Praying with Paul: Don't Forget
Praying with Paul • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Intro:
26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Tonight, we will continue [Praying with Paul]. The subject of my message is, [Don’t Forget].
Who ever has trouble remembering something?
Life seems that it is busier than ever. With busyness comes a plate that is too full and eventually something slips through the cracks and we forget to do something.
I do not know of ANYONE who remembers EVERYTHING they have to do. So we have to do certain things to remind us.
Doctors offices will call with a reminder of the appointment
Schools will send home letters to parents
Churches will mail newsletters, make bulletins, and post on Facebook
And even though we have this, sometimes we forget. I spoke to someone recently who talked about how they weren’t getting everything done, and I told them, you have to right it down!
If there is something I have to do and I do not write it down, more often than not, I end up forgetting. Writing something down is a good way to ensure we don’t forget. That is as long as we don’t forget where we wrote it down!
One of the reasons Paul wrote to the Galatians to tell them— DON’T FORGET!
They must have had a short memory, because no sooner than he left them in Acts 15, they allowed false teachers to deceive them.
Their problem was they forgot what Paul taught them. These false teachers told them that to really experience salvation they HAD to obey the Law of Moses.
For the Jewish Christian, this didn’t bother them. But the Gentile Christian was informed they had to, in essence, convert to Judaism in order to become a follower of Jesus.
Paul wrote to remind them because of Jesus there is no longer:
Jew or Gentile
slave or free
male or female
We are all ONE in Christ. And now we are heirs of the promises of God.
We should never forget all God has done for us.
If we are not careful, our lives can get so busy that we forget to truly celebrate:
the grace of God
the power of the Spirit
the promises of God
So it is important for us to pray God to remind us. Let’s look at three points we should not forget, [Remember our Condition], [Remember Christ], and Remember our Conversion].
Let’s begin
1. Remember our Condition
1. Remember our Condition
1 Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all,
2 but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.
3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.
What was life like before Jesus saved us?
Who can remember the struggles we faced without Christ?
To describe our condition before Jesus, Paul uses an illustration that would have made sense to them, but it is different from our lifetime.
Almost every culture as a “coming of age” ceremony or time for children. For the Jews, it is at their Bart-mitzvah, where boys become men around the age of twelve or thirteen.
Hispanics have a quinceañera where they celebrate their fifteen-year-old daughters move from girlhood to womanhood.
The Romans also had a “coming of age” event, but it was not at the age of twelve or thirteen like the Jews or Greeks, instead, the dad decided when the son was ready.
Every year, on March 17, they had an event where the father formerly marked their son was grown-up. He would give his son a new toga and they would enter into adulthood.
Here was the problem, they still stayed in the home of their father. Paul references this and asks, how much freedom does this son have?
He is considered an adult, but:
lived in his father’s house
could not make decisions
could not do what he wanted to do
He had been declared free, but in the eyes of Roman law, he was no different than a slave.
Paul reminds them, trying to go back to the Law will only put you back in bondage.
That was our condition before coming to Jesus. We were in bondage, thinking we free, but trapped by the penalty of our sins.
Those in sin are not free.
This is really important to remember. At times it can seem that those who have zero regard for God seem to be happy, fulfilled, and satisfied.
And the enemy will whisper lies that might cause us to think:
they never come to church
they show no evidence of a prayer life
they do not live according to Scripture
And they seem just fine.
When people are bound in sin, there is an internal struggle that no one can see, but they certainly feel. Remember our condition changed forever because we...
2. Remember Christ
2. Remember Christ
4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
The potential condition of every person forever changed when God deemed it the right time to send His Son.
Paul presents the Gospel in a nutshell— Jesus came to set us free.
Something supernatural happened when Jesus came. We know He died for us, but what always amazes me is HOW He came. I have shared these lyrics before, but it summarizes it so well:
He saw me in his likeness.
He saw me just like Him--
Pure, clean, and holy,
Spotless, white within.
But he saw me bound in heavy chains
And longed to set me free.
But He knew that if I became like Him,
He must become like me.
We should never forget the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. He WILLINGLY came to earth, FULLY God and FULLY Man. Why did He do this?
To save us, He came like us, born into a sinful world, but having never sinned.
15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Jesus knows everything we face because He faced it on earth. The difference was, HE NEVER succumbed to temptation. Now, we have confidence in Him as our High Priest who sympathizes with us.
Jesus understand everything we face because He faced it too.
God sent Him to REDEEM us and buy us from slavery so that we can become His children.
Where would be if it wasn’t for Jesus?
Let us never forget!
3. Remember our Conversion
3. Remember our Conversion
6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
7 Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Here is Paul’s progression:
we were bound in sin, with no hope of freedom
Jesus came like us to take on our sins
NOW we are God’s children!
At some point in our lives, God began to convict us of our sins. When we gave into the conviction and submitted to the Lord, He saved us from our sins.
I want us notice what happened at our conversion, God made us His children!
Often, when we hear about salvation, it is placed in light of the hope that we will have in heaven. And let me emphasize, I am thankful for the hope of heaven!
But until we get to heaven, we are sons and daughters of the Lord. God is on our side and He wants to be there as a father helps His child.
What comes along with being a child of God?
11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?
12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
17 ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams.
We are His child, and He will give us everything we need.
When I wrote this, I almost added, everything we need to get through life. But I felt cautioned to stop and rethink that. God’s goal is not just to “get us through” life.
No, from here to there,
God wants us to live under His blessings and His provision. We have all the rights that comes with being His child.
As one song says—
O boundless Love divine! how shall this tongue of mine
To wondering mortals tell the matchless grace divine:
That I, a child of hell, should in His image shine!
The Comforter has come!
Thank God HE saved us, we are converted.
Close:
Don’t forget.
We need to ask God to remind us of all He does for us.
I want us to remember all that God has done for us. While we do not dwell on our past, it does not hurt to remember our condition before Jesus came.
But now, because of Christ, we have been converted and can walk in all God has for us.
We are His sons and daughters.
So let’s remember all God has promised us!
Galatians Sons of God Through Faith / 3:23–4:7
These rights, given to us freely through faith in Christ, include:
• We are no longer debtors, nor cursed (3:13).
• We have received “new life” (2:20).
• We are part of a new family (4:5).
• We have received the Spirit (4:6; 5:25).
• We have experienced a supernatural birth (John 1:12–13; Galatians 4:28–29).
• We have the promise of future resurrection of our bodies (Romans 8:23).
• We have the promise of a place in the future (John 14:2).
• We will be with Christ in eternity (John 14:3).
• We enjoy the same special relationship with God previously limited to Israel (Romans 9:4; Galatians 3:28).
• We receive inestimable riches predestined for us by God through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:5).