Text: Galatians 3:23-4:7

Theme: “Adopted, out of this world”

June 23 /24, 2007

Today's reading from the letter is to the Galatians tells us a story, our story.  It is a story of slavery, family and living free.  It follows on the reading from last week and builds to the conclusion that we've been "adopted out of this world". 

Our story begins with slavery, each one of us.

The Lord Jesus put it very directly, "all who sin are slaves to sin."  That means everyone.

Bound by our sinful nature and through it we are slaves to sinful behavior. 

Nothing keeps us in chains more tightly than our focus on self.  Even when that seems to be about things good for us, it chains us to the thoughts and feelings of our fallen nature.  It keeps us from being what we are supposed to be and it is deadly to us.

 We see it in animals, but don't see it in ourselves.  We can look at bears or backyard birds or geese and see what I'm talking about.  In the Western parks, the saying goes " a fed bear is a dead bear."  When a bear gets addicted to the human garbage, he thinks he has a great food source, but it is only trouble for him.  Too many encounters with humans will lead to the bear’s destruction.

 Or look in your own back yard, we know that starting a winter with a bird feeder, we need to fill it all winter long.  The birds get to depend on it.  They become slaves to the food source.  But maybe the geese around towns illustrate this idea best.  They stay where they are fed.  In so doing, they are fat and happy all year long, but they are not doing what they're meant to do.  Birds that can fly for days, travel hundreds of miles and work together to get them all through the journey, now just hang around walking as much as flying and making a mess.

 So it is with us.  While we are slaves to the self centered, self-serving principles of this world.  We feed the “I think” and “I feel” desires of our hearts.  But these keep us from the life God design for us.  They keep us enslaved to the fallen condition.

 As we have been reading, the law cannot set us free.  The law can only condemn.  It can only keep us a slave.  But there is one who can set you free.

 The Son can set you free and make you a member of the family.  And Jesus, the Son of God and God the Son, has set you free.

 God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to read deemed those who were under the law.  This is the gospel.  This is the reason Jesus came and the purpose of His life.  The Son pays the price to set the slaves free.

 After doing all that is necessary to pay for the slave's freedom, He adopts them into the family.  "So you are no longer a slave but a son" Paul says.  He uses the word son not to favor a gender but because the word carries the right to inheritance.  He tells us this clearly when he says.  "an heir through God." 

The inheritance awaiting you is the kingdom of heaven.  Our fallen nature would leave us slaves, but our Savior makes us the heir to the king of the universe. Because of what Jesus has done, everything of eternal value is already yours.

 Looking to the next world, God the Father will gather His family in His heavenly kingdom forever. That is certain, but it is not all. Life in God’s family is not only eternal, it is every day. We have been adopted as God's children to live as His family here and now as well as here after.

God adopted us through Holy Baptism. There giving us spiritual life and giving us His Spirit to live in us. So He puts the Spirit of His Son in our heart which cries “Abba, Father.” The Spirit of Christ lives in us and links us to the Father.  In Romans, we are told that the Holy Spirit communicates our needs our prayers to the Father in ways beyond words.  And he does more.  The spirit establishes the relationship between the Father and the Son and the adopted children, making us one by uniting us as the body of Christ.  All one all are God's heir.  It is the Spirit who enables us to confess our faith, talk to the Father and to live God’s way.

 God has made you with His children, and He has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts crying “Abba, Father."  And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.  Amen

SDG