God sent forth His Son made of a woman made under the law to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Word. Please be seated. Now, this text here speaks about three things. It speaks about something being revealed and it talks about something being redeemed. It talks about a revelation and a redemption And it talks about something received. A very simple outline here in these two verses. The Bible talks about something being revealed. It's amazing. The Bible is tremendous. It's profound in its uniqueness as a writing. It's God's Word. It's been preserved. But how the Bible can take one verse, like that verse in 1 Timothy 3.16, or take just two like these, or the twelve that we had this morning, and say so much in them. There's so much of what a lot of people would call theology, deep truth, in this passage of Scripture, this short passage here. And I'll read verse 6 also a little later on. But first, let's notice here that the Bible is telling us that something is revealed. Now, let me just say this real quick. As we go into this new year, I want to make the challenge again, be thinking about it. We've still got several days before we go into the new year. But we need to accept the challenge in reading the Word of God. Now, every year there are people that accept the challenge to read their Bible through in a year. Most people do that. It takes about three chapters a day, I think. to read it through in a year, and then we also offer this proposition. Some people read it through in six months. We always have people that do that, read their Bible through in six months. Then some will accept the challenge to do it in three months, and we've had several through the years read the Bible through in one month. There's something about reading the Bible like that and taking in massive portions of Scripture in a short amount of time, a lot of people say, well, if you read the Bible, if you read that much of the Bible that fast, you're not going to get anything out of it. Here's what I found out. People that say things like that and say that if you read that much of the Bible that quickly, you're really not going to get anything out of it. What I found out is those people have never really tried it. Everyone I've asked, have you ever done it? Well, most of them haven't. But those of us who have know that there's great benefit. in reading the Word of God and taking massive doses of it in like that. And when we read the Word of God and we see how wonderful it is, and when we come to the story of the Gospel and the Christmas story here especially, and you can see in these verses the whole Bible. Jesus said, you search the Scripture, you do well, they which testify of Me. He said in the volume of the book, It's revealed of me. And what is revealed here in this verse, in verse 4, what's revealed is a holy child. I wish that God's people could go back and have a revival of understanding of and interest in and aspiration for the holy. Holiness is important, beloved. And the Bible has a lot to say about it. The Bible talks about the beauty of holiness. It talks about worshiping the Lord and the beauty of holiness. It talks about a holy city to which we're all bound. You know, when we get to heaven, we're going to find ourselves in a holy city. Think about that. Think what's entailed in that. A holy city. In fact, we're called a holy people. God's people are. You say, how can that be? There's a lot of God's people that you wouldn't really think of as being holy. But see, God is seeing us for what we really are. Redeemed. But He wants us to be practically holy as well as we've been preaching through Romans 12 and verse 1 and 2 on Wednesday nights. And so here is revealed a holy Son in the fullness of the time was come. See, God had His timing to bring His holy Child into the world. We talked about that timing in the Sunday school class. It wasn't just by accident that the Roman Empire but had straddled the world with its authority and its power and had built that great network of highway and road systems that had never had precedent before. That it wasn't by accident that by Roman decree or in the culture that day at least the Greek language became the language of commerce and everyday conversation. These things were not by accident. There's so many more we talked about this morning. And somebody told me at lunchtime, said, I never thought about all of those things. I thought about some of them, but I never thought about all of these things that came together. at this precise time so that the Gospel could be announced and the Gospel could be propagated like it was, using that communications opportunity and the transportation that came about in that period of time. And for God to reveal His holy Son. At least, that's what He's called in the language of the angel that appeared to Joseph. Remember, Joseph was under a great deal of consternation because his espoused bride, the love of his life, was found to be with child before they were married. It's not hard for us to imagine the things that were going through his mind, the grief, the concern for her. The Bible said he was a just man and he wasn't willing to put her away. And an angel came and spoke to him and said, now all of this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord. by the prophet saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is God with thee." And that holy thing which is conceived is the Son that God has sent into the world. His own Son He sent into the world for our sakes. And the Son was a human child. Not just a holy child, but a human child. And only God Almighty could do something like this. For divinity to enter into this world and be altogether human and yet altogether divine at the same time with this one sole purpose. To redeem mankind from their lost condition. And that, of course, includes us. The Bible says in Hebrews 2, verse 14, says, For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. When Brother Pelican was praying a while ago, he made reference to the fact that God's Son was born in order to die. But not just any death. To die the death of the cross. That's why He came into the world. So we see in verse 4 that this Son that is spoken of here, God sent forth His Son. That means He was a holy Son. And the Bible goes on and says, born of a woman, made under the law, a human son. God's Son. A holy Son. and a human son. And then the Bible goes from telling us what's been revealed here. Emmanuel, God on earth, God was with us. God's Son was revealed from heaven. The Gospel of John says. But also something spoken of as redeemed. In verse 5, he says, to redeem them that were under the law. Verse 4 tells us what God did. And verse 5 tells us why God did this wonderful thing. To redeem them that were under the law. Now what does that mean? To redeem them that were under the law. Well, of course, it's referring to the Jews. They were under the law. And so were the Gentiles under the law of condemnation because of sin. But this redemption that's spoken of here involves this. Jesus came to redeem people who were guilty. A lot of times we hear on the radio and maybe see news clips on television about people they have sent to jail. Maybe they've been in jail for years and sometimes years and years and years. Then they find out through DNA testing or something like that, a witness pops up after years, and they find out this person has been innocent all of the time. But that's a rare thing. Most of the time, people are just as guilty as they can be. And most of the time, at least under our legal system, they're getting far, far less than they deserve, in many cases, for truly heinous crimes. But you know, here's the fact. You and I, all of us, were just as guilty as we could be when we came into this world. We were born in sin. In sin did our mothers conceive us. And we were under the condemnation of death. Guilty. Because of sins and trespasses. And so he came to redeem them that were under the law. Guilty of breaking God's law. One of the most, I think, effectual ways of speaking to a lost person and letting them see. Letting them really recognize that they really are lost. and they're under condemnation, and they're guilty before God, is to show them what James says that if a person's guilty of breaking just one of God's commandments, they're guilty of breaking every one of them. It's just like that illustration of having a chain, maybe with ten links in it. And you're hanging from that chain somehow. And how many links and which links would you have to break in order to break the chain. Well, it wouldn't matter if you broke the first link, or the third link, or the seventh link, or you broke one or two or three of them. All it takes is to break one. Because the Bible says to break one of these laws of God is to be guilty of all. I was talking to my wife about all of this furor now about gun laws, and of course, the liberals and all these, I'll just say it, bad people that want to take away the right of Americans to defend themselves. And there is no, as I heard somebody say, there is no real freedom. It's just fake freedom if people are left without any means of defending themselves. Now, are Christians supposed to defend themselves? There's plenty of Scripture to support that. The Bible says, for example, if a man will not provide for his wife and his children, for his family, he's worse than an infidel. Now, I believe that includes a person protecting the lives of their loved ones and so on and so forth. But the president came out and said he was going to appoint, I suppose he thinks, one of the smartest, wisest men in his administration to come up with a solution. So he appointed Joe Biden. Amen? Well, what would we expect? I mean, if you're thinking in those terms, the wisest and smartest and so on and so forth, and you had that degree of intelligence yourself, you'd probably come up with that selection. My wife said she had a better solution. And that would be to get the Ten Commandments back posted where people can see them everywhere. You know, people are getting to the point where that's another thing they've forgotten there is a Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are as valid today as they ever have been. And our society is on its toboggan slide downward largely because people have forgotten about the laws of God. And it's sad today. I mean, a lot of young people and children, they have no concept that it's wrong to steal. I mean, when you have video games that you're scored on how many people you can gun down at the end of an alley or whatever, and you get points for that, people are not thinking about thou shalt not kill. I think that one of the best things that could possibly be done is to make people more and more conscious that there is a God in heaven, and He has certain laws that are not to be broken. But here's the point. Every one of us have broken God's law. If you're talking to anybody, and I think sometimes lost people still in the back of their mind are thinking, I'm not really that lost. Maybe I'm not included in this. But the Bible says, if you've broken one of God's laws, for example, if you've ever stolen anything, you've broken the commandment that says, Thou shalt not steal. If you've ever even thought about murdering somebody, Jesus elaborated on it in the Sermon on the Mount. He said if you even have the thought in the eyes of God, you're guilty of murder. The Bible says if you covet, if you've ever coveted anything, have you ever done any one of those things? Taken anything that didn't belong to you, even if it was somebody's pencil? Have you ever broken any of those? Have you ever coveted anything? Have you ever told a lie? Did you ever tell one lie? Of course, everybody has. Somebody says, well, not me. Well, there you just did it. Then you're guilty of all of these laws. And the bottom line is you need a Savior. You need salvation. In 1 John 3 and 4, the Bible says, Whosoever committeth sin transgresses also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. In Romans 3 and in verse 23, the Bible says, "...for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Galatians 3 and 24 really nails this down. The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Nobody is saved by keeping the law. But people are made to understand that they need to be saved because they haven't kept the law perfectly. Now, so to redeem them that were guilty, and also to redeem them that are going to hell. There's another thing that's getting lost in teaching and I think in preaching and in people's consciousness. Not just for lost people, but for saved people too. There really is a hell. Amen? There is a hell and people are going there who aren't saved. One of my prayers is that this year God will do more for us than He's ever done in the history of our church in terms of giving us a heavy burden to win lost people. There's a lot of things we might be able to trim up and get out of our consciousness and not be preoccupied with maybe so that we can focus more this year on winning lost people to Christ. Let's move on real quick. Something received. Something received. Something revealed. God's holy Son. His humanity. Something redeemed. He redeemed them that were under the law. And then, something received. And look what's received in verse 5. This is truly beautiful. It says, "...redeemed them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons." The adoption of sons. That word adoption comes from a Greek word, the word thesia in Greek which means placing and the word hyos which means son. It means placing. That word adoption means placing a son. Because regardless of what the politically correct world says, we're not all God's children. We're not born. as God's sons. But here's what happens. Adoption is something that places us into a family. And you know what we all need as we come into this world? We need to be in God's family. But nobody's in it until they're saved. But when we are saved, we're placed into God's family. Everybody that's saved is in God's family. Every single person, doesn't matter if they're in church, out of church, been baptized, haven't been, whatever, they're in God's family. There's a lot of people in the world, the majority of them, I believe it's the majority, that need to be placed in God's family. One time I read or heard a story about, I've heard several stories about children in orphanages, and some of them would be in there a long time, and for whatever reason, they'd always be passed over, and they'd get to be a little older. And, of course, when people would come to pick out children, normally they'll want to get the youngest they can, babies as possible, and kids will get passed over. And in this story, this little nine-year-old boy was in an orphanage, and he took him on a field trip, took the kids on a field trip. He got to talking to a man who lived across the street from the park that happened to be over there, and they were talking. He said, that's where I live, that's my house. And that boy said, I would love to be your little boy. He said, I'd like to live in that house and sit down at your table and play in that yard. He said, I'd give anything if I could. And the man said, you'd give anything? He said, I would. He said, how much money do you have? He reached in his pocket and pulled out a diamond, three pennies, and he said, I have 13 cents. He said, if you'll give me that 13 cents, I'll see if I can adopt you into my family. You know what God did? He gave His Son so that we could be part of His family. part of his household and go home with him to live forever someday. Here's the great part. The Bible is so thorough and just so it's such a little passage of scripture. The Bible is teaching us here not only about adoption in verse 5, but it says in verse 6 that we'll be aware of it. Look at verse 6. We not only receive adoption when we get saved, but we receive an awareness of that. I don't know how many people I've talked to in my Christian life and asked if they were saved, and how many of them have said, I really don't know. Or they'll say, I think I am, or I'm not sure. But the Bible teaches that if we've really been saved, we'll know it. We'll be aware of it. In verse 6, and because we are sons, and I want to qualify what I just said for the sake of anybody, people can get so backslidden, so confused by their own backslidden condition that the devil can plant in their mind that perhaps you're not saved. And the Holy Spirit's voice of witness can be lessened. But the fact of the matter is here in the Bible, the Bible says in verse 6, "...and because you are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." So we have the witness of the Spirit with our spirit that we are the sons of God. It's a free gift. Last night we exchanged some gifts at our house. And I won't tell you exactly what I got, but it had my name on it. And I have it. And sometime in the next few weeks I'll load up some of them. But I know that it's mine. I have a tie. I have several ties in my closet that were given to me as gifts. And I know that they were mine. And you know, none of them came with a bill. They were all free. And there's no question in my mind that I received them as free gifts. And that's the way salvation is. The gift of God is eternal life. How about that gift? The gift of God. You don't have to work for that, but you do have to receive it. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And it's not only free, but it's something that's going to last forever. I've never had anything given to me that's going to last forever that I could hang in my closet or put in a bureau drawer or anything like that. But salvation is not only a free gift, it's a forever gift. And I just think a person would have to be suffering from the insanity of sin if they've not been saved to honor God as they've never been able to do it before in their life by stepping out publicly and saying, I want to receive God's Son as my own personal Savior and trust in what God said that His gift of salvation to me is free. And it's eternal. It's forever. Because Jesus said, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Let's all stand together.