You're listening to the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. It's fast on the free daily deep dive Bible. And right now we're talking about Galatians.
SPEAKER_00Hey my friends, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible Hour Podcast. And yesterday we were talking about one of those real long eye contact conversations that you have with a dad or mom or a mentor, somebody who really knows you and understands who you are and what makes you tick and what your values are and what your destiny is and where you've been. And it goes all the way down to the level of your identity, and they're like, this is who you are. You need to be reminded. Remember who you are. And usually those kind of conversations are going to come with two parts. One is incredibly uplifting and tender as a way to help you get your compass straightened out again and to remember your identity. But another movement within such a conversation will usually include some kind of correction. There is usually a reason the conversation is happening. And a lot of times the sense of who we are in our identity is a little screwy. That'll manifest in ways that, you know, things will happen in our lives that aren't in keeping with who we are. And likewise, here in Galatians chapter four, we've gone through really difficult theological sledding, as Paul, acting as a spiritual father, has made us sit our butt in a seat and listen to a reminder of who God is and who we are in that, and we've earned it. It has not been easy to get to this point of declaration of identity. This is not some cheap you guys are great. Say it with me. I'm great. Say it. That's fake. We all know it's fake. This is real. This is earned. This is actual. And there are two movements woven throughout what Paul is doing here. One is a tender reminder of who we are as daughters and sons of the king if we're in Christ. And the other is corrective. And today we pivot toward that more tender part of the corrective conversation. You know the rhythms of these things. You screw something up, mom and dad sit you down. They're like, what are you doing? How this this is wrong. This is why it's wrong. You know it's wrong. That's the hot part of the conversation. We got that at the beginning of Galatians. Then it goes into the slow work up to reminding you of who you are. And that's what we just got done with in Galatians. Then it gets to the tender part with two hands, one on each shoulder, craning the neck down to get eye contact. Hey, kiddo, listen to me. Remember who you are. You are this and this and this. You're my daughter. Remember that. But then usually there's another movement to the conversation. Which is and that's why what happened out there today, it doesn't make sense. That's not you. That has no place. That's not a part of where you're going. And now we get that in Galatians 4 8. I'll back it up a little bit to Galatians 4 6, just to give it the whole context. Because you're sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. The Spirit who calls out Abba, Father. Hmm, I can't help but make the note I'm going to make the note here. Abba, that is Aramaic. It's one of the little places where that language that everybody spoke in Jesus' world at this time, all of it was the lingua franca of that part of the world, Jesus and his disciples, they probably just chatted it up in Aramaic. That's a little glimpse into the language that Jesus spoke, that Jesus probably usually taught and communicated in. And here it's a very tender word for father. I don't even like to say it. I'm not gonna say it. No, I'm not gonna do it. For the longest time, for decades growing up, whenever this was taught in a church or whatever, they'd be like, Abba literally means and they'd give you kind of like a tender term for a dad, not just like father, yes, father, yes, sir, but like a dad, someone who you're close with and who has tenderness with you. But I'm so sick, like I just don't like the way it sounds. I don't know, it hasn't aged. Well, I don't know, I'm not gonna use that same old trope. Rather, let's just say that it's familiar, it's tender, it's dad. It's a term of intimacy and trust and proximity and closeness is really a very beautiful thing. And it's not cheap. The fact that somebody could say this to God the Father is wild. I mean, this is the God the Father. Oh, dang it, I can tell right now, we're not even gonna get to what I set up. This just happens sometimes. Dang it! So what? We're doing it. This is shocking. This turn of a phrase right here is shocking because of the way the ancient household worked, because of how powerful dads were as heads of households. They were noblemen. If you had a house and multiple generations living there, you were at least a low ranking nobleman as the head of that household, like a mayor of a small town, practically. You were a person of esteem, a person to be feared. There were servants and slaves in that household. Slavery was a little different animal than it was in the last couple hundred years in my country. It ranged from pretty bad in the Roman world to something that looked more like long-term employee attached to a household who's held in very high regard and well taken care of. But those are still servants, still even slaves. And if people start getting mouthy and too familiar with the head of a household, everything comes unraveled. You can't just go charging up to him and be too familiar, then everybody starts mouthing off, and it's nothing but work, work, work all the time. There's a degree of esteem and formality for this role. So much more so if the father we're talking about is the God who made all things. It seems like he should be so distant. It seems like if he occupies the Ark of the Covenant or the temple and you touch it or approach it wrong, you should die from exposure to glory and holiness. He's clean, we're unclean. There's a veil that separates the two of us, a chasm of separation. You can't be too familiar with God. That doesn't work. Those are the ground rules for pretty much the whole Old Testament. I mean, there's moments of tenderness with God in the Old Testament for sure, but the operating procedures of the people coming out of the books of Exodus and Leviticus, this is them. Take it seriously. He's a big deal. But here, Paul is saying that the proximity is real, the familiarity of using a term like Abba for this great God is at your disposal. You can do that. You can approach him that way. A couple weeks ago I hearkened back to Luke 15 and the ultra-famous parable of the prodigal son. There's a moment in that story too that runs parallel or that illustrates this idea of calling God Abba. Remember, the young man went and blew all of his dad's inheritance and basically said, I want you to be dead, give me your money now. I wish you just won't hurry up and die, and the father gives it to him. The kid goes and lives like an idiot, and finally he decides he's going to go back and beg his dad to make him a servant or a slave in his household. And while the kid is still a long ways off, the dad who's been waiting up for him for who knows how long, sees him, and with no concern for his own dignity, he gets up and runs to go and meet his son on the road. Not a big deal to you and me, that's the kind of scene you can picture from a movie Robert Redford or something, the tender music swells when you tear up, and we can imagine that scene because it's a modern cultural convention. Back then it's not how things worked. That father was behaving in a surprising way. That he ran to meet the kid was a twist. That twist carries through here in the simple language of Abba and Father. That's a twist. Maybe a very fortunate favored son or daughter of a powerful man might get to have that kind of relationship one day with their dad. But most people, even an unfavored son or daughter, no, forget it. That's not how it works. But Jesus in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, and Paul over here in Galatians, and he says the same thing in Romans 8, is saying, You're not adopted back to a place of neutrality. You weren't made sons and daughters, and like now you were an enemy of the household or like an underling and undesirable, and now you're neutral. You have favored status as a son, as a daughter, as an heir, robed both in the prodigal son in Luke 15 and here in Galatians, robed in the noble attire of the father, the head of the household. You have clothed yourselves with Christ. Kill the fat and calf, get the fanciest robe and put it on my son here, get the ring on his finger. Much like the story of Esther, it is a complete reversal from slave to heir, a complete reversal from feeling estranged from the father, from the king, to being able to call him something intimate and tender, like Abba. And again we were back to the surprising and remarkable tone of yesterday and the fatherly conversation here from Paul to his people, where Paul's saying, You're sons, and God sent the spirit of his son into your heart, and that's the spirit that calls out Abba Father, that's who you are now, and that is a gift of God. That's all there, it's implicit there in that verse. So you're no longer a slave, but a son. And since you're a son, God has made you also an heir. There's a confidence that Paul is trying to impart to the reader that goes beyond just legal obligation. He has to give you stuff or he'll lose face. It goes beyond any obligation, it's better than obligation, it's better than wages, it's better than something earned what you have with this father you can call Abba. You're an heir. He loves you. He wants you here. He went out and earned it so you could be here. So Paul is saying, lean into it. You're an heir to the king, a son, a daughter of the king. Think like it, prioritize like it. See the world through these lenses. Think about the past through these lenses. Think about the future through these lenses. Think about the people around you through these lenses. Think about the unfolding of history and your role in it through these lenses. And think about who you are and your identity through these lenses. I promised you that we were going to pivot today to the part where the hand goes back on the shoulder and he's like, hey, kiddo, come on. In light of that, in light of who you are, we got to do this. You gotta get this right. You're straying here. We didn't quite get to it, but we will tomorrow, and that's the beauty of this format. And we just keep going, keep going, keep going. Final thought. My dad was an ABBA father to me. I hope I've been that to my kids. I saw my grandparents model that as well. I bet a lot of you have that in your life, one direction, the other, both, whatever. I know some of you don't have that in your life, and we probably don't know each other in real life, so it might be hard to just take my word for it. But I'm still gonna say this anyway. This is real. It's not a consolation prize. This Abba Father thing with God, the true father, the true heavenly father, it's it's not a consolation prize. It's real. It's the truest, realist expression of this thing. And it is for you, regardless of how things went with your dad. Okay, that's plenty for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.