Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, June 20th. Let's continue the study of Galatians. The fourth chapter points to the rights, privileges, and authority believers have through their relationship with Christ. When you and I received the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, the Bible says that you and I became the heirs, joint heirs with Jesus Christ. But now until I understand what my position is and am able to reach that maturity, then he says for all practical purposes in today's language, I am really no better off than I was beforehand as far as my freedom and liberty and my position to enjoy what God has provided for me. Because you see, as long as we are hung up on the fact that we are accepted before God on the basis of what we do, that God loves us on the basis of being good. We've got to keep all the Ten Commandments. We've got to live up to the Sermon on the Mountain. Besides that, we've got to live up to all the expectations that all the saints have on us as long as you and I are laboring under the expectation of other people and trying to live up to something God said we could not live up to.
And it wasn't his purpose for us to live up to it. As long as we are living under the bondage of that kind of human and self-expectation, where are we? We may have our names written in the Lamb's Book of Life. We may be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but we are still over here shackled by expectation and bondage. And that's where we were before we were saved only we were shackled then by the power of sin and could not break loose. Now, since power has been broken in our life, we no longer have to live in bondage and the shackles of expectations but because we are still immature children spiritually, we're still in bondage. It's just a different form of bondage and the same devil who had us in bondage over here before is just laughing his head off because we are still all wrapped up and have very little testimony for Jesus Christ. What does it take in the life of the believer to bring us to at least a level of maturity where you and I are able to enjoy the liberty and the freedom and the possessions that are ours in Christ?
What level do we have to reach in order to enjoy that? What is the sign of spiritual maturity? Let me tell you what it's not. It's not going to church four times a week. It isn't reading the Bible every day. It isn't praying every day. It isn't having all kinds of spiritual experiences.
Those things are not sign of spiritual maturity because you see, some people go to church every time the doors are open because if they don't, they're afraid surely God's going to wipe them out before the week's over. And so what do they do? They go out of duty and out of bondage because you see, why are you doing those things? What motivates you to do them? Is it because you're so in love with Jesus Christ?
You can't wait to tell it. Is it because you've been so free and liberated as a child of God, you've just got to tell it to somebody? Or is it because you've been taught that it's the thing to do?
Because if you don't do it, you're afraid you're going to have to give an account to somebody and you're going to be embarrassed. And after all, that's what God expects of you. And you've got to live up to his expectation.
You remember what we said? If God knows your past, present and future, he doesn't have any expectations. He knows you're going to blow it every single time.
So you can't disappoint him. So just throw to the wind all disappointment to God. Then what does it take to reach a level of spiritual maturity?
Well, not going to answer that right now. So you keep listening. All right, look, if you will, beginning in verse four, here he begins to talk about the one who has liberated us to become everything that God wants us to be. Our powerful liberator. Listen, he says in verse four, but when the fullness of time was come, now before under bondage, but when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law to redeem that when they were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. Now listen, he says, because men were in bondage to law, God sent forth his son. Listen, he says, sent forth his son made of a woman, which is the implication here of his incarnation. That is he came through woman, but he was of God, Jesus Christ, virgin born came through woman, made of woman made under the law. That is that Jesus Christ was born under the Jewish law.
And he lived by that law and was spotless as far as that law was concerned. He said, I didn't come to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law is the only one who's ever perfectly fulfilled. He says God sent forth his son incarnate, born from woman under the law in order to redeem as they were under the law that we no longer have to live under the burden and the shackles of all of this, but we might be liberated to become the sons and the daughters of almighty God.
That's the reason he came. Now listen, remember that Paul is writing to people who have been freed and liberated. He is reminding them of what they've been liberated from. Paul says to those Galatian Christians that he's saying to us, Jesus came to liberate you from that. Sonship is not the same as slavery.
Slavery is the expectation of the law. Sonship is the freedom of relationship to God the father in Jesus Christ. So he says, if you'll notice there, he says to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Now, beginning in verse six and verse five, six and seven, he says, here is our present spiritual position. Look, he says we have been redeemed from the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you present tense our sons, God has sent for the Holy Spirit of his son into your hearts crying, I befather and I befather means to make a public announcement.
Listen, in those days when an immature boy grew up and reached the age and he became a man, they made a public announcement. Now, listen, he says, when the Holy Spirit comes into your heart and seals you as a child of God, brother, that's something worth shouting about and making a public announcement about. People say, I believe your religion is private or how private. How are you going to say it's private when Jesus said, go into all the world and publish, proclaim, preach and share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
How are you going to keep something private and proclaim it? He says, we're to proclaim our sonship. Now listen, verse seven, wherefore thou art no more a servant, a doulos, a bond slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Now listen, look at this just for a moment. Before you were saved, you were in bondage to sin, enslaved to sin. When you received the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, it was as if you as an inlet to a child became of age, you became a son, and once you became a son, you became a joint heir. According to the scripture, our position is sonship. Sonship means freedom. Sonship means authority. Sonship means power. Sonship means possession. Now, having been placed in the position of sonship and freedom and authority and possession, how should we live?
Free, liberated to enjoy the life that God has proclaimed and provided for us. Verse nine, but now after that you have known God. And the word here means to know him.
I don't mean just know about him, but to know him by experience. And he says, or rather a known of God. That is not only you know him, but he says, first you were known by God. And what he's saying is you have a personal relationship with him. He says, now that you have known him and are known by him, he says, how is it that you turn back to the weak, beggarly elements where unto you desire again to be in bondage?
Now watch this. He says, how is it having been freed and liberated once you were a slave in bondage to all of those laws and ritualisms and ceremonies? He says, now with the grace of God, you free from all of that. You become the sons of God. You're no longer a slave to all those expectations. You become freed in Jesus Christ. He says, how turn you again to the weak? That is impotent things. How do you go back to ceremonies and ritualisms and expectations and laws?
How do you try to live up to the expectations of man? He says, those laws and those rituals have absolutely, absolutely no power to forgive you of your sin, to put you in the right relationship to God. Those things you were doing, he says, have absolutely no power to free you and liberate you. They enslaved you.
They didn't liberate you. He said, I'm amazed that you would move from the supernatural to the impotent, to the vast riches of the grace of God, down to the beggarly poverty stricken hog pen of ceremonies and laws. He says, how do you explain that?
Now watch this. He says, the elements where unto you desire again to be in bondage. He says, you observe days and months and times and seasons. He says, you're going back to what God freed you from.
Now let's supply that to present day. Before you were saved, you were living in bondage to sin. Jesus Christ came into your heart. He broke the shackles of sin and he freed you. Most of us, we were saved. Somebody told us, now that you're saved, your sins have been forgiven. Your name has been written in the Lamb's book of life and you go into heaven when you die.
Read your Bible, pray and go to church and give and tell the people what Jesus Christ means to you. And so we did that. But we found that after a while, that sin was still a problem. Found that after a while, that everything that looked like a new life didn't seem to be that way. And before long, many of us, for all practical purposes, most of us, except for knowing that your name was in the book and except for knowing that when you died, you were going to heaven.
For all practical purposes, where were you and I still living? Over here in bondage, nobody said to us, now that you received Jesus Christ as your savior, you become a joint heir with Jesus Christ. You have been freed, not only from the power of sin in your life, you have been freed from the shackles of expectations, keeping laws, keeping ceremonies, living up to other people's expectations. You have become a free child of God. Nobody told us that, so what did we do? God placed us in the position of freedom and liberty, but because for all practical purposes, understanding wise and faith wise, we were still immature children.
What did we do? In a new position of sonship, we've been walking around in bondage. Got to live up to this, got to live up to that, got to do this, got to do that, got to do that, God's going to wipe me out. We've been walking around in bondage for years and years and years. We are the sons of God, we're the children of God, joint heirs of Jesus Christ.
There is possession, there is authority, there is freedom, there is liberty. And here we go trying to find a little joy in the Christian life. Amen? That is exactly where most people are because nobody ever said to them, listen, when Jesus Christ comes into your life, he liberates you and frees you to be everything God wants you to be. You see what he's saying in this passage is simply this. He says to these Christians there, he says, why under God's heaven would you want to go back over there where you've been delivered from? Let me tell you something, spiritually, that's where a lot of God's people are. Still living in a spiritual shack, he says, that was the past, you have become, listen, you have become a child of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And he said, he is in heaven preparing a place. You say, now wait a minute, that's what I've been telling you, that I know that I have a place up there.
That's not it. Friends, you've also got a place down here and it's not under a roof, it's under God's wonderful canopy of forgiveness and love and redemption, reconciliation. It is under the canopy of God's wonderful, matchless, marvelous grace. Authority is yours, power is yours, possession is yours, position is yours, joy is yours, liberty is yours. Why still live under the bondage of expectation? Why try to keep living up to, matching up to something you will never be able to match up to?
We get in competition with ourselves, we've got to do better today than we did yesterday. Why? There's no answer to that. Listen, what does he mean when he says, when we were little children, we were like the slaves, but now that we've become mature sons, he says we are possessors of what God has for us. I'll tell you exactly what he means.
Now listen to me very carefully. The sign, the true sign of maturity is not actions. Now listen, has nothing to do with age, nothing to do with how long you've been a Christian, nothing to do with how many scriptures you quote, how much ability you have, how much talent you have. It doesn't even have anything to do with the discipline in your life. The one element that separates the immature believer from the mature believer is faith.
Now watch this. How are you saved? Faith.
How does Almighty God want you to live? By faith. What keeps me from being in slavery? Faith.
What keeps me from living under the bondage and the expectations of others? Faith that Jesus Christ who lives within me is totally adequate to meet my needs. Listen, faith that he has accepted me just the way I am. Faith that because he knows me perfectly past, present, future, he's not going to be disappointed in me. Faith in him that nothing I ever do will make me be cast out because I was redeemed by the grace of God on the cross of Jesus Christ in his eternal atonement.
Faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith. Am I willing to accept my position as a son of God? Listen, based on nothing I feel but what Almighty God says. And let me ask you something. How many of you can honestly say with all of your heart? I do believe that I'm absolutely, totally, holy, completely accepted in the eyes of God just the way I am.
Let me show you something. Everything that follows that is going to be difficult until you're able to grasp that. Listen, it doesn't make any difference where you are tonight. It doesn't make any difference what's going on in your life. What you have to ask is, can I believe with all of my heart that God accepts me just like I am? If something's not right, I got to trust him. He's going to change it in my life. But he loves me. He loves me and he's accepted me just the way I am. And if I go about trying to change me, I'm going to complicate the matter. But if I'm willing to trust him, and if I trust him, I'm going to obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit as he gives me directions in whatever's not right in my life.
Listen, watch this. Whatever's not right in my life, he's going to take care of that. But whatever's not right or whatever's right has nothing to do with his attitude toward me one single iota, accepted in the Beloved.
Sons of God, daughters of God, heirs with Jesus Christ. Listen, once you step into the arena of faith, the shackles, the expectations, the laws, the criticism, and all that stuff just begins to roll away. And what you begin to realize is, for the first time in your life, you are free. And that's what Paul is saying.
Don't ever go back to that. But now listen, the tragedy is that so many people are in the position of sonship. But for all practical purposes, they're still in bondage. And I want to ask you tonight, don't you really want to be totally free? Freed, liberated, joyous in the person of Jesus Christ. And he says, there's just one decision.
I will trust him totally. Thank you for listening to Liberated Unto Sonship. We would also like to invite you to join us in celebrating 45 years of God's faithfulness. Stop by InTouch.org slash 45 years to learn more. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
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