Episode Transcript
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If you would please to remain standing
and let's hear God's Word from Glacians,
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glacians chapter four, glacians for verse
four and Verse Five. But when the
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fullness of time had come, God
sent forth his son, born of a
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woman under the law, to redeem
those who were under the law, so
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that we might receive adoption as sons. You may be seated for the next
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few sermons. From now until the
end of the month, I'm going to
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be preaching a small topical series called
the incarnation and why it matters. And
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then I'm dividing that into a few
parts. This morning considering when. So
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sort of when, the when of
the incarnation and why that matters, and
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then tonight the where, then why, and then how. But today the
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the, the when, and I
want to draw your attention particularly to the
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very first phrase in Verse Four.
But when the fullness of time had come,
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when the fullness of time had come, when the fullness of time had
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come, God did something. He
sent forth his son, born of a
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woman, born under the law.
This is what he did, and he
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did it for a purpose, to
redeem those who are under the law,
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so that we might receive adoption as
sons. Each one of these clauses,
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each one of these phrases in this
these two verses, deserves a lot of
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attention and thoughtfulness. We need to
make sure that we understand them. I'm
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in many of them are immediately obvious. A God sent forth his son,
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whom we know to be Jesus Christ, the son of God eternal and God
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himself. And this son of God, the second person of the Trinity,
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was born of a woman, we
know her name, Mary of Virgin,
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who conceived by the Holy Spirit and
brought forth the son of God. He
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was not just born of a woman
and born as a man. That's what
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we mean by incarnation, that God
took on flesh, but he was born
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under a certain legal status. He
was born under the law. This means
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that, just like each and every
one of you, Jesus Christ was accountable.
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He sort of switched sides of the
Covenant. As God, he rightfully
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makes the Covenant, he proclaims the
laws, he says this you will do,
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but as man he goes on the
other side of that, and that
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he's obligated to obey, even as
we are. He was born under the
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law. The purpose is mentioned in
verse five to Redeem those who were under
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the law, that's us, to
come in and to pay the debt that
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we owed, so that we might
not be cursed and children of Wrath,
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but instead be adopted as sons.
God sent his son into the world,
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in other words, to take us
out of one family and make us a
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part of another, to take us
out of the family of the devil.
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We're called children of Wrath, children
of the evil one, in our sinful
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nature, and that's because this is
who we follow before God saves us.
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This is to whom we often give
our llegiance and and and walk in his
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ways. But when God sends his
son, he brings us out of that
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old family, a sinful family,
a family that's full of wretchedness and curse
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and disobedience, and he makes us
a part of the family of God,
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not merely created by him, but
recreated by him, given new life and
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eternal life and to receive the rightful
promises that come to those who are adopted
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in inheritance that Jesus learns for us
that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading.
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God gives to us the privileges of
being his child, the right to call
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on him, the right to know
him, the right to ask him for
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things and find help for find help
from him. God protects us, provides
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for us, takes care of us, and all of this through the work
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of Jesus. But all of this
work that he did, the way in
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which he was born, the the
law under which he was born, the
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work that he was striving for,
happened at a particular time. That's how
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this starts. There's a when to
the incarnation, Paul says, when the
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fullness of time had come. There's
two ways we can answer the question about
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when Jesus was born. The first
way is according to dating. Most likely
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de Jesus was born around for BC
or three BC. That might sound a
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little odd given our dating system,
but you'll have to go read some dictionary
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articles or something like that to know
why that is. But he was born
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at a particular time. That's the
most important thing to say. Jesus is
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not a imagine unitive character in the
story of our culture through which we understand
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things. He's a real person.
He had a particular nose, a particular
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shape to his shoulders, a particular
gate to his walk. He was born
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in a particular way and in a
particular time. Christianity is a historical religion.
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It depends very much on these facts
of history, and so that means
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that Jesus isn't just an idea that
we aspire to, a morality that we
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hope for or strive in, but
he's a person and he was born.
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That means he has a birthday.
When that when he was born, we
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know, even if we're not insure
of the exact date, we know several
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things about that time. We know
that Herod was King, we know that
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Rome was in power, we know
that the Lord had sent his anointed one,
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Jesus, into the world under a
particular set of circumstances. When you
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were born, you were born under
a particular set of circumstances. Maybe you
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know the hospital where you were born, maybe you know the city in which
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you were born or who was president
at that time. All that, at
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the same and UN is true for
Jesus as well. Why is that important?
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Well, in addition to marking the
point that Christianity is a historical religion,
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it's a it's a faith based in
facts, it's also important because it
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reminds us that everything that God was
doing was falling out according to his will.
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and His providence. Jesus was born
at the exact time that he was
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and there were a lot of other
things happening at that exact time so that
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God would do his will. In
other words, when Jesus was born,
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Mary was there and Joseph and Herod
and John and Elizabeth and the disciples.
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There were people who were contracting diseases
that Jesus would later heal. There was
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suffering that was going on right at
the moment that he was born that he
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would later, in his ministry,
come into contact with. There were witnesses
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that Jesus didn't yet know that he
would meet later on. You can,
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as you think about each and each
and every person and individual and animal and
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storm and all that happens in the
gospels, and remember that those were all
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happening in a particular time and in
a particular way. It's a great encouragement.
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Jesus didn't come into the world randomly. He came when he came because
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God sent him so that he could
encounter the people that he would encounter so
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that he could do the work that
he would do. All of this according
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to God's Great Providence. We know
this not just because this is how God
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always works and how God does all
things, but also because, also because
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there were prophecies concerning Jesus's birth,
there were things in the past that preticted
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his birth in the future. This
means that God is in control of these
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things and as a wonderful reminder to
us, when we think about God and
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his work in the world, the
way he's weaving together this tapestry of grace
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out of all of these individual moments, these people and places and times,
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it helps us to remember that God
is in control. Things were not great
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when Jesus was born. Ever since
Adam fell and sin came into the world,
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things have never been just swimmingly and
wonderful and perfect. Glory was lost.
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But despite that, God continues to
work in the world, and that
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means that every year, every month, every day, every hour, every
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second of our lives is important to
God. It's being used by God and
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being woven together perfectly according to his
will. There were many people who are
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waiting for the Messiah to come,
waiting for the birth of this child.
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Indeed, God had promised to some
that they would be able to see this
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happened before their lives had ended.
We find ourselves in our lives here and
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now waiting for things as well,
and in the reminder of the particularness of
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the of the when of Jesus's birth, it reminds us that we can be
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that we are safe in the various
wends of God's will. We don't know
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them, but we can wait on
him. Maybe you are waiting for something,
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a job to change, a friend
to have, a child to grow,
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a debt to be paid, a
disease to be healed, a relationship
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to be restored. We find ourselves
frustrated in the waiting, difficulty in the
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patience. But when we think about
God and his work in the world,
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particularly as it's all concentrating in the
work of the Sun, who comes to
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save us, to restore us to
Elis, to bring all things together,
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you can know that God is in
control and that it's a good thing that
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is. Sovereignty extends to the Wends
of history and the various wends of our
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individual lives, and that is a
great blessing. So that's one way that
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we can answer when Jesus was born
on a particular day in history. But
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there's another way that we can answer
it and that's this phrase that Paul uses
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here in Galatians, for in the
fullness of time. What a wonderful phrase.
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Sort of hard to wrap your mind
around it a little bit. What
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does that mean? The fullness of
time? I think this phrase pushes against
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or I wouldn't set let me change
that. It doesn't push against, but
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it adds another layer of understanding to
the way we think about time. Sometimes
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we think about time is like a
tape measure you and with you you mark
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various points along that line. We
call them timelines. Even right there's this
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and then there's in this and then
this. Viewed negatively, some people describe
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this as well. One Damn thing
after another, one cursed thing, one
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terrible thing, one just after another. Boom boom, boom, boom boom.
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Is Very linear progression of things,
and you might think of those as
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bad, as in that example,
or as good, as faded or as
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not, as just this sort of
continuous stream. Well, we know from
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the birth of Jesus that it it's
not one damn thing after another, but
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that God inserts into the world these
moments of grace, of blessing, of
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revelation, in which he takes the
damned things of this world and makes them
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blessed in which he takes the broken
things and makes them together, he takes
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the cursed things and makes them whole. God is in control of these things.
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But it's not just linear. The
fullness of time suggests another metaphor.
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Maybe you might think of that.
I just forgot what they're called, those
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sand things that you turn upside down
our glass, thank you. Think of
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an hour glass and our glass isn't. Isn't a linear kind of thing.
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It has a fullness to it right
it? I guess it runs the other
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way, but it has a sense
of being complete or not complete, of
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filling up. The time is filling
up. Time is not measured so much
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in a linear way, but in
terms of volume. This means that Jesus
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came, that there's a completion two
things. It's not just a line extending
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forever and ever, but there's a
there are time is to be measured in
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a sense of of beginnings and ends
and even completion. Jesus came for the
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end, the completion of things,
the fulfillment of promises. The incarnation then
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has to be understood not just as
a another dot on the timeline then,
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but as a big dot. Maybe, if you're making a timeline or in
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the fullness of things, as things
were coming to an end, Jesus came.
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Minutes, seconds, days, these
are measured not just in particular points
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but in terms of what's going on
in the world. There's a kind of
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importance in these things, and the
importance of them is measured by Jesus.
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Jesus is not just a fact of
history, he is the fact of history.
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When Jesus comes and when Jesus was
born, he came at this moment.
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It was the fullness of time because, because he was coming, this
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is what God had planned. This
is how things where centralized. Time is
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organized, organized not just by the
sun rotating around the earth, it's organized
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theologically as well by the Sun.
So son, the son of God,
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gives meaning to our time. When
the fullness of time came, then God
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sent forth his son. This reminds
us that God is not just in control
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over all these things, but he's
in control of them in a particular way.
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He has a goal in mind,
a destiny, a purpose, and
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it's all found in Jesus. This
means that our time has a certain character
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to it. If God has sent
his son into the world, who has
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been born of a woman and under
the law, to redeem those who are
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under the law, and we know
from other parts of scripture that that period
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of redemption will one day come to
an end and the sun will come again
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at the completion, in the consummation
of this work to judge the world.
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Then that means, brothers and sisters
and listeners, that there is a kind
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of urgency to this time. When
the our glass is running out of sand
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and you're playing a game, what
do you do? You say hurry up,
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hurry up, give your answer.
Or if you're working on a project
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and you turn your our glass over, you know you've got thirty minutes to
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complete it. You there's an urgency
to that as you see the sands of
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time slipping away. There's an urgency
that Paul tells us and is assumed here
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and is explicitly stated another passages,
the fullness as time has come. We
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can't wait anymore. There's no more
waiting for the Messiah, for he has
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come. Jesus offers to each and
every one of you grace here and now,
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in this time, in this moment. Some people presume on this and
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say we live all the time in
the world. They think it's just one
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point after another, going on forever
and ever in either direction. Who knows?
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It doesn't matter. But in the
fullness of time Jesus came. That
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tells us that we can't think about
things like that. This moment happened at
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history and it happened at the end. It happened and at the completing time
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we are on the threshold of entering
into something we cannot wait, and Jesus
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reminds us of this various times throughout
his ministry. He describes a kind of
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urgency, a preparedness that's required.
And people of the world, not only
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is there an urgency to trusting in
him, believing in him, coming to
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faith in him so that we can
become the children of God, but also
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means that there should be a priority
to this. And something happens in your
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life, or something is going to
happen in your life at a particular time
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and it's of its momentous, do
you ignore it? You say, well,
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don't need to worry about it?
Does it not take any kind of
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priority? Of course it does.
If you are a good husband and you
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know your anniversary is coming up,
this is a momentous thing and you prepare
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for this, you get ready for
this. If you know that you are
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your job is coming to an end
and you need another one, you prepare
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for this. You get ready for
it. And if we know that,
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not just at a moment in time, but in the fullness of time,
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Jesus has come, are you not
going to give some priority to that?
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Are you not going to say,
well, this is something I need to
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pay attention to. It must be
faith in Jesus, in the one who's
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come. Trusting on him and believing
on him has urgency and priority because of
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the when of the incarnation, the
fullness of time. I want to mention
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one last thing as we close.
The fact that Jesus came in the fullness
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of time affects this urgency I mentioned. There's a priority to the way we
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live, but there's also something else. It also means that we can live
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in the world in a way that's
restful. When God created the world,
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he created the world in six days
and then he rested, that rest showing
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the consummation of his work, the
sort of fullness of days and of his
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work had been done, and then
he entered in to that rest. There's
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a parallel there with what Jesus has
done. Jesus has come to bring us
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into that rest. He's completed the
work of creation, not just in the
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world but on the Cross, on
the cross Jesus died for all those whom
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the father had given them given him. He brought us into a communion with
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him. He finished this work,
he rose from the dead, he sat
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down at the father's right hand so
that he could rule and reign over his
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kingdom. Now this rest is not
yet final, it's not yet consummated.
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There are remains a sabbath rest for
the people of God, their remains arrest
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and which we will enter and finally
see all things in subjection to him.
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But even now, knowing that Jesus
has come, knowing that King Jesus has
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come in the fullness of time,
that he did the work that he came
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to do, that he now sits
at the father's right hand ruling over us,
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it means that we can rest.
It means that our lives are no
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longer need to be characterized by toiling
and striving after the things of this world,
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but we can rest in the grace
of God. It means that we
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no longer have to strive after righteousness
that will somehow please him or appease him,
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but it means that we can trust
in Jesus, knowing that he has
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accomplished things for us. Might think
of it this way. If you are
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someone, let's say you are in
need of being adopted, and a family
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promises to bring you into a home
someday, and let's say you're in this
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orphanage in you're waiting and you're waiting
and you're waiting for that time when,
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some day, someone will come and
take you out and bring you home.
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This has happened for us. Jesus
has come, he's taken us out,
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he's brought us home, and so
we can rest. We can rest knowing
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that God is our father and he's
taking care of us and he's watching over
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us. We can rest knowing that
we belong to his household, that he
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is guiding US and leading us.
We can rest knowing that we're no longer
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apart from him, but that we
belong to him as sons and daughters of
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God. When you think about the
when of the incarnation, think about God's
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work in history, not only that
it happens and falls out according to his
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perfect plan, but is that his
perfect plan involves this great act of grace
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in the coming of Jesus Christ,
and knowing that it's in the fullness of
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time, let your lives be lived
out in response to that, in faith
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and rust and trust in Jesus.
Let us pray
