next week. I was thinking we should have like a mask burning thing out there, but I'm not sure. You know, we put together these worship services sometimes a month in advance, and as you probably have figured out by looking at the songs that we were singing and what Annie treated us to just a few moments ago, that the theme that we're talking about today is the theme of grace. And I suppose that there would be that subtext that would run through every book of the Bible. Everything that we have talked about in the last 48 weeks would touch on the idea of grace, the undeserved merit of Almighty God. However, today, I'm going to take a little bit of a different approach, understanding, of course, that grace is absolutely the subtext. But I want to focus in on something just a little bit different in this particular message. Throughout history, there have always been historical, cultural, and literary anomalies. What many, if not most, might refer to as coincidences. Acts of people or nature apparently randomly scattered and yet coming together without maybe a visible cause to create an event. John, what are you talking about? Glad you asked. Let me give you a couple of illustrations. George Washington, in a daring move, born of desperation, the fate of the colonel of a nation in the balance, took a small band of troops into a pre-dawn Christmas day supposedly surprise engagement with a very much larger, far better trained, and far better equipped regular British army. Unbeknownst to General Washington, Tory sympathizers had passed on this intelligence to Cornwallis, who was the British general, and he was fully prepared for Washington's surprise attack. But in an historical anomaly, a small band of settlers, by all accounts unknowing about Washington's plans, unattached to anything that Washington was doing, but folks who just lived there and resented the British being there, on the night before Washington's attack, This small, unattached group emerged out of the woods and open-fired on Cornwallis and his troops. Of course, the British Army beat back those soldiers handily, and Cornwallis dismissed the skirmish as Washington's pathetic surprise attack. And so he dismissed his men to Christmas Eve revelry, which ended up, as most of the British army, having hangovers. So that Cornwallis' men were ill-prepared and hungover, and they were beaten soundly by Washington's attack on Christmas morning. And that victory led to the raising of sufficient funds and sufficient soldiers, which resulted in the ultimate defeat of the British and the beginning of this grand experiment that we call America. Now, I'm pretty sure that everyone here today knew that the Continental Army won and that the colonies became a nation, but probably very few of you knew the backstory of that rogue band of settlers taking pot shots at the British troops. That would be what we might call a coincidence or an historical anomaly. Or consider Aurelius Augustine. He was a roguish Roman young man, given to philandering, strong drink, and malicious mischief. His lifestyle only led to an accumulation of guilt on his part, and he read extensively the philosophers of the day, seeking relief and an answer to the guilt that he was experiencing. And one day, while under deep conviction, he flung himself under a fig tree in a garden. He was weeping bitterly, pleading for help from Almighty God, from Jehovah, the God of his mother, Monica, who prayed daily for her wayward son. And while he was weeping underneath that fig tree, He heard the voice of a child who was playing a child's game, a hedgerow over, singing a chorus of tolelege, tolelege, which was part of the game that they were playing, these children. But tolelege, when translated, means take up and read. And so Augustine looked about and saw on a bench that he had been sitting on a book that was open. Historians aren't completely in agreement as to what exactly that book was. It was either a Bible or at least a segment of scripture, and it was opened to this passage in the Bible. not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual excess and lust, not in quarreling and jealousy. Rather, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh. It's out of the book of Romans, Romans 13, verses 13 and 14. Now probably a great number of people here today have heard of St. Augustine. He's one of those few theologians that every denomination wants to claim. But probably fewer of you are aware of the historical anomaly, the coincidence of children playing a song while playing in the garden. And Augustine, by that coincidence, was put on a track to become probably the greatest theological mind that the Christian world has ever known. It was John Alan Paulus, who was a noted mathematician, who said, the most astonishingly incredible coincidence imaginable would be the complete absence of coincidences. You're probably familiar with the name of Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins tells a remarkable story. happened several years ago. He got word that he had landed the lead role in a film based on a book called The Girl from Petrovka, written by a fellow by the name of George Pfeiffer. And when he found out that he had gotten it, he was in London. And he tried to get a hold of a copy of that book. He went all over London, phone called all over London, looking for the book, The Girl from Petrovka. He couldn't find one in all of London. And there he was waiting for a train at Leicester Square, and he saw on the bench lying next to him a book that was opened up. And he picked it up. It was the book, The Girl from Petrovka. It had been abandoned by somebody. Now later that year, to add to this, later that year he began filming that movie, and Hopkins met the author of that book, George Pfeiffer, and Pfeiffer was sadly telling the story of how he no longer had the one and only annotated copy of that book. You see, he had lent it to a friend, who then lost that book when he was in London. And Hopkins was holding on to that book. Now, these are historical anomalies, long shots. Some people call them coincidences. But none of these things, not one of them, caught God by surprise. In fact, while it may appear so to us, there are no coincidences in this world of ours. God is absolutely sovereign. God is in control. God created the heavens and the earth, and as Dr. R.C. Sproul was fond of saying, there is not one molecule that exists outside of God's sovereign control. And as Leonard Ravenhill liked to say, if he is not Lord of all, then he is not Lord at all. So today, we're looking in the book of Galatians. And there's probably no book that's more full of the concept of the grace of God in its purest form than the book of Galatians. But as I was preparing, it was this idea that just stuck to me, and I couldn't shake. And it comes out of Galatians chapter 4. It should be in your bulletin. It's Galatians 4, 4 through 7. And I'm going to read that, because that's going to be the basis of what we talk about today. Galatians 4, 4 through 7, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent his spirit the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. That's the text that we're going to zero in on, and as you guessed, it has to do with really two themes. The first theme is the fullness of time. The second is the fullness of Christ. I think of all those stories that we read, that I talked to you about at the beginning, those three incidences of Washington, Augustine, and Hopkins, There is that theme, that God bringing together the cords of history to create an event. The Bible says that God is in control of human history. Ephesians 1 and verse 11. says that in him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. Other translations, God works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. There's a Greek word for that word, everything. And the Greek word is panta, P-A-N-T-A, panta. And it means everything. God works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. And then later on in the book of Ephesians, Ephesians 3 verses 10 and 11, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. His intent was that now through the church the manifold wisdom of God should be made known. The Bible tells it that there is intentionality in God's ways. This is not a random universe. And in Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 17, because, so, So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath. And in the sending of a son, we see some of the cords of history coming together Christ came, so Paul tells us in Galatians, in the fullness of time. With intentionality, Christ came into the world. It was not an accident. It was not a random event. It didn't just happen. It was God's intentionality. that brought Christ into the world when he was brought into the world. And I suppose it would be naive of me to suppose that I knew and understand every one of those chords, those chords of history that led to the advent of Jesus into this world. We can never fully understand the events that happened or didn't happen to cause or create any given outcome. It's far too complex. If you think that there are eight billion people in this world and they interact with one another and there's intentionality to what God does, you realize that's a pretty big job. I'm glad he has that and I don't. The man who says that he is a self-made man hasn't looked too closely at his genetic background. He needs to spit into a tube and send it to 23andMe. Nor does that person fully appreciate the environment over which he has no control. That gave him the disposition and the character, the environment, and the opportunities that he had. I like to say to people who tell me that they're self-made, I say, really? When did you choose your parents? How did you do that? I'd like to find that out. Do you think your parents had anything to do with who you are today? How were you able to select them? How about your education? How many of your teachers did you choose? I'm not talking about in college when you went to the gymnasium and went to the lines and stood in line to register for courses. I'm talking about third grade. Who's your third grade teacher? And how did you have the opportunity to choose that teacher for yourself? there are some things that we can point to that would influence the apostle to write the words, in the fullness of time, God sent his son. Now, I'm going to bring to mind four convergent factors that were happening simultaneously that, at least in some part, contributed to the fullness of time in which God chose the advent of his son into this world. There are myriads more, most of which I have no idea about. But here are at least four of the events that took place that brought about the advent of Jesus in the fullness of time. The first is the establishment and the downfall of institutional Judaism. the establishment and downfall of institutional Judaism. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, where there is Christendom, there can be no Christianity. And his point was that when faith becomes institutional, you lose its personal nature. And the same can be said for Judaism. By the time of this letter, the Book of Galatians, Judaism by and large had eroded to a series of formulas and the personal God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been lost in ritualistic formalism. The religious leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the chief priests, the teachers of the law, the scribes, they had lost sight of true righteousness and had replaced it with an adherence to a code. That is why Paul wrote the book of Galatians, because there were people who were trying to reduce Christianity to a code, adherence to a code. In the days of Jesus, the king, Herod was a bloodthirsty megalomaniac standing outside of the Davidic tradition. And the masses of people were searching but finding no rest until the Messiah came. So one of the chords of history that contributed to the fullness of time was the downfall of the Jewish religion, its retreat into a formalism. Second. The Hebrew scriptures had received worldwide recognition, if not adherence, because in the institutionalization of Judaism, the Hebrew people had become cosmopolitan and could be found in most corners of the world. The Jews were everywhere. The diaspora, the dispersion of the Jews, they went to the four corners of the earth. And so did the Jews. And with the Jews went the Hebrew scriptures. And the Hebrew scriptures had even been translated into the most common language of the day. We call that book the Septuagint. Sometimes in your Bibles, in a little corner or in one of the margins, you're going to see something that says LXX. That means the Septuagint. That means there's a translation into the Greek language from the Hebrew language for that. It's one of the things that assures us that the entire Old Testament was written prior to the time of Christ, because the Septuagint was written plus or minus 300 BC. The Hebrew canon was closed. It was translated into the Greek language. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. And that was dispersed with all the Jews to all the corners of the earth. Further, and for instance, Daniel was among those who had been taken away into captivity during the 6th century BC. And Daniel confounded King Nebuchadnezzar and his wise men. They were called Magi. 600 BC. Daniel confounded those people with his stories and the Hebrew scripture, such as Numbers chapter 24 and verse 17 that says a star will come out of Jacob, a scepter will rise out of Israel. And so later another group of wise men would come from the east who in the fullness of time had come to know of the star. They would come to Israel, to Jerusalem, and they would ask, where is the one who was born King of the Jews? We have seen his star in the east, and we have come to worship him. That was owing to the fact that the Hebrew scriptures went to the four corners of the earth. So the first chord of history, the downfall of Jewish ritualism, the second chord in history, the disbursement of the Hebrew scripture, the third of the chords, the Greek culture in the fullness of time. It was further supported by the Greek culture, 300 years old by the time Jesus was born. yet still standing in large measure in the years immediately preceding the time of Christ. You see, Alexander the Great, you've heard the story, Alexander wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. Well, that's a bit of an overstatement, but that sounds good. But Alexander, as Patrick pointed out last week, Alexander was no shrieking violet. Having conquered the entire known world while still a young man, I think he was 29 when he accomplished that. He conquered the world at age 29. I'm trying to think of what I was doing when I was 29. But he was looking for his next challenge. See, the next challenge is not conquering the world, but keeping the world that you've conquered. It's one thing to conquer the world, but it's another thing to hang on to it. He was trying to figure out how to do it, and he talked to his advisors, and they came up with a plan. It was called Hellenization. Hellen means Greek, the Greekization of the world. They wanted to change the culture of the world. If they changed the culture of the world, then they could bring the world under their control. So he wanted to make it a Greek world. How did he choose to do that? Principally, the change of language. We're going to make sure that the whole world speaks the Greek language. That was the way he was going to hang on to his conquest. We're going to have one language, one culture. And so Greek had become, in those 300 years, the international language. It was known throughout the world in the fullness of time, which facilitated the spread of the gospel of Christ. Everybody knew Greek. Only one story had to be told because the Greek language was understood everywhere. The ancient Greek philosophy, which was then contemporary at the time, shaped their culture. The Greeks were consumed with such questions as, why do some things live and others do not? After all, all things are made of matter. Why do some of this matter, how come that matter lives and this matter doesn't live? Or why do some things have motion and other things are stationary? Did something swerve in order to create the universe? And then there are questions of existence. Why am I here? What is my purpose? And so the Greeks were asking three big questions. Questions about life, questions about motion, and questions about existence. So then the Apostle Paul traveled to Athens, and in their native language, he would tell the people who had tried Socrates at the same place where he himself was being tried 300 years later. And the Apostle said to them, God is not served by human hands as if he himself needs anything, for in him we live and we move And we have our being or existence. Paul answered them, life, motion, and existence. Now, in the magnificence of the Greek experiment, we see a culture that imploded and died of its own debauchery. It collapsed because of the failure of its culture to provide basic and substantive answers. It brought about a yearning of souls, having asked the right questions, but asked of a God that they did not know, which incidentally, folks, is a warning for us in America. And in the fullness of time, there was the establishment and downfall of the Jewish ritualism, the dissemination of the Hebrew scriptures, the Greek culture, and finally, the fourth keeping in mind that there are way more than four, but here's the fourth that I'm highlighting, was the Roman conquest, which came some 250 years after the Grecian conquest. After Rome took over the world and enjoyed a time of peace in the fullness of time, that peace enabled the gospel to progress and take root throughout the world. It was facilitated in its distribution by the Romans, who were great builders. They loved to build coliseums and columns and big buildings. And they loved to build roads, which facilitated the traveling of the apostles throughout the world to bring the gospel to the four corners of the world. in the fullness of time. The religions of that day, Roman or otherwise, were powerless to impart spiritual consolation or to provide an answer for sin. So in the fullness of time, God sent his son. The fullness of time. And then this passage also speaks to the fullness of Christ. There are two statements in this passage that add up to one huge concept, and that is, God sent his son and born of a woman. God sent his son, born of a woman. Two statements contribute to an extraordinarily deep concept of the dual nature of Christ. Jesus was fully God. It says God sent his son, and Jesus was fully human, born of a woman. And these two propositions are necessary to accomplish the next statement in this passage in order to redeem those under the law that we might receive the full rights of sons and of daughters. Redemption was only possible if Jesus was fully God and fully human at the same time. The dual nature of Christ is bigger than we are. If you were to give 110% effort, remember how your teachers in school, they'd ask you, you need to give us 110% effort. Well, you know, I can't do 110%. That's all I got is 100. That's me. That's all of me. I'm told that if you go down to Naples Community Hospital this time of year, that their occupancy rate is 125%. That means you get stuck in the halls. Or think about Yogi Berra. Don't you love Yogi? Yogi said, baseball is 90% mental, and the other half is physical. He came up, his edition's not really that good. But we know that regardless of whether it's 110 or 140% in the end, to be fully anything is to be 100%. Yet Jesus was 100% God, and he was 100% man. You know what? I don't get that. I can't understand that. My mind doesn't do that. It's part of the incomprehensibility of Almighty God. It doesn't bother me that I don't know everything there is to know about God. If I knew everything there was to know about God, I would be God. And I'm not. And I am happy to be finite and mortal. And I'm happy not to understand the full depths of who God is. But God is incomprehensibly large. And Jesus had to be fully God because he had to pay an infinite price for our sin. As a finite person, an infinite price is required of me for my sin. that would be eternal separation from Almighty God. But as an infinite person, Jesus only had to pay a finite price, a finite separation from Almighty God. And at the same time, Jesus had to be fully human, or his temptations and sufferings would have no bearing on me. In Hebrews chapter 4, it says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin. The point being, Jesus had to be fully human to sympathize with our weaknesses. He'd lived everything that you've lived. The result of this dual nature? Redemption. We're made right with a holy and just God. And this passage tells us the full rights as sons of God. So that is a very brief touching of this particular passage, which is very rich. What's the takeaway? Well, just two things I want to hit on, because there's a lot in here. But the first is the fullness of time. To any life event, good or bad, we can say, this happened in the fullness of time. That is to say, God is the sovereign master over time, over circumstance, over our lives. There's not one molecule outside of God's sovereign control. There are no coincidences in our lives. I might not understand why certain life circumstances come into my life, unpleasant though they may be. But that doesn't mean that God doesn't understand. We just don't have the whole picture yet. The fullness of time. There's a second takeaway, and that is that we might receive the full rights as sons and daughters. You, by virtue of the Son of God and his sacrifice on the cross, his dual nature, sacrifice on the cross, by virtue of that, you are sons and daughters of the Almighty. I think about the story of the prodigal son. That prodigal son left. He fled his father, who was representing Almighty God. And he went off to a far country. He lived a riotous life. He came back, and the father received him with open arms. He said, my son was lost, but now he is found. There's no distance that we can't go from our father, that he won't open his arms to you and welcome you back. Now, the fact of the matter is there's a lot for us to live and to receive as children of God. Sadly, oftentimes we live as orphans rather than as children of the living God. And I put in your outlines just a few of the things that you might look for to tell you, am I on the right track? or do I need to think about how I relate to Almighty God? The first of those is an orphan feels alone. An orphan is filled with self-concern. Am I an orphan or am I a son or a daughter? On the other hand, a son or a daughter has a growing assurance that God really is our loving Father. A second, an orphan lives on a succeed-fail basis. They need to look good. They need to be right all the time. An orphan is performance-oriented. Now, I know what you're thinking. I wish my spouse would get hold of that. In which case, go back to number one. A son and daughter learns to live in daily conscious partnership with Almighty God and is not fearful. Number three, rebelliousness. If you're a daughter or a son and you find yourself in rebelliousness, that you resist authority, that your heart is hard, that you're not easily teachable, then you need to think through, am I truly a daughter or a son of God? Or am I an orphan? And a son or a daughter has strength to be submissive, has a broken and contrite heart. A son and daughter is teachable. Those are just three. There's all sorts that you could look at. Maybe we'll explore them in weeks to come. But just some practical ways of looking at our lives and saying, am I living and receiving all that God has for me? I thank Surge Publication for that list, and we'll exegete it a little further in weeks to come. But the Book of Galatians, in the fullness of time, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, that we might receive the full rights as children of God. Would you pray with me? Our great God and heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege of sonship, of daughtership, of our relationship with you, which is reserved in heaven for us by virtue of the Son of God. who died for us. Thank you Lord Jesus that in the fullness of time you became human. And then you, with all your, the fullness of your deity and the fullness of your humanity, went to the cross and suffered horribly. that we might have life and life in abundance. Thank you, God, for that. Help us, God, to live as sons and daughters and not as orphans. Hear us, O God. We make our prayer in the name of our Lord Jesus, who is indeed our strong Savior. Amen.