Truths that Will Keep Us from Turning Back

Galatians chapter 4. For our time of study and the word this morning. for those of you that are visiting, we're doing a verse by verse study through the book of Galatians. And as we continue in our study of this book, we come this morning to Galatians chapter 4, verse 3.

And my goal this morning is essentially to cover verses 3, through, 10. And the title of the message this morning is Truths That Will Keep Us from Turning Back. Truths That Will Keep Us from Turning Back. I want to begin this morning by introducing you to a guy named Dr.

Russ Moore, who is the dean of the School of Theology and the senior vice president for academic administration at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In Louisville, Kentucky, Russell Moore and his wife Maria several years ago adopted two boys from a Russian orphanage, and I want to read to you some excerpts of Russ Moore's account of some of the aspects involved in that adoption. He says this when Maria and I first walked into the orphanage where we were led to the boys that the Russian wards had picked out for us to adopt.

We almost vomited in reaction to the stench and the squalor of the place.

The boys were in cribs in the dark, lying in their own waste. Leaving them at the end of each day was painful, but leaving them the final day before going home to wait for the paperwork to go through was the hardest thing that either of us had ever done. Walking out of the room to prepare for the plane ride home, Maria and I could hear Maxim, that's one of the boys, calling out for us and falling down in his crib, convulsing in tears. Maria shook with tears.

I turned around to walk back into their room just for a minute. I placed my hand on both of their heads and said something they couldn't understand a word of my English. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come.

To you. I don't think I consciously intended to cite Jesus' words to his disciples in John 14:18. It just seemed like the only thing worth saying at the time. When Maria and I at long last received the call that the legal process was over and we returned to Russia to pick up our new sons, we found that their transition from orphanage to family was more difficult than we had supposed.

We dressed the boys in outfits that our parents had bought for them. My mother-in-law gathered some wild flowers growing between cracks in the pavement outside the orphanage. We nodded our thanks to the orphanage personnel and walked out into the sunlight, the terror of two boys. They had never seen the sun.

And they had never felt the wind. They had never heard the sound of a car door slamming or had the sensation of being carried along at 100 kilometers per hour down a Russian road. I noticed that they were shaking. And reaching back.

To the orphanage. In the distance. I whispered to Sergei, now Timothy, That place is a pit. If only you knew what's waiting for you, a home with a mommy and daddy who love you, grandparents and great grandparents and cousins and playmates and McDonald's Happy Meals.

But all they knew was the orphanage. It was squalid. But they had no other reference point. And it was home We knew the boys had acclimated to our home, that they trusted us when they stopped hiding food in their high chairs.

They knew that there would be another meal coming, and they wouldn't have to fight for the scraps. This was the new normal. They are now thoroughly Americanized, perhaps too much so, able to recognize the sound of a microwave ding from 40 yards away. I still remember, though, those little hands reaching for the orphanage.

And I see Myself there. I think I know what Russell Moore is saying at the end. He's saying just as my two adopted children turned and reached back for the squalor of their former life from which I was rescuing them. I too find myself reaching back to the squalor of the life from which My father Has saved me.

You guys ever reach back? I have decided to follow Jesus, we sing. No turning back. No turning back.

We express that resolve. I'm going to follow Jesus, and there will be no turning back. We sing that. And yet, can any of us raise our hand in this room today and say, I have never turned back.

I have never gone back in my thoughts, in my deeds, to any sinful, squalid aspect of the past from which God has saved me. You see, this is what the Galatians are doing. And in a nutshell, you need to understand that most of the Galatians in the Galatian churches to whom Paul is writing were Gentile believers. They were coming from a pagan idolatrous past.

Paul had come to them, preached the gospel to them. They had put their trust in Christ alone. for salvation and had become, they believed children of God. And that's what Paul told them had happened to them.

And they were walking with the Lord, walking in the joy of the Lord, rejoicing with blessedness and their salvation. however, some Judaizers came into the picture, and told the Galatians, not so fast. You are not yet children of God. You are not yet fully saved, because you have not yet been circumcised.

You need to become more Jewish, before you can truly be a child of God, descendants of Abraham, and enter. In the fullness of the blessings of salvation. And the Galatian Gentiles in the church were doing one of two things. Some of them were believing the Judaizers and saying, Oh my goodness, I guess I do need to be circumcised.

And I guess I do need to start, investigating the law and beginning to practice the rituals of the law. And we know Some of them were beginning to do this because look at verse 10. Paul says, you are observing days and months and seasons and years, speaking of the rituals and the celebrations and the festivals and feast days and special days in the Jewish religious calendar. So some of them were moving to a life of slavery underneath the law.

Others of the Galatians. were troubled and unsettled by the Judaizers. They didn't fully believe the Judaizers, but they were discouraged, upset, disturbed, and their thought was, I thought I was saved. I thought I was a child of God.

And now I'm being told that I'm not. Paul said that. was, but these guys aren't saying very nice things about Paul. Perhaps Paul lied to me.

If he lied to me, I don't even know who I can trust. I don't know if I can trust Paul anymore. I don't know if I can trust these Judaizers and in their discouragement and in the experience of the loss of the assurance of their salvation, what's happening? Some of them are beginning to make their way back.

They're beginning to default back to their former pagan. Way of life, falling back into sin, into the ways of sin from their past. And so either way, they're turning back to slavery. If they're going to the law, it's slavery under the law.

If they're going back to their pagan Gentile past under idols and immorality and all the sin and debauchery that was involved in that, that's another brand of slavery. But either way, they are turning back to a life of slavery. And Paul in verse 9, in the middle of the verse is asking them a question. And that is, how is it that you turn back?

What are you doing? Now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and the worthless elemental things to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? This question that Paul is asking them is a question that our Heavenly Father could ask of all of us, because we frequently turn back. We turn back to aspects of our former way of life.

And it's probably different for everybody in this room. We turn back to the sins of anger and bitterness and strife, jealousy, Unforgiveness, drunkenness, drugs, pornography, lust, immorality, fornication, pleasure seeking, worldliness, laziness, selfishness, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. That's not an exhaustive list, but those are the kinds of things that genuine believers in moments of temptation and discouragement find themselves turning back to and moving back towards and even getting involved in.

And to all of us in those situations, Paul would say, how is it that you turn back?

What are you doing? How can this happen? Now Paul asked this question in verse 9 of the Galatians and of all of us, but he asked this question in a certain context. Basically what Paul does leading up to verse 9.

He reminds the Galatians and all of us of 4 truths that are designed to persuade us away from ever turning back to our former manner of life, to our former lifestyle of spiritual slavery. Paul presents these 4 truths to the Galatians. And then having presented these truths to the Galatians, he then says, So tell me, in light of these 4 truths, how is it that you turn back? Away from these things to the life that you once knew.

These 4 truths are huge, guys. As I study this passage this week, here's what I've realized. All of us find ourselves in moments where we are looking back, and the past and former sins begin to look attractive to us. And our heart is beginning to go in that direction.

Our steps may even be beginning in that direction. What this passage is going to teach us is this, in that exact moment, Where your heart is going back, and you are turning back, and your steps begin to go this way, in that very moment, stop and look at these 4 truths, gaze upon them. I guarantee you these 4 truths in your moments of temptation, if you are careful to put these truths in front of your face, stare at them, contemplate them, they will cure you in that moment of going back.

They really will.

And so let's take a look at these 4 truths that Paul is presenting to these Galatians who are in the process of turning back 4 truths that Paul wants them to be thinking about. And if they would think about these truths and consider them, they Realize the insanity of turning back to their former manner of life. Truth number one that Paul wants the Galatians to contemplate is this, and that is that God sent forth His Son to redeem us from our past slavery. Paul is teaching them and wants them to consider that God sent forth His Son to redeem us from our past slavery.

Look at what he says in verse 3. He says, so also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. But when the fullness of the time came, in other words, in human history, at exactly the time that God had appointed God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law. Now, let's just consider this for just a few moments, born of a woman, what he's saying by that?

Jesus was fully human. Even in the book of Job, this expression, he who is born of woman, speaks of someone who is a human being. born into a fallen world. This is speaking of the complete humanity of Jesus.

We all know that Jesus was God, fully God. This passage teaches us that Jesus became fully man. In order to redeem mankind, in order to redeem humanity, Jesus had to assume humanity and become the God man, so that in that state, he can bring salvation and redemption. So God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, and born under the law.

When Jesus was born, He was born under the law, just like all of us were, but there's a huge distinction between us and Jesus. We were born under the law, and we were crushed by the law, condemned by the law, because we failed to obey every provision in the law. Therefore, the law pronounced a curse upon us. And we were all under the curse, under the curse of the law.

Jesus was born under the law. However, he throughout the entirety of his life obeyed every single command all the time and never once did Jesus disobey or violate one provision. In the Old Testament law, either in his words, in his thoughts, in his attitudes, in his actions, Jesus perfectly obeyed the law. He was born under the law and he perfectly obeyed every provision, every command, every prohibition in the law of God.

Paul is wanting the Galatians to consider this, that God sent forth His Son, born of a woman fully human, born under the law, fully obeying the law so that he might redeem those who were under the law. That's us, those of us who were under the curse of the law because we failed to obey its every provision. So Paul is wanting the Galatians to stop. They're turning back.

He wants them to stop and look at God and what God did for them and the fact that God sent His Son into the world to redeem them. Now we've already seen the word redeem back in chapter 3, verse 13. To redeem means to deliver by the paying of a price. All right, it means to deliver and to deliver, to accomplish that deliverance by the paying of a price.

This word was used back in Bible times to speak of God redeeming the Israelites from slavery in the land of Egypt. This word was used to speak of someone purchasing a slave from the slave market for 30 pieces of silver. They would purchase that slave and then after that purchase tell the slave, you are now free. You may go.

They could then say, I have redeemed this slave. I have delivered him from slavery through the paying of a price, and now he is free. And so involved in this word is the notion of slavery from which we've been delivered, but the fact that God sent forth His Son to deliver us from that slavery. We saw this word back in chapter 3, verse 13, where we learned that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

See, in Bible times, if I wanted to redeem a slave, I would just pull out some money and I would pay that for Christ to redeem us from our former lifestyle of slavery, what was the price he needed to pay? His blood, his life. He had to donate his entire life. He had to place himself underneath the curse of the law and to receive the condemnation and the curse of the law that we deserve for our sins of disobedience against the law of God.

Christ gave his entire life so that we might be redeemed. Now Whenever Paul speaks about being redeemed, our thoughts need to at least go in this direction to where we ask, what are we being redeemed from? Look what he says, so that he might redeem those who were under the law. Paul doesn't really explain in this exact verse what it is that we have been redeemed from.

However, if we look at this entire passage, we can sweep a lot of things. that make it very clear what it is that Christ has redeemed us from. Look at some of the language, verse 3. So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage.

In other words, we were, we were prisoners underneath the elemental things of the world. Now, I have to tell you, I don't even know completely what the elemental things of the cosmos are. Commentators disagree on this. Some say it refers to principalities and powers, demonic powers that we were in bondage to before Christ.

Others think it's referring to the ABCs of the law, the rudimentary basic elements of human religion. I'm not sure which way to go on that. All I know is whatever it is, it's a bad thing. OK, we were held in bondage.

We were prisoners. It's, it's something that looking back, we would never want to be in that position. But before Christ, we were prisoners held in bondage under the elemental things of the world or of the cosmos. Verse 5, Paul.

Paul describes us before Christ as being underneath the law or under the system of law, that system of blessing and cursing that is based on our level of obedience to the provisions of the law, which ultimately left all of us cursed. So we were under the curse of the law. Christ redeemed us out from underneath the law and the curse of the law. But also look at his further descriptions of our life before Christ.

Verse 8. However, at that time when you did not know God, so that's another thing associated with our past life. We were living a life of ignorance without a relationship with God, without the knowledge of God. So we were living in darkness and ignorance.

Verse 8, 2nd half of the verse, he says you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. Our lifestyle prior to Christ was a lifestyle of slavery, bondage, slavery. Where we were not doing what we wanted to do, we were doing what the desires inside of us were dictating that we do and even what the idols in our lives were dictating that we do, that is bondage. He says we were slaves to those which by nature are no gods.

Look at verse 9. he says, but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to, now notice this, to the weak and worthless elemental things to which you desire to be enslaved all over again. Take the end of that verse, and that serves as another helpful description of our life before Christ, before we were redeemed. And that is, it was a life of slavery to the weak and worthless elemental things.

Look at those two adjectives. We were enslaved to the weak things. ultimately, guys, anything outside of Christ that anyone ever will put their trust in, they will ultimately come to the observation that that was weak. That was weak.

Anything that someone puts their trust in to try to get to God apart from Christ, they'll find that it's weak and not able to get them to God. Anything that someone puts their trust in in the hope that it will bring true and lasting heart change, they will ultimately find that to be weak. Anything that someone puts Trust in outside of Christ, through which they hope to find lasting meaning, satisfaction, and fulfillment in the depths of their being. They will find that to be weak and unable to help them achieve the goal for which they had put their trust in that thing., it's not uncommon anymore.

It seems like every few weeks there's something in the news about a Hollywood celebrity that's gone crazy acting out in some ridiculous way or a Hollywood celebrity that has overdosed or committed suicide and their life ends in a tragedy, and as all the sordid details end up coming out about their life, you realize that it was a life of misery, unhappiness, disappointment. Hopelessness and brokenness. And the intriguing thing is these are people who obtained money. They were nice looking.

Experience success. They had fame and popularity. They had Everything they wanted. They had all of the list of things that a lot of us sometimes look at and say, man, if I could just have that, I would be fulfilled.

what I'm talking about, but these people had all of that. And they are miserable. They would ultimately have to say these things that I have put my trust in are weak. They're weak.

And they fail to help me achieve the goal that I want for my life, and that is true and lasting change, that is finding a way to God. And that is finding happiness and genuine fulfillment in life. Before Christ we were putting our trust in things that were weak and all of them unable to achieve the goals. that we had set out to achieve with them.

And also everything we put our trust in outside of Christ and before Christ is worthless. This could be translated beggarly, impoverished, it's poor, with it, you cannot pay for it cannot help you to achieve true and lasting change, true and lasting fulfillment in life, and it cannot purchase your way to God. Everything that we Put our trust in, especially to try to get to God. It's impoverished.

It cannot make the purchase that needs to be made to get us to God. But Paul says God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem us, to deliver us by the paying of a price, and the price he paid is a wealthy price, and it succeeded in bringing us deliverance. And so here the Galatians are, they, here's their life in Christ. They are turning, and they are looking at their former manner of life.

Some of them are beginning to walk back, and Paul says to them, Wait a minute, before you go back, stop. And think with me. Gaze with me at this first truth. God sent forth His Son.

To redeem you from the very thing that you are right now looking at, and contemplating going back to. Man, when you think about that, you begin to realize that in our moments of temptation, where sin from our past and whatever is presenting itself to us in between where we stand and that sin is the blood of Jesus. Somebody died so that I would not do that anymore. And if I leave from where I am and go back to that, I will be trampling underfoot the blood of Jesus.

I will be walking over his dead body, as it were, to get to the sin that he died, so that I would be delivered from. Paul is saying you've been redeemed. By Christ, by the giving of his life from the very thing that you are now turning back to. Guys, we should never forget, never forget this truth of our redemption.

Because if we remember this, and we remember the reality of our past, it's almost like Paul in this passage is saying, you guys are turning back. All right, I'll let you turn back. But when you turn back and look at your former manner of life, see it for what it really is. It is a life of slavery.

It's not the life that you want. The devil is extremely good at taking past sins that we were involved in before, either before Christ or even sometimes after we came to know Christ, and he airbrushes our image of those sins and makes them look attractive. And we find ourselves being seduced back. were like the Israelites.

They were in the land of Egypt. Not a one of them wanted to be in Egypt. They were slaves in Egypt. Not only that, in their final time period there in Egypt, Pharaoh doubled their workload.

So they especially hated the life of slavery and hardship in the land of Egypt. They complained about it even then. But once God redeemed them from that slavery, and they get out in the wilderness, every time they faced an obstacle or a discouragement, what do they say? Moses, why did you take us out of Egypt?

Oh, if we could go back to Egypt where they had leeks and garlic and onions, and they forgot about the bad breath, but they, they remembered, they remembered the tastiness of the food. Isn't that strange? They remember the food and forgot the slavery. And they want to go back.

We do the same thing. And we should never forget. What our life truly was like outside of Christ and the fact that we have been redeemed. most of who John Newton is.

I think Mike referred to him in the last week or two. John Newton's the guy that wrote the song Amazing Grace. John Newton lost his mom when he was 7 years of age. At the age of 11, he became a sailor, got on a ship, and started working on a ship, and did that for a number of years.

And over the years, his heart became increasingly hardened in sin and against God. He ended up getting involved in the slave trade, and it was his passion to, to excel everybody else on the ship in immorality, vulgarity, and blasphemy. However, at the age of 23, in the middle of a storm, John Newton freaked out. God pierced his heart and awakened his conscience to the reality of his sin and of God's love for him, and John Newton, in the middle of that storm, put his trust in Jesus as his Lord and Savior.

After that, his life was radically transformed. He ended up becoming a pastor. He wrote many hymns and became a powerful force for even social good in the society in which he lived. But John Newton never allowed himself to forget about his past life of slavery and He never allowed himself to forget that he was redeemed.

In fact, John Newton, I was reading this week, had placed over the mantle of his fireplace this passage. It's not the passage probably any of us would have thought, I'm going to put this right above the mantle in my fireplace. it's Deuteronomy 15:15, and he saw this passage every day. And it says, thou shalt remember that thou wast a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee.

Every day. John Newton wanted to see those words. Remember, you were a slave. And God redeemed you.

Notice also as we look at verse 4, it says, God sent forth His Son. God's the one who took the initiative in our redemption. God is the one who accomplished our redemption through Christ, which we ought to stop and contemplate that reality. We needed to be redeemed.

God sent His Son to accomplish our redemption through the giving of his life. God would only do that if it were true that we could not redeem ourselves, right? If we could have redeemed ourselves, God would not have sent His Son to die the death that he died in order to redeem us. So what this passage is screaming is the fact that we were helpless to deliver ourselves, to save ourselves by our own good works.

And so God, seeing us in our helplessness, sent forth His Son, born of a woman under the law, so that he, his Son might redeem us. From the life of sin and slavery that we were involved in. Very quickly, just think about this example, John Wesley. This guy, if anyone could have been saved by their own good works and redeem themselves, it could have been John Wesley.

He was an honors graduate of Oxford University, pastor in the Church of England. He was Orthodox. and his theology, he visited prison inmates and workhouses of London on a regular weekly basis. He distributed food and clothing to slum children and to orphans.

He studied the Bible diligently every single day. He was at church whenever the doors were open. which pastors have to do that. he generously gave offerings to the church and alms to the poor.

He prayed and fasted on a regular basis. He lived a moral, impeccable life and actually served for several years as a missionary to American Indians in the area that is like present day the state of Georgia. Sounds like a believer, doesn't it? Sounds like a man who's got to be converted.

This must be a redeemed man. And yet when he was over here in the United States serving as a missionary, look at what he says by way of looking back and telling his testimony. I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted. To God.

During this time, he was invited to essentially a Bible study worship meeting. He did not want to go. His heart was not in it, but he reluctantly agreed to go. And in that meeting, he saw genuinely born again children of God who were passionate about God.

And he says, while I was there in that room, I felt my heart being warmed by the love of God Himself, and it was during that time that John Wesley put his trust in Christ and listened to him as he describes that moment. He says, I felt that I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and Saved me from the law of sin and death. How did this moral man experience salvation? He says, I trusted in Christ and in Him alone, because Jesus is the one who accomplished John Wesley's redemption.

And John Wesley had to come to a point where he put all of his trust in Jesus, and in Him alone, because Jesus is the only redeemer. So when we remember, as Paul wants the Galatians to remember, that we have been redeemed from our former life of slavery, we need to also remember that we were helpless to redeem ourselves. And so God took the initiative. God acted on our behalf.

We were rebels against Him under the curse of His law, and yet God loved us so much that He sent forth His Son. So that Jesus might redeem us and set us free from our life of slavery, the very life that we find ourselves looking back on and turning back to. There's a second truth that Paul wants the Galatians to be looking at in this time of crisis of faith, this time of temptation, and that is that God sent forth his son to accomplish our adoption as sons. What, what Paul is wanting the Galatians to understand is God sent forth Jesus to redeem you from your life of slavery, but God was not content to just set you free.

God also sent Jesus to make it happen that you would receive the adoption of sons and actually become a son of God. And that God would become your father. It's just like Russ Moore. He was not content to just liberate those two orphan boys from the squalor of the orphanage.

He could have done that. He could have sent, a couple $1000 and said, I've got to liberate these boys from this orphanage and send them to a better facility. He could have done that and that would have been a great thing. Had he done that.

But he, his attitude was, I want to rescue these boys from this life of squalor, and filth and stench. And I not only want to do that, I want to liberate them from this life so that I can take them home with me and be their dad, and for them to be my sons. That's what God has done for us. That's like amazing to me.

God could have said, what, you're really in a filthy mess. I'm going to redeem you and liberate you, so there you go, you're free, but please do not ever try to get close to me. Don't try to do a relationship thing with me. If he would have said that to me, and all of us, we would have said, what, that's fine.

Thank you. We will praise you for all of eternity for your goodness to us, right? God said to us rebel sinners, I redeem you. I forgive you.

I redeem you from the guilt, the power of all of this sin. And I want to adopt you. And make you my child. And I want to be your dad.

And take you home with me. Paul has talked a lot about justification and even redemption. Those are like legal type of aspects of our salvation and they're glorious. But Paul now goes to another level talking about our adoption of sons.

JI Packer in his book Knowing God, has a chapter on our adoption as sons of God. And he says, this is one of the most glorious truths of our salvation that doesn't get talked about enough. But listen to what he says in his book Knowing God justification. is a forensic idea conceived in terms of law, and viewing God as judge.

In justification, God declares of penitent believers that they are not and never will be liable to the death that their sins deserve, because Jesus Christ, their substitute and sacrifice tasted death in their place on the cross. That's glorious, is it not? That's wonderful. We rejoice in that.

We talk about that a lot here at Cornerstone. He goes on to say, this free gift of acquittal and peace, one for us at the cost of Calvary is wonderful enough. But justification does not of itself imply any intimate or deep relationship with God. The judge, He goes on to say this, and rejoice, let your heart rejoice in this.

But contrast this now with adoption. Adoption is a family idea, conceived in terms of love, and viewing God as Father. In adoption, God takes us into his family and fellowship, and establishes us as his children and heirs. Closeness, affection, and generosity are at the heart of the relationship.

To be right with God, the judge is a great thing. But to be loved and cared for by God the Father. is greater Amen. Paul is saying to the Galatians, Hey, you guys are turning back and looking at all this stuff.

Stop for a minute and think. God sent Jesus into the world to redeem you from the very stuff you're right now turning back to. God also sent His Son into the world, not just to redeem you. But so that you would become his child and he would be your father.

And you could have a love relationship with him. That's glorious. But Paul moves to a third truth that he wants them to contemplate. And that is that God did not just send forth his son, so that we could experience adoption as sons, and for him to be our Father, but God also sent forth His Spirit to help us to experience the fullness of our sonship.

Look what he says in verse 6, and notice the parallelism. He says, because he's already said God sent forth His Son, verse 6, because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father, this is incredible, guys. just so, the heart of God here, let me give an illustration. recently, Cornerstone received a copier machine, a new copier machine that's downstairs.

It's an incredible machine. Unlike any I've seen, you can, you can almost do your ATM banking from this machine. It's like it can do almost anything that you want. But when the company sent the copier to the church, they set it up.

They didn't just put the copier in the copier room and then walk away and leave it to us. To figure out how to make full use of this and get the full benefit of this, they, along with the machine, sent a representative who has met with members of the staff 3 or 4 times to explain to us in detail how we can make full use and enjoy the fullness of what this machine has been built to do. That is exactly what God has done for us. God through Christ redeemed us from our former life.

And then God through Christ has accomplished our adoption so that we are now sons of God, and he is now our Father. God was not content to just adopt us. God knew that left to our own resources, we would never really get the fullness of being his children. We would never enter into the full depth of all that him being our Father and us being his children should mean for us in our experience.

So God, along with our adoption, sent His Spirit into our hearts, so that the Spirit could train us and show us and help us to experience the fullness of what it means to be children of God. This is the passion of God for us to experience the fullness of relationship with Him. He could have just said, Well, I adopted you. I did what I was supposed to do, and then we live our lives not really knowing 90% of what all that means.

God says, No, I adopted you, and I want you to experience the fullness of this relationship. So I'm going to send my spirit so that he can help you practically to experience the fullness of what I have for you, what I have in mind in being your father and making you my child. Look at this, verse 6, because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father, the word Abba is an Aramaic term. It is a term of intimacy.

And endearment. It's the way that a young child would speak to his or her father. A lot of times commentators will translate this as daddy. Or Papa, and I think that works on some levels.

But I wanna, I want to emphasize something here. Whenever Abba occurs in the New Testament, as far as I know, there's always an exclamation mark after it. Abba is amongst other things, an exclamation. That's why Paul even says crying out.

He uses the word for crying out. He uses the same verb in Romans chapter 8. Abba is not just, you don't just go up to your father and say, Hey Abba. what's up Abba?

it's not something you say calmly. Abba is something you exclaim, something you cry out. it is, it is an expression of excitement, of joy, of happiness, and of love, along with being conveying intimacy and familiarity. It's the thing that a child would say to the dad as he's coming into the home after being gone on a trip and the child is saying, Abba.

Saying I'm happy to see you, Father. Abba, I'm happy to have you as a dad. It expresses joy. Abba, oh, Dad, I love you.

Abba, oh Dad, you're mine. Abba, oh, Dad, you've done it again. You have amazed me again with something that you have done for me, as you have proven your faithfulness to me. Abba, oh, Dad, you're the best.

That's, that's the idea. Of the term in a context like this. And, and I hope you see the heart of God here. God doesn't just want to be your dad.

He wants to blow you away with the father that he is. And so he sends the Spirit into your life, so that the Spirit can reveal the depths of his love, that leaves you exclaiming, Abba. Oh, Father, Dad, you are the best. You have amazed me again.

God doesn't just want to be any dad. God wants to be the best dad. He wants to blow you away with his love. And leave you exclaiming.

In Romans 8, Paul says, You have not received the spirit of slavery leading to fear again. God, your father does not want you afraid of him. But you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, Here we go again, the exclamation, Abba, Father. It's an exclamation of joy and happiness and amazement, intimacy, familiarity.

Endearment This is the heart of God, Ephesians 1:5. He predestined us to adoption as sons before you were created, before you were born, before the foundations of the earth were laid, God predestined to adopt you as His Son through Jesus Christ. This is a literal translation on the screen into Himself. I love that prepositional phrase.

He didn't just want to adopt you and make you a distant child. God predestined to adopt you as his child through Jesus into himself, literally into his embrace, into his arms, into his bosom. This speaks not only of sonship, but of deep intimacy. He says, I want to gather you into my arms.

Now, why did God do this? If you said, God, why did you adopt This person to be your child gathered into your embrace in this way. Look at the end of verse 4, according to the good pleasure of His will. God would say, I'm doing this because it pleasures me.

To do this, I want to be a dad. I want to be a dad to my people that I have chosen, that I have saved, those who have put their trust in me, and I don't just want to be their dad. I want to blow them away. I like it when I hear my children exclaiming with joy and happiness over the father that I have proven myself to be.

The Galatians are on the precipice. Here's what they have in Christ. Here's their former life. They're looking back, their feet are beginning to shuffle that way.

Paul says, stop, stop. God sent forth a son to redeem you from that. Somebody died so that you would not go back to that anymore. Secondly, God sent forth his son to adopt you into his family and to make you his child, so that he would be your father.

And not only that, he sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, so that you would understand and see his love and perceive his love and experience that and be left exclaiming, With joy and happiness and amazement over the loving Father that God, your Heavenly Father is. There's a 4th and final truth that Paul wants the Galatians to look at. And that is that God made it happen that we are an heir of future glories through Him. Paul, in fact, look at what he says in verse 7.

Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. This is how it ends. It began with God. It ends with God from beginning to end.

God is the one who makes this happen. This is his idea. This salvation thing is not something that we created. And we came to God and said, God, we've, we've put this together.

Would you let this happen, please, please, so we can be saved and have a relationship with you. And God says, Yes, OK, I will let this happen. No, this is his idea. He initiated it from beginning to end.

He is the one who makes it happen because it's his idea and he likes this idea. And the 4th truth is, not only do you have all these blessings right now, but you are an heir of future glories. That will blow even the present blessings. Away.

There's so much more that belongs to you that you've not even come into the experience of in this life, and in the life to come. In Romans 8, Paul says the Spirit himself. Bears witness or testifies with our spirit, two things. Number 1, that we're children of God, and number 2, if children heirs also, heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we also may be glorified with Him.

Paul goes on to say in Romans 8, the sufferings of this present time are not even worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Paul's like, guys, you can't even begin to imagine the glories that will be ours to enjoy. In heaven when we are glorified, you think what we have now is great. What we're going to have then is going to be utterly amazing.

And so Paul to the Galatians says, God sent His Son to redeem you from this that you're looking back on and turning back to. God sent His Son to adopt you as his child. God sent His Spirit into your heart so that right now you can be exclaiming all the time, Abba. And amazement, happiness, and joy over this love relationship you now enjoy with your Heavenly Father.

But Paul also says before you turn back, stop and consider the fact that you are an heir of greater glories that are still yet to come. Now in light of these 4 truths, Paul then says, and I think we're set up to appreciate this. How is it That you turn back What are you thinking? How, how can you turn back to that when you have this?

He says verse 9, but now that you have come to know God, that speaks of intimate relationship with God. And then I love what he does here, or rather to be known by God. This is not just God letting you intimately relate to him. God knows you.

God intimately relates to you. Now that you have this intimate love relationship with God, as I have just described to you, now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again? To the weak And beggarly elemental things to which you seem to desire to be enslaved. All over again.

I would imagine with most of the Galatians having tracked with Paul in the 4 truths he's just given to then hear Paul say, How can you turn back? To that their thought is, you're right. How can I turn back to that? In light of these truths.

Teaching us guys this lesson. I'll close with this. Keep the gospel in front of you at all times. There is no greater antidote to sin.

Than the contemplation of these gospel realities that Paul has rehearsed for us this morning. There is nothing that will so keep you from looking back and turning back than the contemplation of the cross and the realities of your redemption in the gospel. There is nothing in your life that will serve as a greater motivation and fuel for holiness. than the contemplation of these gospel realities.

If right now, even in your life, you're in a place of temptation, and you're like, what, I hate to admit this, but this life over here and the stuff of this life, is very compelling. It's attractive, and a part of me, I hate to say this, and I hate that it's true, but a part of me longs for this. It's so powerful and appealing. And I would love it if my heart would just look at that and say, I don't want that, that's manure.

And if your question is, how can I get my heart into that state? Well, first of all, you need to be a child of God, putting your trust in Christ. But then even beyond that, Paul has helped you greatly. God has helped you greatly.

Contemplate these four gospel truths. And these four gospel truths will so re-situate your heart. And reestablish your heart, that it will change your perspective on the very sins that right now you find. So appealing.

Let me ask you to bow your heads this morning. Guys, we all have this tendency in us. to Turn back. But God in His condescension and great mercy has provided great help for us in this passage.

Let us receive this help. that we find in our Redeemer. And learn to walk in this grace with our eyes on these truths. Because these truths will deliver us from the squalor and the filth of sin that we often find ourselves attracted to.

Our Heavenly Father, we, we long to be in a place to where when we are tempted by sin, Or any aspect of our former life that we would look at that sin and say, how could I turn back? How could I do this? And the only way we can get our hearts positioned to where we honestly are thinking that way is to put these gospel truths in front of us. You sent your Son to redeem us from those sins.

You sent your Son so that we could be your children and you could be our Father. You sent the Spirit of Your Son so that we would enter into and enjoy the fullness of this relationship and be left amazed, filled with joy and happiness, exclaiming our love for you and our amazement at you. And you also would say to us, as great as what I'm giving you right now is, there is more, there's more ahead. Continue walking with me and enjoying your relationship with me, your Heavenly Father.

I have not seen nor his ear heard, nor has it ever entered into the heart of man, the things that I have prepared for those whom I love and who love me. And this I wish to give you. May we feel the heart of our Father in this passage today and be forever changed by it. We ask these things, Lord, in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said,