First Sunday after Christmas: Galatians 4:1⁠–⁠7

Has your week been another week of anger boiling up and subsiding again? This could be why you don't have fruit, good things, certain relationships. There is no clique here, except relating on our purpose. We have a clique of dead people.

If you feel deprived of certain things, why? Would your brothers and sisters say of you that you are a sensitive person? Would they say that you are easily offended? Is this a frequent thing for you?

You have been given some realms to be responsible with and you can't run from them.

Rushdoony: Ask people what makes them happy or unhappy? They will say they feel deprived of certain things. It is rare that they would say this problem and the root of his or her unhappiness is sin. They would say that their sensitive needs have not been appreciated. Sinners are indeed a very sensitive people - totally sensitive to their needs, but very insensitive to the requirements of God. Such people are very easily hurt. The least little thing will cause them to blow up, withdraw, and think evil of others. Every frustration of their wishes and to make the desired impression or to be the center of attention will cause them to be offended.

(I want to slow everything down to minister to me, make everybody stop and look at me, I want all the enders of the church to have to think about me and give attention to my needs that were never met)

To see ourselves and our wishes and feelings as the center of the universe is to invite offense.

If you never ask yourself why there are problems and lack of fruit in your life you will never be healed. Some people ask themselves daily, minutely, and putting these things to death in themselves.

Why are you such as special case? Because you never hear what anyone says.

Some people don't like the communal view of their problem, their escalated, subjective problem. Isolation and failure to communicate are known in this world.

Why am I isolated? Why is there around me a continual failure to communicate? Why am I left out of friends?

Rushdooney: People think marriage is to fulfill their needs, not God's. The function of a church is to help people?

1 Cor. 13:11

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

What do you say? How do you understand what is going on? How do you think?

You can have something for your children.

Without some ultimate purpose for a person, what would be the use in living? What would establish moral values, laws and convictions? We have a total fall, not a complete fall.

Galatians 4:1

Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;

Luther's Commentary on Galatians 4:1:

Some young men in here are under mere maids. Is a man doing what he's doing because he's totally into it or because of a mere maid? We are making a video. Is his whole heart in it, or is he under a maid (the young single sisters tell the young men what to do). Is he still doing it because his wife is making Him?

The young son did not stop being the heir, even though he was (still on a trip under tutors and governors). We should look at a Christian as he was brought out of baptism, not as they're born from their parents. This does away with your childhood problem. We're dealing with you as baptized. We want your family to be fulfilled. I'd rather look at you after the baptism. Orual is not looking after the baptism, but after what she thinks she doesn't have.

When you're dealing with Orual on a day-to-day basis, you're really dealing with what she thinks she doesn't have.

Don't you know from preaching the Gospel that there is life after the conviction? Is it such a blow? Would it be the end if others knew you didn't have some aspect of your life together? Some people think it would be the end of their life - this is pride. They'd rather defend and boil up in anger than look at why their life is the way it is and be delivered - be set free.

Galatians 4:19

My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,

Luther: Note Paul's careful choice of words. He does not travail until he forms Christ in you, but until Christ be formed in you. He ascribes more to grace than to his own labours. The woman only carries what is to be formed and to be born. The Christian's life is not his own, it is Christ's who lives in him. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. It is necessary that we be destroyed and formless, in order that Christ may be formed and alone in us.

If you know you're totally depraved (the bondage of the will), so what.

Gal 4:1 - the little boy means unmarriageable.

I am bringing law this week to anything that asked, "Why am I not _____________."

Whoever decides to move and track with this will be very glad.

Galatians 4:3-7

Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: [4] But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, [5] To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. [6] And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. [7] Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

When God sent forth his Son he made me able to stop being a child. Christ has already handled it. Don't be brought down to the level of details, issues, etc. Why are you choosing bondage to the elements of the world? Those details, they ended.

Four reasons you don't prosper: 1) You don't listen to instruction, 2) you have hidden sin, 3) you're lazy, and 4) you're a scorner.

The only answer to your reasons why, outside of the cross, is "it's been done."

Help is available to for weak people. If you're still trying to help yourself you'll drown.

If you go into ultimate despair - we just have a party! Where's Frank today? Oh, he's up in the attic. Where was Frankie when the video shoot was going on? We just have a party with this. When did you get out of bondage? When God sent his son. God has made a decision about you, and this is realized daily. In the midst of all the tumult of the details and reasons - the only answer we have is a baptized answer. You have died and Christ now lives in you. You are a new creation.

The theologian of the Cross knows we do others no good by playing the roll of pious or sentimental optimists.

It's God who makes poor.

1 Samuel 2:7

The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.

Thank God that there is total help available.

Thesis 18: It is certain that a man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ.

His own ability leads him into hell and makes him a poor man. All men are under the power of sin. The cause of ultimate despair is that we are trapped in a false regard for our own works, so much so that we even despair of the grace of God blotting out our failures. In a perverse pride we believe that not even the grace of Christ can blot out our failures. Despair of our own ability is not something we achieve on our own. It is possible only because the grace of Christ has brought new hope.

We do not believe in a partial, incomplete fall.

We believe in a complete fall.

You look at it. You ask why. You reckon with it. Look at it with your friends. There's plenty of help available.

I believe better of you than that's what you're about.

I Cor 10: We are the bread. The blood of Christ flows in and among us. This is good news for sinners. But if you have some other hope - that you were going to do something - that it's just a bad break - it's not good news.

When Christ was sent, it was the end of your bondage.

This is what we preach. We choose to see you in the baptized.

"Why do they always pick on me?" Perhaps because you think you've got an ability of some kind.

Utter despair is the gift of God. It is done to you. Utter despair looks to the grace of Christ, and so leads to Christ.

Slough of Despond: It's the conviction of sin that is making the huge slough. There is a way. Don't go for the smokescreen of despair at conviction. God sent his son. I don't believe your story of ultimate despair. Give me a break! Your problem is that huge?

If there's no speech, no proclamation, then there is unbelief.

Hebrew: Don't tell me you're spiritual and make a rotten pair of shoes. There is no separation there, not by any means.

Some people fight joy. Should joy be held captive to sighs and sorrows?

Sarah & Frank - The Great Divorce

The Hebrew Papers: Child training is not a matter of winning battles, but altering the nature of the child. This is what a father is doing. Hebrew fathers are called to identify themselves is image bearers. Your children are image bearers of God. They are not just allowed to go their own way and decide about themselves.

We don't believe in the weird family - we believe in the baptized family. Perhaps Jesus has come to bring a sword to your family.

Who is marriageable? The one who is speaking - the one who has a word.

There always is a prevailing warfare and that is why we are knit together in sacrificial ways. The incomplete fall: Isn't there something you could be doing? NO! In due time, God sent Christ and I died.

Our life has meaning. For Orual, when God showed up she no longer has questions as to why this, or why that.

He was the answer - everything was answered in Him.

She realized that it wasn't about her; that the purpose of her life wasn't even about her. She was able to leave the purpose of that life, for another one.

Man can only understand about himself only by reference to the sovereign God.

When the more sure word of prophecy is around you, those questions just drop off.

If you’re not giving your children a name, expect them to be sold into Babylon by default.

We're getting deloused of these ways of thinking - the, "Why am I not, or why was I not."

Your children are sharp arrows - but in the hand of a mighty man, not a sensitive little boy, but a mighty man - a man with speech (communicative person - a man in communion).

See that microphone right there, your children may not understand it, but history can pivot right from that microphone.

Sermon Notes -Glenn Martucci - February 3, 2002

(The message with Jennifer's spin on it.)

Orual's story came down to one question: Why am I left out?

Why I am left out of …

Galatians 4:1-3

Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; [2] But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. [3] Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:

Galatians 4:9

But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?

Why do you desire to be in bondage?

Rushdooney: Thus, that which saddens most people is not sin, but failure to realize their sin. "Now that I'm a Christian, why doesn't God give me all the things I want?" Is my definition of my needs is my standard of happiness, whether or not God or man are just?

Some people look for the lowest common denominator - the least common thing to get by.

It's not normal life to live in continual strife and envy.

Galatians 5:16-26

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. [17] For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. [18] But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. [19] Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, [20] Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, [21] Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. [22] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, [23] Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. [24] And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. [25] If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. [26] Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.

If someone's lived is frequently in the lusts of the flesh, will not inherit the Kingdom. These will always be wondering why.

Emulations: (TOTAL DEFENSIVENESS) zelos, Greek 2205, Strong's

zelos, dzay'-los; from Greek 2204 (zeo); properly heat, i.e. (figurative) "zeal" ardour in embracing, pursuing, defending anything

1a2) the fierceness of indignation, punitive zeal