Help for The Helpless

Transcription

1 Help for The Helpless Colorado Family trip and skiing incident. Pictures scroll. Girls, Kids, Kids 2, Mountain, Deer, Ski Slope, Ski lift, Slope, Signs, First Aid I felt helpless. As a father, I felt powerless to do anything to change the situation. Helpless people need help Have you ever felt helpless? - Relationally; marriage, friendship, family member - Financially; too much month and not enough money, bills, debt - Emotionally; tough year, lost someone you loved, family member, friend, spouse - Spiritually; The Bible speaks of our helplessness, our inability to help or save ourselves. It is referred to as the human condition. Paul; Saul of Tarsus Pharisee (Religious leader) Best training/education (Jewish Rabbi Gamaliel) Strictly obeyed the 613 Jewish Laws Believed that Christianity was a danger to Judaism Permission to capture Christians & put them in jail On the way to Damascus (Acts 9) had an encounter w/jesus that changed his life. Switched Teams and became a follower of Jesus! Romans 3:10 12a As the Scriptures say, No one is righteous not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away. The Bible s standard of human righteousness is God s own perfection in every attribute, every attitude, every behavior, and every word. Romans 3:23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God s glorious standard. The bad news is that true and perfect righteousness is not possible for man to attain on his own; the standard is simply too high.

2 I ve never met a single person who has claimed to be perfect. I don t measure up to my own expectations, much less God s perfect standard. Neither do you. We ve all blown it. Ephesians 2:1 Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. Dead not sick. Sick people can: sleep, take vitamin C, Drink lots of clear fluids, eat grandma s chicken noodle soup. They can be a part of the healing process. Dead means completely powerless to do anything. Powerless to get to God Powerless to experience forgiveness Powerless to overcome temptation Maybe you feel that way today. I want to take you to a passage of Scripture where the Apostle Paul gives us his version of the Christmas story. Unlike the Gospel writers who told the story from the perspective of those who were there, Paul is writing 55 years after the event. 20 years after the crucifixion. Enough time has elapsed that it was dawning on the Christian community exactly what had transpired. Nobody denies Paul wrote Galatians or the date (AD 53). So in this passage he is basically is looking back on the birth of Jesus, looking back on the life of Jesus, the death and the resurrection of Jesus, and now he s looking at that and he s giving us his version of the Christmas story. And I believe that this passage it is so incredible and right where a lot of us are living today. As we go through this together you may even find yourself thinking Yeah, that s me. That is so how I feel or close to exactly what I am going through. So, let me jump into this passage. Here s the Apostle Paul and he s speaking to primarily a Roman & Greek audience, not a Jewish audience, around Galatia. Galatians 4:4 But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. - Jews had been waiting for centuries for the promised Messiah - Old Religions were dying; philosophies of the day were empty/powerless t change lives - Religious bankruptcy & spiritual hunger were everywhere

3 - Romans had built roads connecting cities to make travel easier - They protected the citizens - Romans controlled the seas so people could travel from port to port - They finally had a common language, which was Greek to share the Good News - God knew exactly the right time for Jesus to come to our world God sent his son Helpless people need help and Help for the helpless comes to us in a person Jesus. Help for the spiritually helpless doesn t come in a formula, or trying harder or attempting to muster up more will power. When we are spiritually dead, helpless and powerless that doesn t work. Help comes in a person, Jesus Christ, who God sent to helpless, powerless people like you and me. We were spiritually dead, helpless to change ourselves & powerless to fight temptation on our own. God sent his son, Jesus to us b/c we were powerless to get to him or even reach out for him. That is the Christmas story. Born of a woman shows his humanity. He experienced everything we deal with. Subject to the Law Jesus was subject to the Jewish Law so he can identify w/those under the law. Galatians 4:5 God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. The O.T. law was put in to place to remind the people (and us) that we are not perfect, that we need forgiveness of our sins and that ultimately we need a Savior. All throughout the Scripture we re presented with this idea that God has a law and we ve all broken it that we re not very good law keepers. And in fact, the truth is we don t even keep our own laws very well, do we? We all know there s a speed limit, and yet we ve all broken that law, and sometimes you look in the rearview mirror and there s somebody to remind you that you ve broken the law.

4 God is just. God wants to be fair. When somebody breaks a law, there must be a penalty for it. When you break man s laws, you pay man s penalty. When you break God s laws, you pay God s penalties. Scripture teaches us that when we ve broken the law of God, when we ve sinned, we are powerless to pay God back. And Romans 6:23 reminds us that the wages (penalty) of sin is death. That s a problem. This is what got people so excited then and still does today; So even though we were lawbreakers, when Jesus came and died on the cross it was the payment for the sin that we had committed. That debt we owed to God, that we were helpless to pay back, he paid with his death on the cross. That s probably not new news for some of you. For others it may very well be but it s only the beginning. It leaves God as judge and leaves us as forgiven. Not a bad place to be but Paul says this is just the warm up. Because when God sent his Son into the world, born of a woman, born under the law to buy freedom for those under the law, there was an even more significant purpose than simply saying to you and to me, Okay, you re forgiven. He said it was even deeper than that. And Paul reaches into his own culture in a way that we can t fully appreciate, and he looks for the word picture, the metaphor, the idea that really describes the significance of what happened when Jesus came into this world to redeem those of us who were under the law. And here s what he says: God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. In other words it s not enough from God s perspective that you and I are forgiven, that our debt is paid. Paul understood that God was saying I want more than that. I want a relationship with you. God was saying I can forgive someone and never have a relationship with you. A judge can look at you over the bench and say, You know what, you are guilty, but I m going to give you another chance. You are free to go. And you can never have a relationship with the judge. Paul said that as I look at the birth of Jesus, as I reflect over the life of Jesus, the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, as I spend time with those that spent time with him, I ve come to discover that it s more than simply forgiveness.

5 God wanted something more. He wanted to adopt us into his family and have a relationship with us. Share about adoption in the Roman culture versus adoption in our culture. We adopt cute, cuddly babies. You may be thinking yeah but I m not an innocent little baby. I m all grown up. Roman culture: No one adopted babies. No one adopted toddlers. They didn t know how they were going to turn out (and they often died young). In the Roman world people adopted adults. Rich people and wealthy and powerful people adopted adults as children and here s why, and this may give you some ideas: Because the rich and powerful looked at their own children and thought, No way I m leaving my stuff to them. The rich and the powerful looked at their own spoiled children and thought, There is no way they can be trusted with my titles, with my land, with my wealth. And if they had political influence, if they were senators or governors they looked at their own children and thought, they can t be trusted. And so it was very, very common in the Roman world you never adopted a baby, almost never adopted a child you adopted adults. Julius Caesar in his will adopted his great nephew, Octavian who received all his wealth, power and his position. Octavian became, Caesar Augustus who was the emperor when Jesus Christ was born. Caesar Augustus, as he got older and older he looked around he had a daughter; he couldn t leave everything to her so he adopted a young man named Tiberius. The point is this: When Paul wrote this, and his adult and teenage and senior audience read this word, this meant something significant. Here s what it meant: It meant that God looked at us as adults with all of our faults and all of our failure and with all of our sin, knowing that in the Roman world no one would adopt us. We re not worth adopting by anyone of great means. We re not worth being adopted by someone who is an emperor. We re not worth being adopted by somebody who has great political aspirations for us. We fall short of that. But even when we were helpless, powerless in our sin, Jesus came to us to buy us back and offer us true forgiveness. If you have accepted that offer then God, knowing everything you have done or will do; knowing every law you and I have broken or will break decided to adopt us into his family. And if you re not a believer, the offer is open and on the table to you, not simply to be forgiven by God, not simply to have things made right with God, but to be adopted into the family of God. No matter what you ve done, are presently doing or will do.

6 I m telling you, as the Galatians read this and as they wrote this down, as they passed this letter around, this was staggering. Galatians 4:6 And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, Abba, Father. This is amazing! Because God has adopted us we have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God living in us and that is what connects us, relationally to Him! God s Spirit has moved in to your heart and his Spirit invites us to call him, Abba, Father. Abba is an Aramaic term that means daddy. There is no word for daddy in the Greek language. So when they translated the N.T. in Greek they left it in there. However the term Abba is a word whose meaning carries extraordinary intimacy. In this intimate tender moment; Dad, don t let this happen to me. Daddy let this cup pass from me. If there s any way dad, let this cup pass from me. And his disciples for the first time heard him address God the Father in with this term Abba. And the Apostle Paul, writing twenty years after the crucifixion, he says to his audience, his Greek and Roman audience, non-jewish audience, to us, he says that the Spirit of God has inhabited you and you now can relate to God not as simply forgiver, not as simply judge, not as simply okay, things are okay, don t do that again not as simply master, but Father, and not just Father Abba, Father. Because if you are a Christian, this is the level of intimacy that you have been invited into with your heavenly Father Abba, Daddy. And then Paul thinks about all this, he finishes up his version of the Christmas story with this; Galatians 4:7 Now you are no longer a slave but God s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir. A slave relationship is all about following what you re told, about following the rules. Paul is saying that we are no longer slaves, we no longer relate to God in that way. It s no longer about the law b/c your freedom from the law has already been purchased! In any language or any prayers or any attitude you have toward God that reflects slavery or dictator or judge, he is inviting you to move past that. Christmas is about moving past that. You are God s children, and have been invited to follow the example of your Savior and address your heavenly Father as... Dad, Daddy, Abba, Father. Accept God s offer and accept your great worth.

7 The French poet who penned the words to the song we now sing, O Holy Night, got it right. We looked at this first line last week. He wrote Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till he appeared, and you ve sung this next line a thousand times, but maybe for the first time the true significance will dawn on you: and the soul felt its worth. And the soul felt its worth. Father. Adopted. Daddy. Now, I don t know what you think you are worth to God. I don t know how you view God. I don t know how you pray. You may still pray as a slave. You may still pray as a law keeper. You may still pray to a judge. You may still barter with God, You know, God, I did this, this weekend, so I am going to go to church these three weekends. Right? God, when I was sixteen I did this. Now that I am twenty-six, I am going to do this. God, I used some profanity so I am going to pray extra long. If you re still bartering with God, did you know you re still relating to God as a slave? Did you know you re still relating to God as a law keeper and a lawbreaker? Did you know you're still transactional with God? Did you know that s not what Christmas is about? Do you know that God has invited you into something far more powerful, that he s saying, Look, we re done with that? You don t have to come to me that way. You don t have to look at me through the lens of what you ve done or haven t done. You are my child and I am your Abba, Father, and that is the foundation of our relationship. In that Colorado hospital holding her hand. What happened? Did I fall? Was I going to fast? How did I get here? Do you want to know what you re worth to God? You re worth Christmas. You re worth Christmas. You re worth Christmas. Here s what you re worth to God: Galatians 4: 4 5 But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.