Sunday 13th July – Children of God

13-07-2025, Children Of God, Galatians 3:26:4:7, pastor adrian kitson

Galatians 3:26-4:7

²⁶So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, ²⁷for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

4 What I am saying is that as long as an heir is under age, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. ²The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. ³So also, when we were under age, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. ⁴But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. ⁶Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ ⁷So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

It is hard to live in a relationship with someone whom you have trouble believing has your back. It is hard to live with some joy and freedom in a relationship where you are just not sure if the other person or people value you, will back you in, no matter what.

It is not a ‘given’ to have this kind of relationship with a person. Some might have a few people like this in their life – spouse, partner, kids and a mate or two if you are lucky. But some people don’t have anyone they would say really has their back and sees them and knows them and values them.

When it comes to God, everything in the world and inside us pulls against believing him to approve of me, to truly see me and know me and accept me; forgive me; love me; value me and back me in, no matter what.

It is so easy to edge toward trying to sure this kind of affirmation and meaning from other things and people more than the promise and presence of a gracious God.

The Galatian Christians are finding this out. They even have the ‘help’ to get their own joy and freedom in place by returning to the Jewish law as a way to be sure they are approved of and love by God.

Paul pleads with them to never return to the prison of the Law In order to be sure they are ‘real’ Christians; to adopt a ‘gospel +’ keeping the Old Testament Jewish law as the way to believe in God’s peace and power. No, says Paul. The way back to the freedom we enjoy in God’s peace is by believing what we have been told already of this crucified new king of life.

Paul uses some pictures – like power point slides – to show that both Jewish people and Gentle people have been under the prison guard of the Law and the Teacher or Guardian of the Law. The Law has no ability to give the love and hope and peace for living life. The law can only restrain evil and show us our darkness and sin and need for new life in Jesus. The Law itself is not bad, but we just cannot fulfil it in full.

Now he goes a bit further with that picture of us being under a guardian or trustee but have now ‘come of age’.

³… when we were under age, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world.

He likens anyone who is not believing what they hear of Jesus, Abraham’s seed and bringer of resurrection and life, as being immature; like a young child under the guardianship of mentors and teachers until he or she comes of age.

In the ancient world, this was very common. Young children were placed under guardianship of a ‘teacher’ or guardian’ in the household until they came of age (about age fourteen) and took up their place in the family farm or business. The farm or business was always theirs, but because of their immaturity; their inability, they could not yet fulfill all the responsibilities and privileges of running the farm or business.

Paul says the Jewish people were born into this life and role promised to Abraham. The promised land and place and role to be the people through who God bless all people was always theirs. And yet, they were locked up by the Law. The Law could only show them their idolatrous wondering heart, because they continually found that they just could not fulfill the Law fully!

On the other hand, the pagan, non-Jewish people in Galatia were not brought up in this Abraham promise, but, like the Jewish people, they were also locked up by the “elemental spiritual forces’, or in short, same as the Law – the observance and trust in all kinds of lifeless and useless idols or wood and stone, stars, seasonal changes, natural phenomenon – things of wind, earth, fire and water …; putting their life in the hands of these things way above the gracious hands of God.

Feels like we are a doctor’s surgery. NT Wright explains:

It was commonplace among ancient doctors that human beings were composed of four ‘stoicheia’ or ‘elements’, earth, air, water and fire. … illness was diagnosed in terms of imbalance in these ‘elements’…..When the diagnosis has been made, and it turns out that the patient’s ‘elements’ are out of balance, out of harmony, what is needed is some kind of medical regime, a course of treatment. Such a regime would be a ‘law’. This “law” would function as a ‘guardian/teacher, to lead the patient back to health, like a child being taken to school by the household slave/guardian …” (Galatians, NT Wright)

The diagnosis is in.

“all human beings are morally sick. The rival teachers in Galatian are trying to hold up the Law as the regime of treatment that will be truly healthy. Paul is saying “No!” All the Law can do is hold illness at bay for a while, but God has now done something new that gets to the very root of the human problem” (NT Wright, Galatians).

What is that problem? We are locked up in slavery to performance and comparisons and judgements on the one hand, and then with trusting our lives to earth, air, water and fire – idols of technology, seasons, superstitions, the beauty of creation more than the creator of creation, the things we want to get from God rather than just being with God …

But then that beautiful good news …

⁴… when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.

Time is in God’s hands. The right time came. Jesus came. New hope, new life in a whole new family came. And now Jews and Gentiles – ALL people have been set free and adopted into the family and now are all now equal inheritors of all the promises of God lavished upon us in Jesus.

Now, everyone who simply believes what they hear of the Crucified Jesus and his new life through baptism into his life belong to this new family, this new community, this new temple of grace. That famous verse shines today.

²⁸There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Like a grain of wheat, Jesus was Abraham’s seed who has now created lots of seeds; lots of people of the promise. You are one of them by your baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection.

We have not gone only through some church ceremony that someone made up to feel good or make us paid up members of some club, in that moment of baptism.

We have been re-clothed: old filthy rags of self-justification trying to win peace and hope and approval, now taken off and new pure sinless garment of adoption into the family, inheritance of resurrection life, calling to be a person of God’s blessing seeds planted out day by day.

“… all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ”

We have put him on, not just a ceremony.

We have been filled with him not just presented an idea about him.

And we now have the means to overpower this drive to perform rather than trust; to compare rather than be content; to pay back rather than forgive… It is in that wonderful second-last line

⁶Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’

That is how we live in this freedom from performing and comparing and needing to win all the time.

We have help! The Holy Spirit in us calls out for us to our Father of grace, and we remain in the family; stay in the love; stay in the hope of the gospel for another day…

Every believer who has this trust will not be defeated by any trial, no matter how powerful the affliction. But there are many things that hinder this faith in us. First, our heart born of sin. Further, this evil grafted in us by nature, that we doubt God’s goodwill towards is that we cannot believe with full assurance that we please God. Above all this, the devil our adversary goes all around us roaring horribly, saying, “You ae a sinner; thus, God is angry with you and will destroy you forever”.

But even so, in the middle of these terrors of the law, the thundering of sin, the threats of death, and the roars of the devil, the Holy Spirit (says Paul) cries out in our hearts, “Abba, Father!” This cry overpowers the cries of the law, sin, death and devil … It penetrates heaven’s thickest clouds and ascends to the ear of God” (Luther’s Commentary on Galatians, Michael Horton Lecture 27 October 16 p 37)

You have someone who has your back; who values you, when other may not or never do. You have someone who knows what to do with your darkness and sin – forgive it, cry out for you, pray for you, intercede for you; restore and renew you.

Holy Spirit of God, penetrate the thickest clouds so we live free in the freedom won for us by Jesus.