One of the strong messages from our text today is that God wants us to be united, to be one as his family. And if you’ve been here the last few weeks, you know that we’re about half way through a series on Galatians, which was a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the churches in Galatia.

Over the past three weeks, we’ve heard about Paul’s deep distress about the Galatians:

• that they were forgetting what he had taught them
• about their only being one gospel
• that they were trying to earn their way to God

They were adding teachings to their faith.

And last week, Mike preached from chapter 3 about God’s promise to Abraham, God’s law (which served as custodian and as a curse), and about the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham which happened with the coming of Christ, who took on that curse so that we would be set free.

So the Apostle Paul keeps warning people that they were falling back into this path of slavery to the law instead of living in freedom that comes from receiving God’s grace. So a big question for us today is “What does it mean to live freely in God’s grace?”

A couple of weeks ago, I was in New Jersey for a family reunion to celebrate my grandma’s 95 th birthday. And we’ve been gathering for many years now. One of the stories we love to tell when we’re together goes back to when I was about 10. My sister, Susan, was 8. My brother, David, was about 6. And our mom thought it would be run to take us into New York City for a day of some sightseeing.

So we took a train to Hoboken, New Jersey and from there we were to take the subway–or the tube–to New York City. So we go underground and mom gets the coins and starts putting them in the turnstile. My brother goes through first and the next thing we know, in his excitement and boundless energy, he hops on that tube.

And my mom sees this, she jumps over the turnstile and she runs up to the tube just as the doors are closing. And with everything that’s in her, she pries open the doors and says,“Get off at the World Trade Center!” And “boom” there goes my brother into New York City.

So, I’m sure in what seemed like an eternity, another train came and we all got on (except for David), and as we were going by each stop my Mom kept saying, “Look for David! Look for David!” She was frantic. And my sister and I kind of looked at each other like,“It’s just David.” And finally when we arrived at the World Trade Center, we got off the tube, and we looked up to see David calmly coming down some stairs. He had been sent to place–a security place-where there were a bunch of monitors so he could see us when we got off the train.

And I don’t remember exactly what my mom said to him, but he got an earful, I’m sure. Something to the effect of “Please, stay with me, where you’re safe.”

So, as I’ve been reading through Galatians and particularly in chapter 4, I get this sense that Paul feels somewhat like my mom was feeling that day. Maybe not quite as frantic, but deeply concerned that these spiritual children have wandered off from the safety of the gospel.

In verse 19 of chapter 4 he says to them, “My little children for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. I wish I were present with you know and could change my tone for I am perplexed about you.” Probably thinking here, “What has gotten into them? Don’t they remember what I’d taught them before?” He’d wanted them to come back to safety and freedom, but they had started wandering off back to these legalistic, religious practices.

And particularly in verse 9, which is the 2nd section of chapter 4, he was concerned about them going back to the weak and beggardly elemental spirits. He says, “How can you be enslaved to them again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years. I’m afraid that my work for you may have been wasted.” Which I’m sure many parents have felt from time-to-time.

Paul is talking here about a calendar system that is being promoted by Jewish authorities which sets up a legalistic structure of religious life. And in the same breath he compares this calendar system to one that pagan’s had used. Now this might seem pretty benign to us, but Paul is actually making a really radical statement here. It’s bold for him to say this, because since he’s a former leader of the Pharisees. He’s making this comparison between a Jewish ritual and a pagan ritual, and law. And Paul is concerned about the churches because he knows that they are on a dead-end road. One which wouldn’t get to the salvation and the life that they desired.

Too much focus on ritual can lead us away from what God wants for us, which is to know God and to be known by God. To be united as His family. For a time, as we learned last week, the law had served as a custodian. As Mike preached last week, the law is also a curse because no one can live up to the law.

So with the coming of Christ, a new era had started. No longer were people slaves to the law but now with faith in Christ we become heirs with God. We live in a new reality. One that’s based on grace.It’s a reality where grace keeps sacrificing. Where grace keeps loving even when we disobey over and over again. And its this love from God that assures us that we belong to Him.

So fast-forward 30 years since my brother has taken that exciting ride into New York City. Now he has 2 young children and my sister has 3 8-year-olds. And now we’re discovering what it’s like to keep children out of harm’s way. And as with most families there is a lot of “Be careful” and “Don’t do that. Let’s do this.”

And those kids right now are at an age where, for the most part, they will follow those instructions. They see their parents as their main authority in life. And part of this obedience comes from not wanting to be disciplined. But a big part of the obedience is that they trust that their parents love them and want what’s best for them. There’s a strong sense of belonging in both directions. The parents are looking out for those who belong to them. And the children know who they ultimately report to. And when the kids fall down, hurt themselves, the first people they cry out for are their parents. And their parents respond to those cries.

The beauty of our life with God is that–as it says in verse 6– "because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, “Abba, Father.”" This is Christ in us, the Holy Spirit, connecting us to God–the One to whom we belong. Rules have their place, but Paul wants Christians in Galatia to get beyond the legalism so that they can experience the intimacy of crying out to God.

Paul’s love and concern for the Galatians reflects God’s love and concern for them. And for us. And Paul points to Jesus as being the person or the way for us to come under one safe authority.

This is possible because, as Paul explains again and again, with the birth of Christ a new reality has set in. At this time, this letter to the Galatians was written, their societies suffered heavily under the strain of divisions...differences in ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender. And these divisions ran deep. There was even a common prayer. I don’t like to say it, “Thank you, Lord, for not making me a gentile, a slave or a woman.” There were some seriously arrogant and destructive attitudes. (You can probably tell what I think about that prayer.)

But it was common. So Paul proclaims to them. And once again he shakes things up...that in Jesus Christ you all are children of God through faith. And as many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There’s no longer slave nor free. There’s no longer male or female. For all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

It’s kind of like an emancipation proclamation for them in that day. We are not to think of ourselves higher or lower than anyone else. We are equal members of God’s family.

This verse has been a hugely significant one for me as I was/am learning...discovering how to live out my faith. I grew up in a church whose theology did not allow women to take on leadership responsibilities. Thankfully in college, I attended a church where there was a woman as a pastor. It was the first time I’d heard a woman participating in a worship service. And something in my soul was set free that day. But I still had a lot of old messages running through my head. So as people encouraged me to think about pursuing ordination, I really wanted to study scripture’s teaching about women’s participation in church family life.

This passage in Galatians captures what I have come to strongly believe is God’s desire for His people. That we recognize that our identity is in Christ and that Christ has ushered in a new era in which he desires that all of us, no matter what our gender, our ethnicity, or socio-economic status. We’re all to serve Him with the gifts that God has given us. God doesn’t want us to be enslaved and held back from realizing our full identity. And baptism marks this new identity.

So how do we get to this place of freedom? In Scripture there are so many references to being in Christ and Christ with us. And we hear this often. But what does it mean?

To me this gets to the heart of what Christianity is to us. Understanding how Christ is in us and we are in Christ helps us move beyond Christianity just being something that we give lip service to becoming something that is integral to our way of life, to our being, to our identity.

It would be easy I think to say that we just start with faith. But how do we get to the place of being able to have faith? The message of Galatians is that faith is our response to God’s grace. It starts with grace. God reaching out to us. It’s about what God has done in and through Christ. It’s about Christ’s amazing life of compassion, teaching, healing, pointing us to the mercy of God, ultimately sacrificing himself to us by carrying the weight of the discipline that we deserve.

I think about the grace that so many parents give their children with the sacrifices that they make. It starts with the feedings in the middle of the night, the diaper changes, making lunches, doing the dishes, washing clothes, making more lunches. Reading books. All this is done out of grace, because the children cannot do it on their own.

When we are infants, we really have no clue how much parents are giving to us. I’d say it was probably not until I went off to college that I started to appreciate how much my parents have done for me. And then there have been markers along life where I can say that my appreciation has grown. Like getting my first full-time job and having to figure out bills and insurance and policies.

And then, when my sister had her triplets, I remember going to help her for several days and right after they’d come home from the hospital. We went through this big, long routine of taking care of these children. And the next morning I woke up and I thought, “They’re still here. We’ve got to do all that again.” So, at that point, I think my appreciation for my parents…what they had done for me, to keep me alive all these years…really grew.

And I can see similarities with my faith journey. Now I was blessed to hear about God right away as early as I can remember. But it wasn’t until I really started getting an understanding of the sacrifices that God had done for me that my faith started maturing.

And interestingly, it seems that our faith often matures most when we go through these the most difficult situations...when we’re at our weakest. We’re not able to earn our way to God. Then God can show us that he indeed does provide and protect.

And you might ask, “How is it that God is providing and protecting us in the midst of the threats of people trying to blow up airplanes and so many communities being at war with each other?"

I turn to a respected theologian, Jurgen Moltmann. He’s from Germany. He’s speaking on the ills of the Vietnam war. He says,

The signs of destruction multiply and our hope must stop being childishly optimistic. It must become mature and firm in the common resistance to the pawns of death. Hope is faithfulness to the resurrection and therefore it is perseverance in the cross.

Paul is certainly trying to help the Galatians mature in their faith. He’s trying to help them resist the things that keep them from nurturing the faith that is in them.

The image in verse 19 really struck me. It’s an image of Christ growing in us, forming in us. Paul says, “My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.” He wants to see Christ formed in these believers.

And in order for Christ to be formed in us, we need to focus on nurturing our relationship with God...which begins by truly receiving the grace that God has offered; the grace that produces faith. And then it continues by spending time listening to and talking to God through:

• prayer
• spending time with God in God’s word
• spending time with God’s people in service

As we live day by day, God calls us to:

• see each other as equal members of his family
• look out for each other
• help each other say out of harm’s way.

Do we have that same desire for God’s people to be nurtured and to become mature as Paul had for the people in Galatia? God calls us to have concern for each other as one family. This is certainly what Jesus wanted for us. If you remember the words from John 17 that Heather read for us earlier, He wants us to be completely one.

So my question to you all is “When people are with us, outside, in our neighborhoods, in our work places will they ask, “What’s gotten into them?” And will they ask us because they see us wandering around kind of stressed out, without joy and direction and peace, or will it be because somehow they can sense that something beautiful is within us...that Christ is within us? Will people be able to see that sense of a freedom that comes from being secure in our identity, that comes from having the spirit of Christ in us and from knowing that we belong to a God who calls us heirs to the kingdom?

What has gotten into us?

Let us pray.