Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
Galatians 4:31
We all have therefore in our lives. A therefore is if this happens, then this other thing happens. If one thing is true, then this other thing is true too. If we know that something is false, then it stands to reason that this other thing is false too.
All throughout our lives, there are these “therefore” things. If I don’t get a raise, I’m going to quit. If I do get a raise, then I’m going to look for a better job. If I ask someone out and they say yes, then we’re going to have a great time.
The whole thing behind a therefore is that something’s guaranteed if something else happens. Every therefore has two sides. The first side is the if and the second side is the then.
No matter who you are, you have lots of different “therefore” things in your life. If this happens, then this other things absolutely is going to happen. If this team wins their game, they’re going to win next week too. If it snows tonight, I’m going to go into work late.
I don’t know what you favorite therefore things are in your life. I have my own list of favorite therefore parts of life. Here are a few just to let you know what kind of person I am.
If my favorite team wins, it’s because I was smart enough to pick them and root for them.
If my favorite team loses, it has nothing to do with me. It’s someone else’s fault. They are to blame.
If I act like I don’t care who wins, I can pretend that I don’t care. But I really do.
I come by this naturally. My dad was one of the all time great negative people. It didn’t matter what it was about, he just expected the worst possible things to happen. If we caught a lot of fish on the boat, he’d complain about all the ones that got away. Or all the other fish we should have caught.
There was this one day when we were watching the Baltimore Orioles playing some team one Saturday afternoon. All throughout the game, he said nothing but negative things about the Orioles. Their players. Their pitchers. Their coaches. If they hit into a double play, he’s just sigh and say, “Well, that’s exactly what I expected.”
After about eight innings of this, I just couldn’t stand it any longer. I sat up and said, “What’s with you dad? Why are you so negative? Can’t you root for the Birds? Don’t you want our beloved Orioles to win?” To this day, it’s just like it was yesterday. His words are still ringing in my memory. His words continued to shape my life for years to come.
“Yea,” he said. “I could root for the Orioles to win. But this way, I’ll never be disappointed. If I think that something bad’s going to happen, and it does, then I won’t feel so bad.”
It was this kind of thinking and expectations about life that was the foundation of my life. If my dad always, always, always looked for the bad things to happen, then I should do the same. This way, we both wouldn’t get hurt. We’d expect the worst to happen, and we could just live out our miserable negative lives in relative peace.
But Paul’s telling the Galatians something radical. Something really different from what I learned from my family. Paul was saying the unbelievably positive and hopeful thought that in Jesus Christ, we have a family connection to freedom.
Just look at these powerful words of freedom. We ARE children of the free woman. It’s not that we might be children of the free woman. Or that if we’re good that the free woman will let us in the back door.
No. We ARE her children. Period. There’s no doubt about it, we belong to the free woman by birth. We have a family resemblance to her. We’re connected to her in a way that can’t be changed. We can’t be cur off from her. You can find her DNA in every cell within our bodies. Her strength and family heritage is part of every single cell in our bodies.
And as children of the free woman, we’re related to her. Not because of anything that we’ve done to earn it. Or for passing some test. Or for paying off some official to look the other way. No. We ARE her children. And like any good parent, she will never, never, never deny that we are hers. Her DNA is in every single cell of our bodies. She will never deny us.
Did you ever think about God like this? That we’re his child and he’ll never try to deny us. He’ll never walk away from us. He’ll always be holding onto our hand, no matter how we try and pull away from him. He’ll always and only want nothing but the best for us. His heart is dedicated to us – not because of what we do but because who’s we are. We are his and he’ll never deny his own.
if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
2 Timothy 2:13
This is exactly who God is and how he is dedicated to you and me in Jesus.
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