselves, that the strength of God may be seen, and that the work will last when all the earth is gone.

So God's intervention is recognized by a sign. Man would not have thought it to be that way. The heavenly hosts praise God. And we had it up on the slide. Suddenly there appeared with the angels a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on peace among men with whom he's pleased. Nothing higher nor more astonishing, except for the cross, for those who have your mind on heaven.

Next thing is, is that he's born under the law. Just to repeat, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law. Why under the law? Jesus is 100% Jewish. He has Jewish blood in His veins. And it's a fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant and the Davidic covenant. Covenants that God made with Abraham and with David. And as a Jewish man under the law, He's the one man that kept all the requirements of the law completely.

Yet, He's the one that's going to die. It's important to remember this because when you're reading the gospel narrative of his earthly ministry, for though he came to reveal God to man and to reign as Israel's king, which he will do, what happened in reality was he was rejected and crucified. But Christ's death for the sins of the world was not plan B in God's agenda, as some have suggested. nor have the promises of Israel in the Old Testament been cancelled or somehow transferred to the Church, which is what covenant theology falsely teaches. Instead, those Old Testament covenants and promises to Israel have been postponed until Christ returns again to the earth to fulfill them, Romans 11.

While Jesus Christ is presently building His Church, calling, the Father's calling out a bride. So what is exactly Christ's purpose in coming the first time? It was to redeem sinners. That's why he came. Again, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, purpose to redeem those who were under the law. That's why the angels were told The shepherds were told that unto this day is born in the city of David who is Christ the Lord. Due to the incarnation and crucifixion, Jesus Christ's redemption has been provided for every single human being and has become the personal blessing of those who believe.

You start with the premise, all men are slaves to sin. They just don't occasionally entertain sin. They're slaves to it. And they're cursed by sin. So redemption involves a price. If I'm going to redeem something, I'm going to have to pay a price to do it. It's not free. The fact that Jesus Christ on that cross purchased or redeemed us is the basics for the believer regarding himself as being totally accepted by the Lord. I know that He bought me and He paid the whole price, which means I belong to Him.

Ephesians 1.6 says, To the praise and glory of His grace by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved, in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. I've said this before. We all put value on things. Substances, gold, silver, precious stones, real estate. You know what the most expensive and valuable commodity has ever been in the world? It's the blood of Christ. That was the biggest price ever paid for anything, was the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he was the only one who had enough to pay it. The last point here is the results of Jesus coming for those who trust in Him alone.

First thing is you are adopted as a son. We are redeemed for those who are under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. This is ancient adoption. A full aborbed son. You don't have to wait till the father dies. You're not adopted as an infant, you're adopted as an adult son with all the rights and privileges that come with it.

The second thing is that Jesus Christ has come into your heart by the Spirit of God. Because you are a son, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your heart. And that allows you to do something really unique. Because you are a son, He sent forth His Spirit in your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father. The fact that you can refer to God as Abba, Father, is amazing. He's your dad.

And not only that, you become an heir. You become an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ. I have to say, in terms of Christmas gifts, this is something else. What a gift it is, Jesus Christ. And as you open this gift by faith, you find that you're blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. And you're complete in Him. So my fellow believers, may every day Be a great day of rejoicing in Christ Jesus, not just this one day. Along with those angels that your lips may proclaim in 2 Corinthians 9-12, thanks be to God for his incredible gifts.

Let's pray. Father, how we are thankful. We're totally thankful to you for all that you've done through your son, the Lord Jesus. I guess my prayer today would be that we would continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus so we would appreciate more and more this unbelievable gift you've given us, who is your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray in His name. Amen.