Sermon by Pastor Robert Green, 1st Sunday after Christmas, 1/1/17, No. 1228, Ascension Evangelical Lutheran Church, Harrisburg, PA, W.E.L.S., based on Galatians 4:4-7

Because of Christmas you cry out “Abba, Father” to God Most Holy!

How was your Christmas? Was it a wonderful time of year for you? How many times this Christmas did you hear the Christmas song "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," made popular by Andy Williams?The song proports to celebrate activities many associate with Christmas such as parties with friends and families, Christmas gaiety, telling scary ghost stories (a tradition from Victorian England fallen into disuse), sledding and kissing under the mistletoe, but not a word about the birth of the world’s Savior. This song reflects how much of the world celebrates a Christ-less Christmas. It is easy to get so caught up in the commercialism and worldly view of Christmas that if you fail to have the usual Christmas customs you have somehow missed out on Christmas. But you never will miss out on the wonder of Christmas if you remember that because of Christmas you cry out “Abba, Father” to God Most Holy!

The apostle Paul captured the meaning of Christmas in the reading for today.Follow Paul’s line of thinking which centers on the gospel message of salvation by faith alone. Paul wrote this letter because some false teachers from Jerusalem had gone to the churches in Galatia teaching that salvation is not depended on faith in Christ alone by claiming one had to keep certain aspects of the law to be saved. The fallacy of this teaching is that claiming one merely must keep just some aspects of the law falls far short of God demand that all of his law must be kept perfectly. If you think you must save yourself by observing the Law, then you are really rejecting Christ as the complete Savior. That is not saving faith

To drive home the fallacy of this teaching, Paul warned in this letter “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” 11 Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.” The righteous live by faith in the sense that before faith in the Savior the soul is dead in sin, but when brought to faith the soul is born again and is spiritually alive. The unbeliever, being spiritually dead, can do nothing to please God, for it can keep not one of his laws. Thus, Paul said, “But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. 23 Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.”

Then in the reading, Paul shows how faith in Jesus as the Christ was revealed at his birth, saying, “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law…” What a wealth of deep divine thought is behind these words. These words take us back to the fall into sin by Adam and Eve when God first revealed his plan of salvation. Recall that before the fall into sin God announced the penalty of sin would be death. This would be both the physical death, which came to Adam and Eve many years later, and the spiritual death which happened at the moment they first sinned.

God did not leave Adam and Eve to face death, which is eternal, but revealed his plan of salvation by declaring to Satan, Genesis 3:15 (NIV84), “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” This is the first promise of the Savior to come. A single male offspring of Eve would come and crush the head of Satan, the very picture of destroying Satan and his work to separate man from God through sin. That promise was given around four thousand years before the birth of Jesus.

God waited until he was ready to fulfill that promise. As Paul says in the reading,“But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law…” Take to heart that God sent his Son to us, he did not accidently appear. The word in the Greek for “to send” is the verb form of the word “apostle.” To be an apostle means to be sent on a specific mission. God sent his Son to be born of a woman to fulfill all prophesy and to be born under the law to save us.

The Savior was no mere male offspring of Eve, for he was and is God’s one and only Son. God connects the Christmas birth to the first promise given to Adam and Eve by telling us his Son was born of a woman. To assure us he was no mere man, but God’s Son, God tells us Jesus was born of a virgin, by the Holy Spirit overshadowing her. Being born of a woman assures us that Jesus was truly one of us, a true human being.

That is important for as Paul says, the Savior “born of a woman” was born under the law. Jesus as a true man was under God’s law, as is every soul. Jesus born under the law was obligated, as all souls are, to keep the law of God to be the perfect sacrifice for all sin. He also had to be born under the law so that he could keep the law perfectly for us, for through faith God credits all who believe believers with the perfect righteousness of Christ. This makes all who believe pure and holy in God’s eyes. Thus because of Christmas we all cry out “Abba, Father” to God Most Holy!

To drive home the purpose for which God sent his Son to us, God he sent Jesus “to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” To redeem means to pay the price of freedom as in freeing someone from slavery. We were born slaves to sin for we were born spiritually dead, having inherited the sinful nature from Adam. That is why David says in Psalm 51:5 (NIV84) “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”Every soul is born under the law, therefore God sent Jesus to redeem every soul. That includes you, your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, and even your enemies. In the dark hours of the night when your sins and guilt drive sleep away, you remember that God sent his Son to redeem you by paying the price of your sin.

God sent his Son to redeem us “that we might receive the full rights of sons.” God is speaking about the full rights of his children. Take note that our rights before God as believing sons and daughters is not half-hearted or incomplete, for Jesus won for us on the Cross the “full rights as sons.” There nothing lacking in that statement. It means all believers enjoy the change of status from being cursed before God to be being his dear children! Take to heart this means because of Christmas we all cry out “Abba, Father” to God Most Holy!

To drive home our adoption as sons and daughters, God inspired Paul to tell us, “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” There is a wonderful cause and effect here that proves our salvation is real. God says, “because you are sons,” leaving no possibility that we might not be. Take to heart that God has declared that no sinner can come into his presence and live, but because Jesus came and redeemed us, God sends his Spirit into our hearts. What a most intimate way of assuring us that we are indeed saved! Because the Spirit is in our hearts he calls or cries out “Abba, Father.”

Paul puts the same thought this way in Romans 8 “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” The Spirit calls out from our hearts that we are children of God and therefore we are no longer slaves to the fear of God’s wrath for we have received the spirit of sonship. In this sonship, our adoption as God’s children, we cry also cry out “Abba, Father.”

“Abba, Father”is a phrase that means, among other things, that the Father of the universe is my Father. It is because of this that Jesus tells us to offer the Lord’s Prayer which begins with “our Father who art in heaven.”Take to heart Luther explanation of these words in his Small Catechism, which says, “With these words God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear father.”

Paul tells us in Romans 8 the Holy Spirit“helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”The Spirit helps us in the weakness of faith by crying out from within “Abba, Father”reminding usthat the Father of the universe is our dear Father and so we have nothing to fear from him!

Paul concludes saying, “So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.” Could God make it any clearer that Jesus won your salvation than to declare you an heir of heaven? As Paul expands that thought telling us in Romans “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”In those times when you struggle with the thought of God’s love and forgiveness, in times of doubt, remember that because of Christmas we all cry out “Abba, Father” to God Most Holy for you an heir of heaven and so will sharing in Christ’s glory!

Dear believer, to be sure Christmas is indeed a most wonderful time of year, so wonderful that if you go to no Christmas party, participate in no Christmas gaiety, receive or give not a single present, you still have great reason to celebrate, for it is because of Christmas we all cry out “Abba, Father” to God Most Holy!Therefore, every day warm your heart by crying out “Abba, Father” knowing and believing that the God of the universe is your dear Father forevermore! To God be all glory, amen!