Good Tuesday to you my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
We all understand watching a TIME countdown to a specific EVENT, right? It happens every New Year’s Eve, in every time zone of the world. It happens as a rocket launch approaches, or a baby is about to be born, or almost anything that is scheduled to happen at a particular moment. So, here’s an important question: Does God sometimes work on a time schedule that includes a ‘countdown’?
Let’s join the apostle Paul again as we are reviewing with him the letter he wrote to the first generation of Christians scattered across what is today southern Turkey. Today let’s look at something very exciting in chapter 4. Paul wrote “When the set time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” (Gal. 4:4) WOW, Paul packed a lot into one sentence, didn’t he? Do you see there WAS a set time on God’s calendar and God determined THAT time had ‘fully come’… so God took action! Did you know that? So, let’s ask some questions about this one statement.
First question… What is this ‘God SET TIME’ which had fully come?
In the Garden of Eden, God made a profound proclamation after Adam and Eve had rejected God and they invited Satan’s dark kingdom to rule the Garden. I hope you understand Adam and Eve extended that invitation to Satan as they turned away from God and believed Satan’s lies and ate of the forbidden fruit. (Gen. 3:1-7)
Projecting forward in time, God proclaimed, in His curse over that deceiving serpent, that HE had a PLAN of rescue, AND a timeline for rescuing the human race: “I will put enmity between you [Satan] and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He [Jesus Christ] will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.” (Gen. 3:15) God here predicted that one day a God sent Savior would destroy Satan’s dark kingdom schemes to draw every person to eternal hell with him. God put that ‘set time’ in motion that day in the Garden.
God’s Redemption Countdown began that day! Of course, God predicted more specifics about this ‘set time’ through many other prophecies. (Is. 9:1-7; 11:1-5; 45:22-24; Micah 5:2) Therefore, Paul wants us to understand that WHEN God determined His ‘set time’ had fully arrived..., God took action!
Second question… What action did God take and why?
Paul wrote: “God sent His Son, born of a woman…” We understand this to be the incarnation of God the Son, Jesus Christ, conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary, and born that famous night in a stable in Bethlehem! The world celebrates that miraculous, world-history changing event, every Christmas. We’re given the details in Luke’s Gospel 1 & 2. God the Son, who had existed for all eternity past, took on human flesh and lived on our planet for about 33 years, then returned to heaven to continue His reign. But why?
The Savior God had promised in His proclamation in the Garden of Eden is, of course, Jesus the Christ! And through His death on the cross and His resurrection, Jesus provides, to any and every person, deliverance from Satan’s dark kingdom powers and death. (Hebrews 7:24,25; John 3:16)
Third question…. What does this action of God mean for us?
Paul’s statement that Jesus was born “…to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” (Gal. 4:4,5) was stunning, shocking and very encouraging to those who heard it, as it should be to us, today!
‘Redeemed’! Oh, what a wonderful word. Our sin debt price is FULLY paid by Jesus Christ thus we are declared Justified, Forgiven by God the Father and set FREE from our inescapable condemnation to Hell.
‘Adopted to sonship’ is a very powerful statement when we understand it is Almighty God Himself who has adopted those Redeemed by Jesus and we now, therefore, live in ‘sonship’ or ‘daughtership’ with God. Is ‘daughtership’ a real word? It’s God’s promise to draw us into a love overflowing relationship of God the Father with EVERY one of His adopted children, men and women!!
And then Paul wrote another powerful statement, do you see it? “Because you are His sons, [and daughters] God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out ‘Abba Father’.” (Gal. 4:6) Oh my! Is it possible? Is Paul really saying here that Almighty God puts in the lives of every person He has Redeemed and Adopted, the VERY SAME Holy Spirit which anointed Jesus at His baptism and was powerfully alive and at work in Jesus through His earthly lifetime?
YES! And this is the very same Holy Spirit Jesus promised would come and baptize His followers, and that’s what happened at Pentecost in Acts 2? YES! And He’s the same Holy Spirit who filled God’s people, both in the Old & New Testaments, for times of miraculous actions in strategic situations? YES! My friends…and He’s the very same Holy Spirit God places into His Redeemed, Adopted people today!
Now watch this friends: It’s the Holy Spirit who develops in God’s people a wonderful LOVE for God which is why Paul used the phrase “Abba Father”. It’s a term that recognizes and celebrates that God is ultimately LOVE in His very nature, and all He does flows from that bottomless well of God’s unconditional love for those He created in His image, and He welcomes our love response to Him! Many verses declare that truth: (John 3:16,17; 1 John 4:9,10; John 15:9-13; Romans 5:8) Now if you are a parent or grandparent, you understand this, for you feel it for your children and ‘grands’, don’t you?
Oh, one more thing I must show you before we end today. Paul wrote: “So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are His child, God has also made you an HEIR.” (Gal. 4:7) YES, before Jesus delivered us, we were slaves to Satan, his dark kingdom and our own sinful nature.
But once delivered by Jesus we are EMANCIPATED, delivered from our slavery, adopted into God’s family, and we have a God inheritance awaiting us. Oh my! No matter what your earthly inheritance might be, that you’ll receive from your parents & grandparents when they die, I assure you it is NOTHING compared to the inheritance God has for His children, and we’ll look more at that tomorrow.
The ‘lessons learned’ notes will be very helpful to you today, at the link below, and of course a great worship song, and Paul will be waiting here for you and me tomorrow!
Today’s Scripture: Gal. 4:4.
Choose below to read or listen.
 |  |
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
Archived back issues of “Walking with Jesus” and other resources are available by clicking here to open our ‘home page’ (or go to HOME at upper right of this page).
Share with friends. Subscribe below for daily “Walking with Jesus”.