Preacher: Rev. Joel Beyer
Series: Lectionary Series C
Category: Fathers, Freedom, Grace
Keywords: adoption , baptism , father , father's day , pedagogue , shoes
Detail:
Galatians 3:23-4:7
Man do I love it, but NOTHING prepared me for fatherhood. Before I had kids I could barely make my dog sit, let alone raise a human child. And now that I’m 4 years in, I’ve definitely learned a few things, but I still find myself scratching my head at times as to how to best discipline my kids. And more often than not I find that when I threaten punishment, I realize that it's going to make things more difficult for me. For example, my son has gotten into this habit lately of taking his shoes off every time he gets into the car and so as we were going to the store this week, I hear that familiar sound of Velcro ripping apart and so I said in my most serious voice, “If you take your shoes off, you’re not going to be able to wear them in the store!” And he just looked at me with a smile, like really? Thanks! And then I realized that means I’m just going to have to carry him all the way through the store. I’m punishing myself! On this Father’s Day, I realize that all I really want is to be a good dad. One that helps my children know that they are secure and loved, no matter what they do. One that gives them good things to prepare them for the future. One that lets them know that I will do everything in my power to make everything OKAY. Any good dad wants that, especially one who knows who our God is. Because that's who our God is for us, he’s a good dad.
This is exactly what Paul was promoting to the Galatians in our reading today. The question for the Galatian church at this time was “what kind of a Father is God?” Does he just give and give without expecting anything in return? Is there something you’ve got to do once you’re saved by Jesus to prove you’re really saved? In Galatia, this group of Jews who had turned Christian called Judaizers were arguing that yes, Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead to give us eternal life, and if you believe in Him you will be saved, BUT! That’s not quite enough. They wanted to take Jesus and grace, but sprinkle in a little Jewish OT ceremonial law. They insisted: You have to be circumcised! You have to observe the OT festivals and rituals. No more bacon! We do tend to do the same thing. We say you’ve got to be a good person, lead a respectable life, and live out your faith in a way others can see it. We may believe Jesus gets you most of the way, but you’ve got to get the rest of the way yourself. To the Judaizers and to us, Paul says no! And thank God because I love bacon. In fact, Paul says, if you believe that you are loved by God for any other reason than because Christ Jesus died and rose for you, then you are actually living in slavery. Galatians 3:23-26 — Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. The word that Paul uses there for guardian is the Greek word, Pedagogue, and you might recognize that word as someone who is a teacher or a tutor, but in Paul’s day, Pedagogues were much more than teachers. They were servants of a house who followed children everywhere they went, yes teaching them about the world and tutoring them in their studies, but more so, they were the disciplinarians until the child reached a certain age. Their job was to show the child what they were doing wrong. That’s what the law does for us. It shows us that we are sinful and point to our need for a Savior. We can’t obey the law enough for God to love us for it. It's impossible. It only condemns.
But in Christ Jesus, we're no longer under the law. He says in Galatians 3:25 — But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. In other words, if your relationship with God has anything to do with something you have to do for Him, you’re not living as a child of God, you’re working for God. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d like working for God. Maybe I’m in the wrong profession. I have a feeling I wouldn’t live up to his standards. No, I know I don’t live up to His standards. None of us do.
That’s why its good news that God’s not our boss or our pedagogue, but our Father. And we are his children. And we are his children because of Jesus. Galatians 4:4 — “ But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons .” Jesus was perfectly obedient to the law in our place, even to the point of dying on the cross for us. And because of Jesus’s sacrifice, God has redeemed you from having to earn your place in His family. In Christ, God has revealed what true faith is! It’s not doing anything. It is being adopted into God’s family through Jesus!
That’s what happened to little Adam this morning. He had no idea what was happening, but God adopted him and now he is clothed in Jesus for him as well. Paul says, Galatians 3:27 — For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Baptism is what delivers Jesus to us and brings us unto God’s family. I like to imagine it like this: In baptism, we’re the little kids who put on Dad’s shoes and walk around wearing them. My kids do this all the time. You know how cute that is? Well to God, it’s not just cute, it’s real. In baptism, we put on Jesus’ clothes and our Father looks at us and says, “You’re just like Jesus! You’re my perfect son, my lovely daughter!”
There’s this cool perk of being God’s child: He's made you an heir of all that is His. You get eternal life with Him forever. And you get His love today. You get his promise that no matter what is going on around you, no matter how hard and confusing this life is, everything is going to be okay. A couple of years ago, a friend of Kristen and mine, adopted a child from the Ukraine. The living conditions in orphanages over there are terrible. Children are mistreated and malnourished and die in orphanages all the time. And so they prayed about it, and took 6 weeks to go over there and legally adopt a little girl. They realized it would be tough for her to adapt to a new language and culture, but what they didn’t anticipate is how hard it would be for her to be able to trust her new mom and dad. In the orphanage, she had learned how to cope with loneliness by hitting herself in the head and grabbing her throat. And even when she got home, she would push her new parents away so that she could hit herself. It wasn’t until months later that she cried for the first time. And to her mom, I imagine that cry was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard, because it meant that her daughter wanted her, and trusted her to comfort her.
In some way that’s your story and mine as well. We have been adopted by God, but we often push Him away when things in life get hard or confusing for us. But the more time you spend in the family of Christ, the more you realize you can trust your Heavenly Father and that is He is the one that is holding onto You. In fact, Paul writes in Galatians 4:6 — And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “ Abba! Father!” Even when you don’t have the strength to cry for Him, He does it for you. He reaches out with Jesus. He has baptized you and brought you into His family. He gives you His actual Presence in the Lord’s Supper to fill you with His grace and acceptance. He reminds you that though you don’t always live like His child, because of Christ, He loves you like a perfect child, and he promises that one day soon, everything will be OKAY.
That’s the kind of Dad I want to be for my children. Not only so that they know that I love them, but so that they know that their Heavenly Father does. Scott Keith, professor at Concordia University in Irvine, in his book, Being Dad , proposes that God designed fatherhood to be a picture of His love and grace in the family. He says typically fathers see themselves as the bicep of the family carrying out the punishment, or they're the bumbling idiots that can’t seem to do anything right, so they disengage. But what God intended for fathers is to bring magic to the home. And by that he means rules are important, and natural consequences should follow broken rules, but a dad’s main role is to be Jesus in the home. Before you walk around calling yourself Jesus, being Jesus means giving your children what they don’t deserve. Not only handing out forgiveness when they do something bad, that’s mercy, and providing for their basic needs, but intentionally going an extra step to show that they have your complete love.
Whether you’re a dad or a mom, a son or a daughter, an uncle or an aunt, you can make some magic for someone in your life too. You won’t always be good at it, but every day is a new day. My advice is simply to enjoy the people God has given to you to love. When your kid throws your tools in the toilet and say, um, I think something is stuck in the toilet, laugh and give them a high five, tell them never to do that again, and thank God for them. When your teen stays out too late, and end up in all kinds of trouble so that that you can’t even bring yourself to look at them, walk into their room and give them a hug and remind them that God still loves them, and so do you. Because He absolutely does. And He loves you too. Happy Father’s Day. Amen.
