1-1-23 Grace-Tucson Sermon

Pastor Tim Patoka

A Savior Is Born: To Be the True Son

January 1, 2023

God Sent His Son Galatians 4:4-7 1) To Redeem You 2) To Adopt You What plans did your parents have for you when they sent you away from home? If you were leaving town, they likely wanted you to excel in your endeavors and stay in touch. If you remained in town, they probably wanted you to strike that balance between establishing independence and still being their child. Regardless of where you went, hopefully they also prayed for you and encouraged you to show what it looks like to be a Christian, young adult.

God the Father had specific plans for his Son Jesus when he sent him away from home. Last week on Christmas, we celebrated how God sent Jesus away from heaven to Bethlehem’s manger. In our verses this morning from Galatians chapter 4(:4-7), we learn what God’s plans were for his Son: to redeem us from the law’s eternal curse and to adopt us as his dear heirs.

To Redeem You Our God has reasons for things he does. Jesus’ birth on Christmas was no exception. God had a set time, intentional method, and stated purpose when he sent Jesus to us. God’s set time was when Caesar Augustus decreed a census while Quirinius was governing Syria, when paranoid King Herod was ruling in Jerusalem. God’s intentional method was for Jesus to be “born of a woman, so that he would be born under the law.” (Galatians 4:5 EHV) That woman’s name was Mary who was a sinner and lived under the law like all of us. This law demands us to do this and don’t do that or else suffer the law’s curse: eternal suffering in hell.

In order for Jesus to be under the law like us, he had to be born of a woman like us.

God did all this because of his stated purpose: to redeem those under the law. To redeem someone means to pay a price in order to buy someone back or to ransom them from captivity. We are captive to the law’s eternal curse because we have sinned against it. The only way to be set free from it is to be redeemed by another. That’s why God sent Jesus into this world: to give his life on the cross as payment for our sins and so free us from the law’s eternal curse.

Looking back at God’s set time, intentional method, and stated purpose in sending Jesus, does it seem right to you? Was this actually the set time? Emperors 1

Pastor Tim Patoka

A Savior Is Born: To Be the True Son

January 1, 2023

take censuses all the time for tax and administrative purposes. Couldn’t have God waited for a later census when a less paranoid king was on the throne and so save the lives of Bethlehem’s newborn boys? Did God really need his Son to be born of a woman? It would have been much easier for Mary if Jesus just poofed on earth.

Given how many Christians today are confused about Mary’s role in salvation history, wouldn’t it have been better if God avoided that whole issue? As for God’s stated purpose of redeeming us, why would he do that? What does he gain from it?

Doesn’t he know how horrible a sinner I am that he’s freed from the suffering I deserve in hell?

Though we may question God’s set time, intentional method, and stated purpose, they all tie together to accomplish God’s plan in sending Jesus to redeem us. When Caesar Augustus reigned, humanly speaking it was one of the best times for the news of a Savior born in Bethlehem, crucified on a cross, and risen from the dead to spread throughout the world. Though Herod’s killing of Bethlehem’s newborn boys is heart-breaking, it’s an example of how God can work our willful, sinful actions for his perfect and wise will. Two Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled through Herod’s slaughter: Jesus coming up out of Egypt and later called a Nazarene. If Jesus had been born at some other time, it wouldn’t have been the set time. Rather, it would have been like a quarterback who throws an incomplete pass downfield because the intended receiver got held up by a safety along his route: the timing would have been off.

Though God’s intentional method of a virgin birth seems off to us, it was done for two important reasons: to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy of a virgin birth and to place Jesus under the same law we’re under. If Jesus is going to be our perfect, sacrificial substitute, then he needs to be like us in every way except without sin. If he had poofed on earth, not only would Isaiah’s prophecy remain unfulfilled, but Jesus would not have been under our same law.

Though God gains nothing from his stated purpose of redeeming us, he does so because of his grace and mercy. As 1 Timothy chapter 2(:4 EHV) says, God “wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” This required our redemption. So Jesus did by redeeming us. He exchanged his sinless record with our sinful state and paid the required price with his life on the cross.

So rejoice in your redemption! Jesus accomplished his Father’s plan when he sent him to us according to God’s set time, intentional method, and stated purpose. Rejoice in your freedom from the law’s eternal curse! Though we

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Pastor Tim Patoka

A Savior Is Born: To Be the True Son

January 1, 2023

continue to live under the law and will transgress it, it has no lasting power over us. For Jesus has redeemed us, heaven is now our eternal blessing.

It’s true that God sent his Son to redeem us from the law’s eternal curse.

He’s also sent his Son for another reason: to adopt us as his dear heirs.

To Adopt You A kind, caring man has recently married a widow with three young children.

He wants to be the family’s father figure. So the stepfather decides to adopt his wife’s three young children, taking on the legal responsibilities of a parent and signaling his continual devotion to them. He’s not required to adopt his wife’s children. Yet he decides to do this voluntary and permanent change in status because of how much he loves his wife’s children.

That’s how God adopts us into his holy family of believers. He doesn’t have to, he wants to. And it’s a permanent change in status unless we later reject God. God adopted us when he sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts to create faith. Since we are God’s adopted children, we can come before and call upon God the Father, the almighty creator of heaven and earth, as we would our dear, earthly fathers. As God’s adopted children, we’re also his recognized sons and daughters, his heirs, who will receive the full measure of his blessings.

7Do you believe the good news that you are an adopted heir of God? Or do you ask, “Who am I to call God, Father?” During the Christmas holidays, there is a mixing of family households that show whose kids come from which parents.

Children young and old will come before and call upon their fathers and mothers in the same way an Aramaic-speaking child would to their abba, that is, their father: with comfort to address them and confidence they’ll hear. But if you’re not a parent’s child, then you wouldn’t address them this way. Thinking of our Father in heaven, do you come before and call upon him as you do your own earthly father?

Or who am I to be an heir of God? Though we can picture ourselves alongside God’s holy family, it’s not as a son or daughter. Rather, it’s as an attending slave at best as we tear ourselves down. Not in humility, but in selfdeprecation, guilt, and remorse as we see ourselves worse than how God sees us.

We may ask, “who am I in relation to God?” but God doesn’t ask such things. He tells you who you are: wanted in his holy family and counted among his forgiven children. That’s why he sent his Son Jesus into this world so that you 3

Pastor Tim Patoka

A Savior Is Born: To Be the True Son

January 1, 2023

could be redeemed. That’s why he sent the Holy Spirit into your heart so he could adopt you. And he has indeed done that by creating faith in your heart so that you can have that dear father/child relationship with him. For God has given you a recognized place in his holy family, not a mere service role on the side. As an heir of God, you’re also promised the full measure of his blessings he gives to all his children: forgiveness, life, salvation, and so much more! And whatever blessings God hasn’t already given you, he certainly will when he knows it is best for you to receive them.

So rejoice in your adoption into God’s holy family! God sent his Son Jesus so that you could be adopted and recognized as sons and daughters of your Father in heaven. He sent the Holy Spirit who brings you into this holy family through his gift of faith. God has voluntarily and permanently changed your status from a lost sinner to his forgiven child.

Because of that, come before and call upon God the Father as you would your own dear, earthly father. If you have such am earthly father, then rejoice that you have another! If you don’t, then rejoice that you finally have such a one who will give you your full measure of blessings as his dear heir.

Closing Encouragements When parents send their children away from home, they have all sorts of plans for them. God the Father had the same when he sent Jesus into our world so that he could redeem us and adopt us. To redeem us, God had a set time, intentional method, and stated purpose that all came together for our benefit. To adopt us, God sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts with his gift of faith so that we could become dear heirs of God. So rejoice in your redemption! You’re set free from the law’s eternal curse and heaven is now your home. Rejoice in your adoption! You have a dear Father in heaven whom you can come before and call upon who will also give you your full measure of blessings! Give thanks to God the Father who sent his Son to Bethlehem’s manger so that you could be redeemed and adopted. Amen.

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