Keeping the Spirit of Christmas Alive: Through Family
- Stephen Phelan
- Dec 6, 2009
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Keeping the Spirit of Christmas Alive: Through Family Gal. 4: 4-6; Mid-City Dec. 6 2009
The Christmas Season is here and it is, by far, my favorite season of the year. Lights, fires, trees, family, food—there is just a magic to the season that I always wish could be present year round. It isn’t so much the toys and decorations that I am trying to hold onto. Having a blowup frosty in the middle of the summer wouldn’t be magical—it would just be odd. Giving toys to your kids all year wouldn’t be magical—it would bankrupt you. No, it is what is behind the toys and the decorations—it is the spirit of Christmas that I am after. So, as I thought about that, I said, “Let’s do our Advent series on just that—how do we keep the Spirit of Christmas alive throughout the entire year.
This week we’re going to think about the role that family plays in the Christmas season. I remember my first Christmas being away from my family on Christmas. I was playing football for UVA and our team made it to what was at the time the Poulan weed-wacker Independence Bowl in
And the minister gets up to deliver his message and guess what the title was, “Home for Christmas.” And for 30 minutes he drones on about all the joys of being home for Christmas. And I looked over and these 330 pound beastly men have tears rolling down their eyes. For momma. The coach who took us crumpled up the bulletin on the way out, threw it in the garbage and said, “No more church on bowl games. The last thing I need is a homesick team.
My roommate and I talked about it afterwards and I remember thinking, “The real spirit of Christmas can’t just be wrapped up in being with your family at home for Christmas. There simply must be a way to experience the wonder and magic of Christmas when you aren’t with your family.”
See this is a very real issue. Some of you are absolutely dreading the holidays because they are the season when you feel the loneliest. Everyone else is with their family and you aren’t. You are single and you feel the loneliness of being single most acutely at the holidays. Or you have lost your spouse or close family member and the holidays just aren’t the same without them.
Well, the wonder of the gospel is that, despite being single, despite being away from your family members, you can experience the magic of Christmas. If you will drill down below the superficial things that we associate with as Christmas—like being with family, giving and receiving gifts—it you’ll drill down below these things to what is behind them, then the wonder of Christmas will be yours regardless of who you are with and regardless of what the season is. See the wonder of the gospel doesn’t end on Dec. 25th.
So, let’s explore the gospel through this little beautiful Christmas text in Galatians. This morning, since we have a short text, I am going to walk you through it phrase by phrase and let the text direct the flow of the message.
V4 But when the time had fully come: What is it that signaled to God that the time was full or ripe to send his Son into the world. Answer: we really don’t know. Any answer is speculation. Spiritually, the people were no better than they were before. You don’t see a real movement of repentance and faith in the roughly 400 years after Nehemiah & Malachi leading up to the birth of Christ during what is known as the intertestamental period—the time between the OT & NT.
Many people speculate about social and cultural factors that created a ripe environment for the gospel message to spread rapidly, such as the Pax Romana—the peace of
V4 God sent his son. God sent his son. Jesus is God’s son. That means He is God. . But not only was he God—look at the next phrase.
V4 Born of a woman. Born of Mary. So not only was He God, but He was also human. If you combine these 2 phrases, it means that Jesus was both 100% God and 100% man. Both his humanity & his divinity were absolutely critical.Next 2 phrases show you why both his humanity & divinity were critical.
V4b-5 Born under law, to redeem those under law. Jesus was under the law, meaning he had to fulfill all of the obligations of the law, just like you and I do. See Jesus acknowledged this reality in Mt. 5:17 where he said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” And by fulfilling the demands of the law, he does just what Paul says here— he redeems those under the law.
Some of you have read the Old Testament and found yourself scratching your head thinking, “What gives with all the sacrificing of animals in the Old Testament?” Well, this should help explain it. See all along the Jews knew that an animal couldn’t pay the wages of their debt that was created for failing to fulfill the obligations of the law. But rather than having their blood spilled, the animal served as a visible reminder that the payment of their debt was being delayed. One day this debt must be paid or redeemed, but to their amazement, God graciously delayed payment, until the fullness of time came and God’s son was born under the law.
Now you can see why it was so important that Jesus was born of a woman—That Jesus was 100% man. Why? B/c only a man can pay man’s debt. An animal won’t cut it. The theological term for this is called federal headship. Jesus, as a man, functioned as our federal head.
Let me explain what this theological term of federal headship means. You live in a federal system of government. As an American, you elect federal representatives to function on your behalf. When you elect them, their actions are binding on you. For example, like it or not, you elected Barrack Obama as your president as an American. This means that he has the power to represent you to other countries. He can sign treaties that are binding on you. As your federal head, he acts on your behalf.
Jesus is federal head: , the Son of God, is born of woman, and as a man, functions as your federal head for all those who have chosen to elect Jesus by faith. He will allow you to stand on your own record under the law if you so chose. Or, on the other hand, if you put your faith in him, he will function as your federal head, meaning that his record under the law becomes your record. His death becomes your death. His righteousness is credited as if it were yours. And in doing so, he was born under law TO REDEEM THOSE UNDER LAW.
And redemption, my friends, is what we are all looking for. I was riding the car a few weeks ago and heard a song on the radio that captured this universal longing that we all have for redemption really well. It was a song by Pat Green called “Wave on Wave.” Listen to it and then I’ll explain it.
Mile upon mile got no direction,
We're all playing the same game.
We're all looking for redemption,
Just afraid to say the name.
So caught up now in pretending,
That what we're seekin' is the truth.
I'm just looking for a happy ending,
All I'm looking for is you.
You came upon me wave on wave,
You're the reason I'm still here, yeah
Am I the one you were sent to save?
You came upon me wave on wave.
In the 1st verse, Pat Green says, “We’re all looking for redemption.” Then in verse 2 he acknowledges we all get caught up seeking things that we pretend are true, that are really going to bring about redemption in our lives. But we try. Some of us seek redemption in religious ways and others in irreligious ways. Religious people seek redemption by trying to impress God. God, I am such a good person that you must redeem me; irreligious people seek redemption not from God but from society. You want your image to be redeemed—you want to be somebody by who you date, marry, the job you have. Pat Green says, “We’re all looking for redemption.” Then, in v3, redemption happens to him—it comes over him, as he says wave on wave. And he asks the question in verse 3, “Am I the one you were sent to save? You came upon me wave on wave.” He reveals after the song is over that he is singing the redemption that his wife brought about in his life. She was sent to save him, to bring redemption into his life.
In the same with us, when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, and I think this metaphor is correct. For those of you who are not yet in relationship with Jesus, listen up. This is how it happens. The redemption of Jesus comes upon you wave on wave.
Much like when you are surfing. Now I admittedly know very little about surfing. I’m a Bama boy, but I am getting into the surf culture out here. I surf on a longboard—some might call it a barge. When I began, I had no idea what a duck dive was to go under the waves, nor did I know how to pull the board to me and roll under the waves. My SoCal friends intentionally withheld these precious gems of surfing instruction just to get a few laughs at Bama boy. So as I paddled out into these ginormous waves, I just got pummeled, wave on wave. I remember thinking, “Nobody said anything about it being hard to get out. I’m dying here.” But then I got out past the break and wave on wave kept coming. And at some point you have to make a decision. I am either going to sit out here all day and just keep trying to balance sitting up on my surfboard or I am going to paddle in with a wave and go for it. Eventually I caught my breath and committed, started paddling, and lo and behold I found myself being caught up into the momentum of the wave. And as tired as I was and as weird as I looked, I think you can call what I did surfing.
That is how I find most people encounter Jesus for the first time. In the fullness of time, God sends his son Jesus to redeem you. And that fullness of time in most people’s lives is when they are exhausted, much like me trying to get outside the break. Life just keeps smacking you in the face, causing you to ask good and hard questions. Your suffering and questioning intellectually and spiritually and wrestling with God or whether you even believe in God and you have a decision to make, much like me sitting on that surfboard. Am I going to trust Jesus or not? That he can help me make sense of life. That He is good and will lead me and redeem me and help me through the tough stuff. And then you decide to trust Him—you put your faith in Him and you find yourself being caught up in the momentum of something greater than yourself. That is Jesus coming on you wave on wave. Redemption occurs and you start riding the wave of His Spirit through life. And then he just keeps doing this over and over and over again throughout your life, wave on wave.
Theologically, The first wave you paddle into is the wave of justification—where Jesus justifies you and redeems you once and for all. Then you keep committing to Him, keep trusting Him, wave on wave in life—these are the waves of sanctification, where He is making you more like Him. Now let’s add one more phrase b/c the next phrase will tell you the benefits of redemption…
V5 that we might receive the full rights of sons. God sent his son to pay the price of redemption so that you could receive the full rights of sons. See the logic here. When Jesus redeems you, then God adopts you. When you are adopted, you have rights as a son. I can’t scratch the surface of the full rights you have as an adopted son or daughter of God, but our text gives us 2 rights of sons, so we’ll look at those.
I don’t think we printed v7 so let’s flash it up, “So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.” As an adopted son, You are an heir to the
But this isn’t all pie in the sky stuff. Your future inheritance as an adopted son or daughter should change your present. Here is why. If you’re going to inherit the whole kingdom in the future, then you need not have it all in the present. See, adoption should free Christians to live radically sacrificial lives because if you are going to get everything in the world one day, then you can do without right now.
The fancy car, the perfect vacation, the primo house—you’ll be inheriting all these and then some in the future kingdom, so you don’t have to make your present life centered on getting them now.
Let me illustrate this with a story from a book that most of you know that I love by now called The Last Lecture Series. In the book, he tells a story about being single, in his thirties, with no kids and being crazy uncle Randy to his sisters 2 kids. He “reveled in being Uncle Randy, the guy who showed up in their lives every month or so to help his niece and nephew look at their world from strange new angles. Once I picked them up in my brand-new Volkswagen Cabrio convertible. “Be careful in Uncle Randy’s new car,” my sister told them. “Wipe your feet before you get in it. Don’t mess anything up. Don’t get it dirty.”
I listened to her, and thought, as only a bachelor uncle can: “That’s just the sort of admonition that sets kids up for failure. Of course they’d eventually get my car dirty. Kids can’t help it.” So I made things easy. While my sister was outlining the rules, I slowly and deliberately opened a can of soda, turned it over, and poured it on the cloth seats in the back of the convertible. My message: People are more important than things. A car, even a pristine gem like my new convertible, was just a thing. As I poured out that Coke, I watched Chris and Laura, mouths open, eyes widening. Here was crazy Uncle Randy completely rejecting adult rules. I ended up being so glad I’d spilled that soda. Because later in the weekend, little Chris got the flu and threw up all over the backseat. He didn’t feel guilty. He was relieved; he had already watched me christen the car. He knew it would be OK.
Randy Pausch was trying to help his niece and nephew see the world from a different angle. So is Jesus. Most of the world lives like slaves to stuff. Jesus doesn’t want us to. He says you’re an heir. In reality, we should be like Pausch. He said people are more important than things. Well, for the Christian, Jesus should be more important than things. Maybe we need to open some sodas in our cars or scratch some furniture to remind us. If our stuff gets broken or taken, it is OK. If we go without, it is OK—I am an adopted heir, and I’ll get it all anyway one day. Relax—the whole kingdom will be yours one day, don’t sweat it if you lack things here or they get taken or broken.
2nd Right: But here is the second right you have as a son or daughter: you have the right to call the God of the universe Da-Da. Look at v6. Blows me away. “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba,” Father.” Abba is an Aramaic word that literally means Da-Da. It is a babies sound—abba, da-da. Da-Da are the first words of an infant. And that is how we are to come to God, as Da-Da.
See this is the way that the Jesus talked to his Father & taught disciples. Every time, with one exception, Jesus prayed, he prayed to his Father, to Abba. When he taught the disciples how to pray he said do it this way. Say, “Our Father.” Friend, this really is the beginning point of any sort of spiritual health in your life--learning to come to God as Daddy. In fact, your just a little infant, who comes boldly and will ask anything and everything of Da-Da.
Some of you are having trouble with this. You struggle in relating to God as a Father, much less as Daddy or Da-Da. Why? B/c your father was a jerk. He abused you or left you and your family. Visits with him are painful. And when you hear that God is a Father, you either consciously or subsconsciously project your father onto God and you just can’t go there.
But I bring gospel good news to you. The God of the Bible is the Father that you have always wanted and he isn’t like the abusive or absent dad you had. See Ps. 68:5 says he is a Father to the fatherless. He won’t be an absentee dad. In Dt. 31:5, Josh. 1:5; Heb. 13:5, He promises to never leave you or forsake you over and
How do I know?I know because of what happened in the garden and on the cross. In the garden, Jesus began to talk to his dad in the way that he normally did. He said in Mk. 14:36, “6"Abba,[e] Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will." Jesus, the Son of God, is coming to Abba, to Da-Da and he asks him to save him from the suffering that he was about to experience. What Dad, if he had the power and authority to stop his sons imminent death wouldn’t do it?
A Dad who is bound himself to your redemption. A Dad who vowed to redeem you and is so committed to redeeming you that he would suffer the death of his own son. This, my friends, is the real wonder of Christmas. That God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law and it cost him everything. You have a choice to make. Do you want to be redeemed? Do you want to become a Son or Daughter of God. Then paddle in to Jesus. You can’t sit on your surfboard forever. For some of you, the fullness of time has come. Trust Jesus.
