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Now let's dive into this week's message. Well,
Advent does begin today. And Advent is usually
the season where We turn to the prophets or the
gospels. We'll open up Isaiah to look at the
promises of God in the coming Messiah, the servant.
Or we'll go to Matthew or Luke for the manger
or the angels or the shepherds. But this year,
we're going to do something a little bit different
for Advent. We are going to ask the question,
how does the apostle Paul tell the Christmas
story? How does Paul tell the Christmas story?
Paul never gives us a nativity scene, but he
does give us something just as important. He
tells us why Christmas happened, the why behind
it. While Matthew shows us the star over Bethlehem
and Luke gives us the shepherds in the field,
Paul opens us, opens for us and shows us the
plan that was behind Bethlehem. For Paul, Christmas
isn't just a story, it's a mission, the eternal
son entering the world to redeem and to liberate
and to make us heirs. Paul compresses the whole
meaning of Advent into these lines in Galatians
chapter four. When the time came to completion,
God sent his son. This is a blazing theological
summary of heaven's invasion. And over the next
few weeks, we're letting Paul be our Advent guide.
And we're going to see Christmas from above,
from the vantage point of God's eternal plan,
the cosmic story behind the Christmas story.
And so if you're going to follow along with your
Bibles, I'd encourage you to turn over to Galatians
chapter 4. Galatians 4, if you have the Church
Center app, you can open that up as well and
take notes in the Church Center app. Galatians
chapter four, beginning in verse four, if you
use the chair bibles, that's page six, 61, make
it easy for you. Galatians chapter four and verse
four, when the time came to completion, God sent
his son born of a woman born under the law to
redeem those under the law. so that we might
receive adoption as sons. And because you are
sons, God sent the spirit of his son into our
hearts, crying, Abba, father. So you are no longer
a slave, but a son. And if a son, then God has
made you an heir. This is God's word. If you've
ever waited for something important, you know
that waiting Waiting can feel endless, right?
I know some of you have had to wait for test
results to come back. How did you feel in that
waiting period? I know some of you maybe have
had to wait for your kid to get home from work
after a late night shift on a cold and icy night.
I've been there before. Or maybe you've waited
for God to finally answer a prayer you've been
carrying for years. The people of Israel did,
too. They knew what it meant to wait. And by
the time we get to the coming of Christ, God's
people had been waiting for centuries, waiting
under Roman occupation, waiting under self -righteous
religious exhaustion, waiting under exile, waiting
under the weight of their own sin and failures,
waiting for God to act, waiting for God to speak.
waiting for God to rescue. And then what? Silence.
400 years between the last words of the prophets
and the birth of the Christ. Four centuries of
unresolved longing. If you were living in that
moment, you might have been tempted to think
that God had forgotten about his people the promise
to Abraham that he had made that hope was dead
or hope was naive. But Paul tells us when the
time came to completion, not early, not late,
not rushed, not random. Advent reminds us that
God is never late. He's always right on time.
He knows the moment to move. He knows when to
break in. And what was God doing in that perfectly
timed moment? Why did the eternal son step into
our world the way he did? Well, Paul answers
that in these four verses and he gives us four
Advent truths. Jesus arrived in real time. Jesus
entered real humanity. Jesus came under the law
to redeem us. And Jesus brought us into a new
family. And that's Advent according to Paul in
Galatians chapter four. Christmas not just as
a story, but Christmas as salvation. What Jesus
did for us. So if you're taking notes, that'll
be our four points. Number one, he arrived in
real time. You see, Christmas is not accidental.
It wasn't God improvising a plan because humanity
had gone off the cliff. It was intentional timing
when the time came to completion. The phrase
Paul uses means the perfect moment, the moment
when everything God had planned was mature and
ripe and ready. You could translate it, when
the timeline was full, when history was pregnant
with purpose, God sent his son. At first, Paul
wants us to see that the advent reveals divine
initiative. But before we talk about shepherds
and angels, before we talk about Caesar and the
census and the stables, Paul wants us to see
the hand of God, the father, sending the son.
Not humanity reaching up to God, not religion
climbing its way toward a God, not good people
performing their way into God's favor. No, God
moved first. God sent, God initiated, God came
down. This is the heartbeat of Christianity.
We don't climb up to God, God climbs down to
us. We don't find God, God finds us. We don't
rescue ourselves, God rescues us. Advent is the
story of a God who refuses to leave us alone,
amen. And Paul also wants us to see that Jesus
didn't begin in Bethlehem. He doesn't say when
the time came to completion, God created his
son, does he? No, he says God sent his son. The
son already existed. The son is eternal. The
son shared glory with the father before creation.
The son is the one through whom all things were
made. And so Bethlehem is not Jesus' origin.
It's his arrival place. And Jesus arrived in
real time to confront our hopelessness and helplessness.
If the father had to send the son, what does
that tell us about the condition we were in?
Well, it tells us that we were unable to fix
ourselves, unable to break sins, power, unable
to clean up our own hearts. Advent says you cannot
save yourself, but God can. And this cuts against
the grain of our modern instincts, right? Right,
people? We want to believe I can do better. I
can do better. Just give me one more shot. If
I just try harder, if I just adopt a few of those
atomic habits, if I can just get more momentum
in my life, then I'll be able to take it from
there and do something. And Paul says, no, the
sun had to be sent. We needed something. We needed
someone completely outside of ourselves to come
rescue us. And this is the grace of the Advent,
of the coming of the Christ. God didn't wait
for us to get it all together. Instead, he stepped
into our mess at the right time. For Israel,
God seemed silent. For centuries, it felt like
nothing was happening. But behind the scenes,
God was setting the stage. of history. Think
about this, politically. The occupiers of Israel
at the time in the first century were who? Anyone?
Rome, right? Rome had united the world under
one empire. That's politically, culturally. Did
you know that Greek had been the unified language
of the world? And so you see, The setting of
the stage, the setting of history, politically,
Rome, now one nation, one empire, culturally,
Greek, unifying the world under one language.
And then economically, trade routes were created
across the nations, connecting nation to nation.
And did you know that those very trade routes,
those very roads would become the roads that
would spread the gospel to the known world? Those
roads created by invaders, those roads created
by oppressors would carry the gospel to places
it couldn't have gone without them. Spiritually,
Israel had longed for a deliverer for 400 years.
You see, the moment was coming together. It was
all colliding and coming to a head, coming to
a point. And when all of it came to completion,
God sent His Son into it. And this is how God
worked in the coming of Christ. And this is how
God works in your life. You may feel like God
is slow or that you're in the silent years. Anyone
ever feel like you're in the 400 years of silence?
God is never late. God is never rushed. and God
knows what he is doing with your story. Advent
is the reminder that God's timing is perfect.
Even if to us it may feel at times painful. If
you're taking notes, number two, write down,
he entered our humanity. Paul's next phrase is
really easy to skip over. It says, born of a
woman, born of a woman, If you grew up around
Christmas, you can almost miss the shock of that.
Of course he was born of a woman, everyone is,
right? But think about it, the eternal son of
God, the one who created galaxies, who holds
atoms together, who spoke the universe into being,
entered the world the same way every other human
being does. Not floating in, not descending fully
formed. not wrapped in glory and splendor, but
born. Born to a real mother, with real pain,
in a real body, in a real town, with real blood,
sweat and tears. This is the scandal and wonder
of Advent. God became human. Paul isn't speaking
metaphorically either. Born of a woman that's
not poetic language. Jesus had lungs. Jesus had
a digestive system. He had sleep cycles. He had
a childhood and adolescence and adulthood. Jesus
knows what it's like to be hungry. He knows what
it's like to be tired. He knows what it's like
to get dirt under his fingernails. He knows what
it's like to feel the limits and the frailty
of human existence. He became like us, fully,
truly. end completely. This is why Christianity
is not a spiritual escape plan. It's not a get
out of your body and float into heaven someday.
God dignified humanity by taking it on himself.
Jesus didn't borrow a body that he could possess.
He stepped into the human story. He knew loneliness.
He knew temptation, he knew tears. Hebrews says
that he was tempted in every way as we are, yet
without sin, meaning when you feel weak, Jesus
has been there. I don't know if you guys ever
go perusing for a new show to watch, but me and
my wife typically spend about three hours looking
for a show and then just give up, right? That
is the show, right? But I think one night after
spending three hours and me going back and forth
between YouTube videos that bore the heck out
of her, I finally said, have you heard of Sheriff
Country? It's this show that's on one of those
TV streaming platforms. And I was like, well,
let's just try it, right? If nothing else, we
can mock it for the next 45 minutes. That's good
television, right? Turns out, yeah, it has Emmy
award -winning acting. Not. It is very mockable
and the acting and scripting is very stupid.
But you know, once you start, eh, gotta finish,
right? So anyway, all that to say, we pretty
much spend the 45 minutes mocking the show the
entire time, looking at each other, rolling our
eyes. But that's entertaining, so hey. What was
my point? No, my point was, we were watching
the show yesterday. Again, my wife rolled her,
I said, last night I said to my wife, do we have
a show? I'd forgotten. She's like, uh, kind of.
And I was like, oh, yes, that one, yes. Well,
let's watch an episode, right? So we start watching
this episode of Sheriff Country. And there's
a point in there where the deputy is left in
charge of the station. And she gets her chance
to like hold the fort down and she keeps saying,
well, what would Mickey do? She's the sheriff,
right? What would Mickey do? That's her thought
processor. Well, it turns out that there's a
man and a woman who come into the lobby and they're
demanding something. The man is very overbearing
and demanding. The woman has a hoodie on and
she looks kind of absent and she looks like she's
in trouble in some way, distressed, but she's
not talking. And the deputy's trying to figure
out who set this fire in the bathroom, right?
Who set the fire in the bathroom and why did
they do that? And so she's interviewing people
and trying to figure this out. And then she looks
at the woman and you can tell some instinct kicks
in. She sees something, she recognizes something.
And so she goes out to the lobby and she arrests
the woman and pulls her into the back room. And
when she pulls her into the back room, the first
thing she says to her is, how long has he been
hitting you? And this opens a conversation about
the domestic abuse that she's been enduring.
Bruises all over her neck. And there's a point
sometime in that interview where the woman is
sharing something and the deputy says something
like, I understand what you're going through.
And the woman, you know, pushes back and says,
no, you don't, you don't know what it's like.
You don't know what it's like to go back with
him. And at that point, the woman, the deputy
rolls up her sleeves and all over her arms is
scars. And it was a moment that I've seen many
times before in other shows. You've probably
seen that in real life, but it's a moment where
something happens. You don't know what my experience
is like. And then this woman rolls up her sleeves
and shows the scars and she says, I know, I understand.
And the woman goes, oh my goodness. She begins
to cry and weep. And there's a connection that's
made because this woman knows, she understands,
she's experienced it. This is what we're supposed
to feel when we think of the incarnation of Jesus
Christ. We're supposed to understand that he
understands our weakness, that he knows what
it is to be lonely. He can say, I've been there,
I understand. And you can have that connection
with him, that relational connection. You can
trust him, you can pray to him. That's why you
can bring everything that is in your heart to
him, because he understands and he knows. He's
experienced it. Born of a woman, Jesus stepped
into our darkness, not away from it. And if you
and I were writing this script, God would have
certainly shown up with power, right? You know,
ACDC playing on the loud speakers, right? In
a chariot with flowing white hair, flames, right?
That's how God would show up on the scene, right?
I'll bet someone could pop that into AI and have
a picture by the end of this of what that would
look like, right? That's how I'd write the script.
That's probably how you'd write the script. But
God chose weakness. He chose a womb, not a throne.
He chose a manger and not a palace to be born
of a working class family, a poor family, not
in the royal courts. He came all the way down,
not to impress us, but to be with us. And that
is the beauty of Advent. There is no place you
can go that God cannot enter. Advent also shows
us that our humanity matters. Sometimes we treat
our bodies like inconveniences, like our limits
are as failures, right? So yesterday we stopped
to get some food, me and my son. And we got done,
you know, you're powered up, got some food. And
I get out of the front door of this place, and
I see the car. It's about here to Gary at the
back there. That's our car. And I was like, race
you to the car, right? Really quick. I said it
really quick. I was going to race my son, Gabe,
the one who leads worship up here. Race you to
the car. And I'm thinking, it's not that far.
Just getting that jump, that head start, I'm
going to beat him, right? Yeah, you know where
this story goes, right? I kind of get two or
three steps, and I say, race you to the car.
And I start running, right? And I'm running all
my whole heart, right? Everything. And I get
about here halfway, just past Diane right there.
In the middle of the aisle there, I'm about halfway.
And Gabe comes jogging by. And as he passes,
he turns to me and says, don't hurt yourself,
dad. And then he tags the car. It really felt
like slow -mo. A wink, you know. And in that
moment, my body was a liability. In my brain,
I came out of there thinking, I'm going to smoke
him. I don't know why I thought that. That's
stupid. Yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking, apparently,
McDonald's gives you intrusive thoughts, right?
I could beat him. Come on. No, but we see our
limits and we see them as failures. We see our
limitations and our bodies as inconveniences.
And we count our emotions as liabilities. But
God dignified being a human and what it means
to be a human. He shows us that our bodies actually
matter. He shows us. that our emotions matter
to him. That your limits matter to him. That
goes against everything American, doesn't it?
Your limits, your margin matters to him. He understands
it. He's lived it. Your humanity is not something
to escape. It's something to allow God to redeem.
Number three. Jesus stood under the curse. Born
under the law to redeem those under the law.
Jesus lived the life we could not live. You see,
every human stands under the law, not just Israel.
The law of a perfect God requires perfect righteousness.
The law of a perfect God requires unbroken obedience
and wholehearted devotion and perfect purity.
That is what he is deserving of. But what does
Paul say about us? We're under the law in the
sense that we are condemned by it. We're under
the law in the sense that the law is not bad.
I use this illustration in first service. I was
driving in today on a road as I was driving.
I was thinking about the sermon today and I was
driving 50 miles an hour. And I look up and guess
what I saw? A speed limit sign that said 45.
And that speed limit sign testified against me.
The speed limit sign didn't make me a law breaker.
It exposed my law breaking. I was going five
miles over the speed limit and it showed me that
if you were to be caught, you would be subject
to judgment right now for breaking the law. You
see, that's what the law did. The law was good.
The law is holy. It's the grace of God to show
humans how they must live in order to relate
personally with God. And his law is his blessing
because he wants communion with people. He wants
to love and dwell with them. But his law is such
a blessing and so, so good and so, so holy that
in and of ourselves and under the effects of
sin, we can't keep it. It's that good. And so
the law condemns us as lawbreakers. And the idea
of a curse in the Bible, sometimes we can get
the idea that we're talking about witchcraft
or voodoo here. Like what curses, right? The
curse of the law. The idea of a curse in the
Bible is not about witchcraft or voodoo. It simply
means the consequences of disobedience to God's
word and his law. The idea of a curse in the
Bible is God allowing his people to experience
the effects of trying to seize blessing on their
own terms instead of faithful obedience to God.
In other words, to choose not to have relationship
with him on his terms, as the good, perfect and
holy God, but instead to go and seize life and
all of its blessings for myself on my terms will
always result in consequences, negative consequences.
And those negative consequences are what the
Bible calls a curse. The Bible tells us that
all of us have fallen short and missed the mark.
All of us have rebelled and wandered. But where
we disobeyed, Jesus obeyed. Where we twisted
the truth, Jesus spoke truth, and where we sinned,
Jesus remained spotless, and where we failed
every day, Jesus fulfilled every commandment
of the law. Jesus didn't come to relax the law,
he came to fill it full. He didn't lower the
bar, he cleared it for all of us. And Jesus didn't
just obey the law, he took the law's judgment
for us upon himself. To be under the law doesn't
just mean carrying out the obligation to obey.
Paul uses that phrase to describe the whole human
condition of bondage, being under guilt and under
condemnation, under the curse of sin. And Jesus
enters that place willingly. Paul actually said
earlier in Galatians chapter three, Christ redeemed
us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse
for us. Meaning every judgment that should have
fallen on you Every righteous sentence your sin
deserved every ounce of wrath that stands against
your rebellion Jesus stepped under it He didn't
just obey the law in your place. He took the
consequences of your disobedience in your place
This is why the manger leads to the cross When
Paul says Christ redeemed us To redeem means
Jesus bought us out of slavery. We sang that
earlier. I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am
a child of God. Well, redemption was this marketplace
term in Paul's world. And it meant paying the
price to free a slave from their master so they
would never have to go back. That was redemption.
And Paul says, that's what Jesus did before Christ.
We were not struggling people trying to do better.
We were enslaved. We were enslaved to shame and
guilt and addiction to self -righteousness and
people -pleasing. Sin cycles we couldn't break.
Advent is not sentimental. It is liberation.
Jesus was born under the law so he could break
the chains of those who lived under the law.
He didn't come to inspire us. He came to rescue
us. Redemption is God's declaration. You are
free. And when Jesus redeemed you, he didn't
simply give you a clean slate. He didn't give
you a second chance to try harder. He transferred
you out of slavery and into freedom. You don't
belong to sin anymore. You don't belong to shame
anymore. You don't belong to your past anymore.
You don't belong to the law as your judge anymore.
You belong to Christ. This is what Christmas
means to Paul. The son of God was born under
the law so that slaves could become sons. The
eternal son became a slave so slaves could become
sons. The one who owed nothing paid everything.
The one who was free was bound so the bound ones
could go free forever. And finally, number four,
he brought us into a new family. Paul now takes
us to the goal the climax the reason behind the
incarnation and the Redemption though the point
of all of it everything God did in sending his
son was aiming toward this breathtaking gift
Adoption Adoption A new identity, a new relationship
with God, a new family, a new future. If redemption
is God bringing us out of slavery, adoption is
God bringing us home. I'll tell you, adoption
is the highest privilege of the gospel. There
is no higher privilege. It is the point, the
apex, the climax of what Jesus said. Thank God
for redemption. Thank God for freedom from the
slavery to sin. Amen. Thank God for all that
he's done, but thank you, Jesus, for adoption.
You can go in and set someone free and put them
out on the street and say, good luck, right?
Or you can go in and set someone free and say,
get in the minivan, we're going home. That's
what Jesus did. Adoption is the highest privilege
of the gospel. And Paul. chooses the term sons
actually on purpose. No need to get offended
that he said sons and not daughters. He said
sons on purpose because in his world, in the
Greco -Roman world, sons were the ones who received
full legal status, full inheritance, full rights.
And so Paul is not excluding women when he says
that. What he's actually saying is he's including
women in full rights of sonship. He's going completely
counter -cultural and saying, you're all included
in sonship in Christ. No one gets a second tier
salvation. No one gets half membership or junior
inheritance in the family. In Christ, you get
everything the son gets. Jesus didn't just save
you from slavery. He saved you into sonship.
And Paul writes, God sent the spirit of his son
into our hearts, crying, Abba, father. You notice
the language crying or crying out. The spirit
produces a cry. Abba, a word that means something
like dear father, a word that carries with it
a sort of simplicity, a sort of comfort, a sort
of letting down our guard and finally resting.
Paul is saying the spirit himself puts the truth
of your adoption and pulls it from your head
down into your hearts That's the spirit's work
He makes the father's love real and felt and
experienced Adoption is not just a legal reality.
It's a relational experience God is not simply
your judge or your creator or your Redeemer He
is now your father He delights in you. He welcomes
you. He listens to you. When you pray, he carries
your burdens. He is patient in your weakness.
He knows your limitations and he is present in
your pain. This is the Advent according to Paul,
the son came so you could know the father. As
we wrap it up, I'm going to invite Gabe to come
on out as we prepare for communion, but The last
thing I want to say is that adoption will rewrite
your entire identity. Paul ends with this definitive
declaration in Galatians chapter four. So you
are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son,
then God has made you an heir. Not you will be.
Not you might be. Not you should try to be, but
you are. This is your identity now. This is yours
to own. This is the privilege of the gospel,
the highest privilege of the gospel for you to
walk in, for you to believe and you to live out
of, not slave, not orphan, not outsider, not
spiritual employee. not sinner as your primary
label, but son, daughter, beloved, co -heir with
Christ. And if God has made you an heir, then
nothing in hell or on earth can undo that reality.
You have a future, you have a name, you have
a father and a family and an inheritance. You
belong now today. And that's Advent. That's Christmas.
That's the gospel. And that's the invitation
God extends to you today. You don't have to live
as a slave. You don't have to live under guilt.
You don't have to live under fear. And you don't
have to wonder where you stand with God. through
through Christ Father says get in the minivan.
I Got a room Just waiting for you You're coming
home We're having a good old dinner tonight all
the family's gonna be there All the brothers
and sisters You never met before Just look at
their faces when you walk in See how happy they
are to see you. Feel the heart of the Father
and the family of God. This is Advent. This is
our Father. If you are hearing Christ, it is
you.