July
1, 2007 Galatians 3:26-29
26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,
27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with
Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for
you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are
Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Only Christ Overcomes
Inferiority
An “inferiority complex” is defined
as “a persistent sense of inadequacy or a tendency to self‑diminishment,
sometimes resulting in excessive aggressiveness through overcompensation.” All of us have feelings of inferiority to
some extent for differing reasons. Here’s a few different examples -
Now, some of these things are simply
uncontrollable. The father who doesn’t
recognize the son might just happen to be a real close minded jerk who thinks
about nobody but himself. Perhaps there
was nothing the son could do about it.
When you don’t get hired for a job, maybe it’s because you aren’t the
best person for the job. But some of
these things we can control as well. The
young girl shouldn’t base her beauty on what kind of clothes she is
wearing. As long as the man is working
hard to provide for his family, why should he feel like less of a man if his
wife makes more than him or not? Where
does God’s Word say that?
One problem that we have in life is
that God makes us differently, and our sinful nature doesn’t like it. With the result of sin in the world we also
sometimes face some real physical hurdles that do make us inferior to
others. Perhaps a girl grows up loving
to play football. Yet her culture tells
her that she shouldn’t like tackling people.
Her body also was not made to compete with the physical nature of the
boys - and as she grows older it becomes evident. Or perhaps think of a young man who had
always planned to be a pilot in the Air Force ever since
he was a little boy. Unfortunately, his
hand eye coordination and his brain capacity didn’t match up to the others
training to be pilots - so his dreams were smashed. It wasn’t that they didn’t try. It wasn’t that they were lazy. It was just due to the simple fact that in
that aspect of life by the way they were made they were inferior. It was a hard lesson in reality when they
failed, and it made them feel lousy about themselves. In reality, there was nothing they could do
about it.
Even within the confines of God’s
Word there are things that make people feel inferior as well. Imagine, for instance, living under the Old
Testament regulations as a Gentile or a female Jew or a slave. Females were never allowed in the priesthood
and neither were Gentiles. Gentiles were
not allowed into the main area of the temple that I know of. Although they could be known as proselytes
and could practice many of the aspects of religion - there were some laws that
never allowed them to do much more.
Slaves didn’t have the freedoms or the status of citizens of
Even in the New Testament there are
still laws that make distinctions between men and women. The Apostle Paul tells us that by the order
of creation a man is to be head over the woman in marriage. (Ephesians 5:22-23) He also says that a woman is not to teach
God’s Word in an authoritative manner over a man. (1 Timothy 2:12) He
says that not just any man can be a pastor, but only one who is
self-controlled, not given to drunkenness, able to teach, and that he cannot
have a shady past that sticks to him.
This rules out many men who may want to be pastors but do not have these
qualifications. So
when God’s Law makes distinctions between gender, race, and ability - it also
tends to make people feel inferior - even though in many cases there is nothing
they can do about the situation.
Women can’t choose to be men - or at least they’re not supposed to be
able to. Sometimes these laws make
people feel inferior, even though they shouldn’t.
If you really take the law to it’s deepest sense - it just flat out condemns everyone and
makes everyone feel inferior.
Notice that God’s Word makes no distinction
between Jew, Gentile, young or old, good or bad - they are all described as
evil and worthless sinners. We are all
described as objects of wrath under the control of Satan - even infants in the
womb!
When you are stuck on the bottom end
of the deal where you are not “allowed” to be or do
what you wanted to do - people usually get pretty angry at this. The natural response is to get angry at God
and call him racist or blood thirsty.
Some call the Apostle Paul a bigot.
They yell at God and say, “that’s not fair! How can that be!” With anger they claim that they will not and
cannot believe in the God of the Bible.
Others try a less confrontational
approach under the confines of Christianity.
When they feel inferior because of what the law calls them or tells them
they can’t do, they try to explain God’s Word away and wash it down - claiming
that infants really aren’t that sinful and people aren’t really that bad or
that God really isn’t that demanding or angry.
Basically they ignore the law.
In an outright contradiction to
God’s Word people are told by Robert Schuller and
Joel Osteen that they have the power to do anything that they want to do - that
all they need do is simply choose the right path - or like the “Secret” -
simply wish it and desire it and think about it - and it will come to be. Some take it to an even greater degree. In an outright contradiction to the law they
claim that sex outside of marriage is good and fine and all good. With a liberal approach to Scriptures women
are allowed to pastor men in spite of what Paul says by inspiration of the Holy
Spirit. It is watered down by saying
these are all just cultural commands and not eternal commands of God. Some are even told to embrace blatant sin and
celebrate it and openly practice it - calling it a “natural” way of living the
way “God made me.” Again, they have a
hard time getting around what is very clear in the Word of God and the
directions for the Christian congregations even in the New Testament. In the end, all of this is a direct denial
of God’s Word - often done in order to counter the feelings of restriction,
guilt and inferiority that the law usually brings with it.
The situation that Paul was dealing
with is somewhat different than what we are dealing with in our culture -
because the laws that were dragging the Galatians down were in fact supposed to
be extinct in the temporal sense of the Word.
These ceremonial laws were given specifically to the Jews to distinguish
them as a people until the promise of the Savior came. Once Christ came, these laws were fulfilled
and were not required to be obeyed. Paul
wrote to the Colossians in 2:16‑17, “Therefore
do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a
religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow
of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.” By trying to reintroduce these laws of what
they were supposed to eat and circumcision - the Galatians were all being led
to believe they really weren’t children of God.
The laws I spoke of earlier - that make so many of us feel inferior
because of our own sinful desires or gender or even our mere humanness are not
extinct. They still apply to us
today. Yet Paul’s approach to solving
the inferiority complex can basically be applied in the same way. Instead of denying the law or trying to shove
it in the closet or reinterpret it, Paul tried a completely different
approach. He directed their eyes to a
completely different relationship and family that had nothing to do with race,
gender, or social status. He points the
Galatians to their relationship with God through the eyes of faith.
Even though there were undoubtedly
slaves and Greeks among the people he was writing to, he wrote to them, “you are all sons of God through faith in
Christ Jesus.” Instead of making a
distinction between Gentile proselytes or what tribe they were descended from
according to the Old Testament Law, Paul pointed them completely outside of
themselves and declared that all of them - Jew AND Gentile - were sons of God
through FAITH in Christ. You see, faith
in Christ does not base it’s righteousness on it’s
skin color or social status. When you
have faith IN CHRIST - you only look at who Jesus is and what Jesus did. When you see that He - God’s Son - came to
this world and lived and died for the sins of the world - your faith only looks
to HIS LIFE and SACRIFICE for it’s salvation. It’s like walking into a movie theater. They don’t care what you look like, what you
smell like, or how tall or short you are.
All they care about is the ticket.
Jesus has provided the golden ticket to heaven by conquering Satan and
dying on the cross - be punished under God’s wrath instead of us. Faith holds onto that Ticket and relies
solely on Christ for entry into heaven.
Like Peter first walking out of the boat - faith focuses neither on the
wind or the waves or the nature of water - but only on the resurrected Savior
who says to us, “come.” Just as the
promise behind the brazen serpent in the desert made no distinction between who
was looking to it but healed ALL who looked in faith - both young and old, so
ALL those who look to the Son receive the same forgiveness and status as “sons of God,” no matter who they are or
where they come from.
Think about that wonderful status of
a “son.” When kids grow up, they often
times wish that their parents had a bigger home or played with them more or
talked with them more. Even as grown ups
we sadly tend to remember the bad things and inefficiencies of our parents and
our family -
and wish that they could have grown up in a different household. Through faith God transfers us into HIS home
and calls us HIS children and treats us like it. We are no longer sons of the devil - but now
sons of GOD - the loving and merciful and forgiving God. It is quite a statement that many of the Jews
never would have imagined - that anyone from any race would have the status of
son. A son is an actual part of the
family. He gets to live in the home -
not in the slave quarters. He has direct
access to the father, gets to ride in the same vehicles with him, and gets to
eat at the same table. He doesn’t just
get the scraps, he gets full access to the full
meal. Every night the father tucks him
into bed. Every day he can talk to his
father. Compared to any other household
- this is like living in heaven itself - eeven if some of the children have
seemingly more gifts or privileges than we do.
This is what Paul said to all of the Galatians - “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” It’s not a matter of how good of a person you
are. You don’t have to meet a certain
number of requirements and live up to a certain status to be called a son. This status is given to you through faith -
through grasping on to Christ and calling Him “my Savior and my
righteousness.”
This is a hard thing to believe -
for we look at ourselves and what the laws of the Bible tell us and feel so
unworthy to be called “sons of God.” We
see our many shortcomings under the law - we look at how we still tend to lust
or get angry or be greedy and selfish, and we wonder whether we really are
children of God. We hear the
distinctions that God’s law makes when it comes to offices and placements in
life - and we wonder whether God really does love us. So Paul adds another promise and illustration
in vs 27, “for
all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves
with Christ.” Isn’t this just the
most wonderful promise you can imagine?
In the parable of the Prodigal Son - after all of the terrible things
the son does - when he comes back to the Father in repentance the first thing
the Father does is to “bring the best
robe and put it on him.” (Luke
15:22) Instead of even treating his son like a slave, he treats him like a king
and clothes him in the best robe - covering up the filth and the dirty clothes
he was wearing from feeding the pigs and living with them.
This is what Paul says
happened to us when we were baptized. No
matter how filthy our sins are, no matter how far we went astray, no matter
what our calling in life, we are given the righteous clothes of Christ to cover
our sins. If I had a terrible scar on my
chest - you would have no idea because I am wearing this gown. In the same way - no matter how terrible our
sins are - no matter how many weaknesses we have - they are covered with the
righteousness of Christ through baptism.
Unlike the undergarments that some Mormons are required to wear which
are sweaty and stained, these garments weigh nothing. They do not grow old. They do not lose their fashion. They cannot be seen or smelled by us. Yet in God’s eyes - this blood and
righteousness of Christ covers us from head to do from our baptism to our death
as long as we remain in the faith. They
continually make us look beautiful and perfect in God’s sight. This is God’s gospel promise to us - that no
matter what our background or our gender or our job - when we are baptized into
Christ we are all covered in the same Christ and in the same
righteousness. The
same God who died and rose from the dead covers each and every one of us
through faith and baptism. This
is why God’s Word also says in Mark 16, “whoever
believes and is baptized will be saved.”
When you look at life this way, it
keeps us from focusing on the distinctions that we make in life. There
is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one
in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are
Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. When it comes to your
salvation it doesn’t make a hill of beans worth of difference whether you are a
doctor or a janitor, a man or a woman, an African or an American or an
African-American. You all look the same
in his eyes. You look like Christ, you
look like Christ, you look like Christ, and you look like Christ. We are all covered in the same blood and
righteousness - no matter who we are or where we come from - no matter how
sinful we have been or how much we progress in our lives of
sanctification. Might I compare it to a
school that requires it’s children to wear the same
uniforms? Whereas some kids don’t like
the uniforms - it is actually relieving to most. You don’t have to worry about what clothes to
pick out for the child. The children
don’t have to worry about looking less fashionable. They can all just relax knowing they are
wearing the same clothes as the next boy or girl. So also the righteous robe of Christ unites
all of you and declares you all to be descendants of Abraham - spiritually - when you have the same
faith in the same Savior and the same baptism.
Whether you were dunked, sprinkled, or poured in the name of the Triune
God by a Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran or Baptist - you all received the same
Christ. Whether you are a female, male,
husband, wife, pastor, teacher or lay member, somewhat lazy, hyper, work for
Wal-Mart or K-Mart - this Gospel promise in Christ makes all of us equal heirs
through faith - no matter how strong or weak that faith may be or how strong or
weak your Christian life may be. No
matter how prestigious or rich or poor you are in this world - you all get to
receive the inheritance of heaven. This
is God’s promise to all of you who are in Christ.
Each and every one of us are born
with inadequacies - things that make us feel inferior and unworthy to be called
children of God or loved by God or anyone else.
Sometimes those inadequacies just come about because of the weaknesses
we have been born with. Others they are
magnified by the law and our own violations of it. Playing on these feelings, the Galatians were
being told by false teachers what they could do to be “real children of God”
and really be “saved.”
Instead of working out some seven
step system to self esteem or by just telling the people to ignore that Old
Testament law, Paul takes a different approach.
He eradicates feelings of inferiority by prominently and forcefully
pronouncing the power of the Gospel of Christ through faith and baptism. In the midst of all of the distinctions that
we have in life, only Christ wipes out guilt and feelings of inferiority and
covers you in righteousness through faith.
The natural question people have
then is, “does that mean we don’t have to obey the law? Does that mean that we can ignore the
law? Yes, we’re saved by Christ , but . . . .”
So many questions to answer. So much fear of the Gospel - as if it were
going to make blatant sinners out of all of us!
We have two more weeks that our sermons will be based on readings from
the book of Galatians. These readings
will address those concerns - trust me.
But for today, like a lazy Sunday afternoon on the front porch with a
cup of cold lemonade in our hands, let’s just relax in this glorious clothing
of Christ and enjoy the righteousness we have through faith and baptism and
enjoy the Son Shine. What a beautiful
picture it is. Amen.