Sermon

[Galatians 3:27-4:7] 2026.09.13 Race, Gender, Class – Think like a son, not a slave

Race, Gender, Class – Think like a son, not a slave

Big Idea: You are baptised into Christ, clothed with him, one in him. So don’t identify yourself as a slave would, but as God does: his adopted son.

1. We identify ourselves as slaves to the world’s elements (3:28; 4:1–3)

2. God sent both his Son and the Son’s Spirit to make us cry, “Abba, Father” (4:4–6)

3. Be identified as God identifies you: His adopted son (3:27–29; 4:7)

At a previous church I used to stand at the door and shake people’s hands as they left, as I do here.

One day someone asked where I was from.

I had Korea on my mind from an earlier conversation, so I said, “Korea”.

My daughter Zoe was standing next to me: “Korea?”

Realising I made a mistake, I corrected myself, “Oh, I mean Japan”.

Zoe was even more perplexed, “Japan?”

On the third go I finally got it right: “Hong Kong, I mean Hong Kong”.

To this day I have no idea how I got my own birthplace so wrong.

How about you?

What do you say when you introduce yourself to someone?

You might give your country of birth, or where you live — hopefully more accurately than I did.

But how would you introduce yourself as a person?

Are you intelligent?

Rich?

Strong?

Friendly?

What kind of person would you say you are?

And, more importantly, how do you know whether you have identified yourself correctly?

A few weeks ago, Jerry began our short series on identity and race from the book of Revelation.

Today we ask how Christians ought to identify themselves, from Galatians 3:27–4:7.

If you have your Bible, please open up to Galatians chapter 3.

We’ll see three things:

1. We identify ourselves as slaves to the world’s elements (3:28; 4:1–3)

2. God sent both his Son and the Son’s Spirit to make us cry, “Abba, Father” (4:4–6)

3. Be identified as God identifies you: His adopted son (3:27–29; 4:7)

Before we look at it, let’s pray.

“Father, Abba, by your Spirit, please help us to see Jesus more clearly, that we might cry out to you from our hearts in thanks and in our times of need. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

1.      We identify ourselves as slaves to the world’s elements (3:28; 4:1–3)

When people meet me, I often get asked where I’m from.

I like to joke, “I’m from Kogarah.”

Then comes, “No, where are you really from?”

I came from Hong Kong over forty years ago, and even though I’ve spent almost all my life here, people still identify me as foreign.

Some people find that question upsetting; I’m happy either way — happy to be identified as Chinese here, and as Australian when I visit Hong Kong.

So when we introduce ourselves, we often identify ourselves culturally.

We also identify ourselves by our job.

At a party the first two questions are usually, “Where are you from?” and “What do you do?”

The second one we answer with a little more tact.

Instead of saying that we’re garbage collectors, we say “Waste Removal Engineers”.

Instead of not marketing you say, “Brand Warrior”.

We want people to think well of us because of our place in society.

And these days our emails carry how we identify ourselves by gender — “He/His”, “She/Hers”, and other combinations.

In Galatians, Paul names the three markers that categorised the ancient world — Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female (v.28): race, class, and gender.

In the ancient world, your identity according to race, class and gender, can have a massive influence on how society identified you.

For example, at the beginning of the Jewish morning cycle of blessings, a Jewish man would say, “Blessed be He (God) that He did not make me a Gentile; blessed be He that He did not make me a boor [i.e. an ignorant peasant or a slave]; blessed be He that He did not make me a woman.”

One segment of society looking down on another was entirely normal.

Before we point the finger at the Jew, we need to take a good look at ourselves.

Have we thanked God for making us the way we are, and not like someone else — for our nation, our race, rather than someone from a poorer one?

Have we dismissed another person’s job and thanked God we’re better paid?

Do we look down on the other gender — women dismissing men as toxic brutes, or men dismissing women as objects to pursue?

Friends, we haven’t advanced from the ancient world nearly as far as we think, at least in understanding and respecting one another as human beings.

We still build walls between races, classes and genders, and divide and fight over them.

Sadly, Christians do it too.

One of the Civil Rights movement leaders in America was Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr, who was often associated with this line, “eleven o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America."

He meant churches in America was divided by skin colour, culture and background.

At work, at school, at the shops, you see people of different backgrounds side by side; but walk into a church in America — and perhaps in Australia — and you can find a division sharper than the world’s.

But what does the Bible teach?

Firstly, our identity must be in Christ.

Look again at Galatians 3:27, “For those of you who were baptised into Christ have been clothed with Christ.”

If you believe in Jesus Christ, you are baptised into him.

There’s a sense in which this is utterly personal, known only to God and yourself, when you accepted Jesus as your Lord.

There’s a part of it that’s public: when you are baptised in church, you declare that you belong to him.

And from the moment you believed, you are said to be clothed with Christ.

Like a beggar invited into a family’s home and given new clothes, or, as we read last week, a stranger brought into a wedding and given wedding clothes, those who believe in Christ are given a new set of clothes — a new identity.

And that identity is Christ.

Everything you say and do is now to be what Christ wants.

As Paul said earlier in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

You are wrapped up in Christ.

And this applies to everyone who is baptised into Christ.

So Paul says in 3:28, “There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

In Christ we are no longer divided by race, class or gender.

Christ Jesus is our identity.

If I am in Christ and you are in Christ, then we ought to be one.

That doesn’t mean we stop being Jew or Greek, slave or free, man or woman — we are still all those things.

But they are no longer the most important markers.

Christ is.

I identify with you, and you with me, not on the basis of whether you speak Chinese or English, but on the basis that we are in Christ.

What follows?

Verse 29: “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.”

If we belong to Christ, we can look forward as heirs to everything God promised Abraham’s seed.

Those who believe in Jesus are not only saved by God’s One and Only Son; we are adopted as sons.

But before Paul unpacks what it means to be heirs, he pulls back to show us the similarities and differences between sons and slaves.

Look with me at 4:1-2, “Now I say that as long as the heir is a child, he differs in no way from a slave, though he is the owner of everything. ² Instead, he is under guardians and trustees until the time set by his father.”

Paul pictures a young heir who technically owns everything belonging to his father.

But being so young, he isn’t ready, so the father sets a time.

Until that time the heir lives under guardians and trustees — treated like any slave.

That was the state of God’s people before Jesus came.

Verse 3: “In the same way we also, when we were children, were in slavery under the elements of the world.”

Paul could be referring to the elementary teachings of the world.

Different cultures have their own set of social skills and social rules.

It’s the common understanding, common sense, that guides how the society functions.

Our background, our upbringing and even our language, will help shape the way we see the world and engage with the world.

If so, those rules of engagement are like slave masters, and we have been living as slaves under them.

That is true of every culture, but here it is especially true of the Jewish people.

Earlier, in 3:22, Paul says “Scripture imprisoned everything under sin’s power”, and in 3:24, “the law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith.”

It was God’s own Scripture and law that imprisoned and guarded the Jews — not because the law was bad, but because we humans are bad, and we needed the law to show us how bad we are.

Paul’s point is that God’s law restrains our rebellion for a time; without it we would tear God’s world even further apart.

But restraint is not transformation.

The law, as a slave master, as elements of the world, tells us how wrong we are and justly condemns us but does not give us any hope of freedom.

Notice that Paul’s teaching against identity based on race, class or gender leads straight into his teaching about the slave master that is the law.

There was a time when you identified yourself on those grounds; that time has passed, because you are now in Christ.

Similarly, there was a time when you followed the elements of the world like a slave; that time has passed too.

And so, if we put them together, one of the signs that we are still thinking like slaves to the elements of the world, is when we divide ourselves against one another by culture, class or gender.

Paul will expand on slavery later in the chapter, but it is striking that his argument against division runs straight to this: the time for slavery to the ways of the world is over, because Jesus has come in the fullness of time.

We see echoes of this across the New Testament.

Ephesians 2:19: “So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household.”

Jews and Gentiles, who despised one another’s culture, were now fellow citizens — their identity in Christ triumphing over their racial identity.

And when God sent Peter to preach to the Gentiles, he came to see it too: “Now I truly understand that God doesn’t show favouritism, but in every nation the person who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34–35).

The old ways, the ways of the world, the way that enslaves, is to treat people according to their identity based on race, class or gender.

The new way, the way of Jesus, the way that brings glory to God, is to treat people according to their identity in Christ.

Last week I met with over fifty Sydney Anglican ministers to talk about how we can reach more Chinese people.

It was a beautiful sight.

When I first came to Australia there was only one Chinese congregation in the diocese — not for lack of Chinese people, but because few non-Chinese speaking Anglican ministers were thinking about reaching them.

Then one Anglo minister decided to act.

His church wasn’t big, but they trusted God and began the Chinese ministry at Cabramatta, and over time more Chinese-speaking congregations began to happen around our diocese.

There are now over forty Chinese congregations around our diocese, not including the fifteen or so English congregations who use headphones for Chinese translation.

We praise God for them.

But we must not let the gospel stop with people who speak our own language.

We must keep asking how we can reach everyone in our suburb — people of every tongue.

We mustn’t let the differences in our cultures stop us from sharing the gospel.

We mustn’t think like slaves, but sons, made one in Jesus, God’s own Son.

What would happen if the Anglo Rector in Cabramatta decided not to reach the Chinese?

God could still make it happen, but the Church would miss out.

What if the Chinese minister of our Anglican Churches decided not to reach other people groups in the area?

God can still make it happen, for sure, but we would miss out on being partners with him on his mission.

We mustn’t think like slaves, but like sons, made one in Jesus, God’s own Son.

That is why, as we move forward as a church, we need to think of ourselves as one church on God’s mission.

When someone new visits, don’t identify them merely by their accent or their job, and don’t ignore them because you don’t speak their language.

That is slave thinking.

Think as someone clothed in Jesus: how can I help this person walk toward Jesus, not away from him?

Don’t think like slaves, but think as someone saved by God the Son, whom God’s sent to make us his adopted sons.

2.      God sent both his Son and the Son’s Spirit to make us cry, “Abba, Father” (4:4–6)

Look with me at Galatians 4:4-5 “When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,  to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

There was a time when we were slaves to the elemental principles, the elemental teachings of this world.

But when the time was right, God sent his Son.

God sent His Son to redeem, to buy back those under the law.

God sent His Son to adopt slaves like us as his sons.

I have a good friend, Matt, who was adopted, and always knew it.

His adoptive parents loved him and treated him well, yet there were times he asked them with tears, “Why didn’t my birth parents want me? Who am I? Where do I fit in?”

For many of us identity is tied closely to family — but what if your family doesn’t want you?

For Matt to understand who he truly was, he had to be adopted a second time: at eleven he was adopted into God’s family.

He understood that his identity lay in being God’s friend, which only happens through Jesus.

Later his adoptive parents came to believe in Jesus and were adopted into God’s family too.

As Christians we are adopted into God’s family.

God sent his Son to be born of a woman: Jesus shared our humanity.

More than that, he was born under the law.

He lived under the law’s scrutiny, but unlike us, he lived a perfectly righteous life under it, so the law could not convict him.

Yet he willingly took the law’s conviction on behalf of all who trust him, to redeem them from under the law.

That was the price Jesus paid.

The result?

We are adopted as sons of God.

Scholars call the shape of these verses a chiasm — like a big X: God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law (that’s us), so that we might be adopted as sons.

That is how precious you are to God, if you have put your trust in Jesus.

Like young Matt, we can get frustrated trying to find our own identity.

Who am I? What am I destined for?

These are important questions.

But here is the problem: how would we know if we had answered them rightly?

We may think we know ourselves better than anyone, yet there will be others who will see us very differently than ourselves.

How do we know who’s right and who’s wrong?

At the end of the day, you have only one identity that matters.

 It’s not others identify you, and it’s not even how you identify yourself, but how God identifies you.

People around you know only a fragment of you, and will identify you partially, sometimes truthfully, sometimes falsely.

You may see yourself in a warped way, over- or underestimating yourself.

But God sees you fully.

He sees us for who we truly are, and it’s not a good thing for us.

He sees the secret sins, the false worship, the envy, the gossips we make behind one another.

His eyes are too holy for sinners like us.

But if we are in Christ, we are clothed in Christ, and when God looks at us through Christ he sees beauty and perfection, goodness and righteousness — he sees his Son, and us as his adopted sons.

For those who belong to Jesus His Son, God sees Jesus when He sees us.

How God sees us gives us the greatest certainty of our identity because it’s an identity based on his love for His One and Only Son.

And he doesn’t look at us from afar.

Look with me at verse 6, “And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father!’”

God sent His Son to redeem us, to make us his adopted sons.

God also sent the Spirit of His Son, the Holy Spirit, into our hearts, so that we can cry out, Abba, Father!

I love this verse!

It has the Three Persons of the Trinity – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, all working together so that we can relate to God the Father, so that we can cry out to God, Abba, Father.

The great German Reformation theologian Martin Luther (not the civil rights leader) notes that Paul sets a Hebrew word (Abba) beside a Greek word (Pater) because the church had both Jews and Greeks, and Paul wanted everyone to hear these words in their heart language.

Jews could cry out to God and call him ‘Abba’; Greeks could cry out and call him ‘Pater’.

It is a beautiful resolution to the division Paul has been addressing: instead of being identified as Hebrew-speaking Jews and Greek-speaking Greeks, they are united in Christ and cry out to God together, each in their own tongue.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the church in Galatia was bilingual, praying to God in two languages in the one meeting.

That is why I love it when we meet as Chinese-speaking and English-speaking Christians in one place, praising God in our own mother tongues.

As one people we cry out together: Abba, Father, 天父.

And feel free to call him pai (Portuguese), pita (Hindi), Vater (German) or baba (Swahili).

As the Spirit of his Son moves you, cry out from your heart and call him Father.

That is why we work hard at translation in the combined congregation — not because it is easy, but to remind one another how good God is: not just to one language group, but to people of every language.

God loves them as his adopted sons, and so would we.

I don’t know how your week has been.

It might have been a great week, or it might have been a tough week.

If you are a son of God, call home tonight.

Cry out to our heavenly Father in prayer.

It doesn’t need to be long.

It might be as simple as ‘Abba, help’.

And he will hear it, when you pray in his Son’s name.

3.      Be identified as God identifies you: His adopted son (4:7)

And so, don’t be identified as the world identifies you, don’t even identify yourself according to how you identify you.

Be identified as God identifies you.

Look with me at verse 7: “So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.”

Last week I officiated Michael Driver’s funeral.

I don’t usually wear a clerical collar, but I wore it that day as part of the solemnity — and in wearing it I identified myself as the minister responsible for the liturgy.

God doesn’t require us to wear a uniform to identify ourselves as Christians.

But he asks all of us who are Christians to put on Christ — to live a life completely taken up by his identity.

He sent his Son to adopt you as sons, so live like one.

Don’t think like a slave any longer.

Don’t be so committed to your race, your class and your gender that you divide yourselves against one another.

That is slavery.

Be who God has made his people to be: all one in Christ.

Think, live and behave as sons, not slaves.

Now some of our sisters may be thinking, “Shouldn’t it be sons and daughters?”

My dear sisters, in Christ you are beautiful daughters of God.

But Paul deliberately uses the language of sons here to stress that you, like your brothers, are heirs of God’s kingdom.

In the ancient world only sons inherited.

God has called you to be sons, with every right to inherit — you too are made heirs of God.

This identity gives us hope.

As adopted sons we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.

Our true identity rests not on what we have now, but on what God has done for us in Christ and what he has promised us in the future.

Our world may change, our work may change, our families may change, we ourselves will change — but we have a Heavenly Father who does not change, and our identity rests with him.

There have been many funerals and deaths connected with our church over the past four months — I counted twelve.

Many of our members have had their lives changed dramatically, and in the midst of that we can feel disorientated and unsure about many things, even our own identity.

One hymn that has helped me through this period is ‘Abide with Me’.

Like many great songs, it is a prayer:

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide

The darkness deepens Lord, with me abide

When other helpers fail and comforts flee

Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me

In the midst of the changes, I have to remember that my identity is not in who I am, or in what I have lost.

My identity is in Christ, and I cry out to him to abide with me.

When darkness comes, Lord, abide with me.

When helpers fail, Lord, abide with me.

When comforts leave, Lord, abide with me.

Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.

Don’t identify yourself as a slave would, but as God does: his adopted son.

When you feel lost, cry out to him, and he will hear the cry of his adopted son.

How do you know whether you have identified yourself correctly?

You only know as you come to identify yourself as God identifies you.

You are baptised into Christ, clothed with him, one in him. So don’t identify yourself as a slave would, but as God does: his adopted son.

Here are three questions for us to think about this week:

1.    When someone asks who I am, what do I reach for first — my nationality, my job, my family — and what would change if I answered that I am clothed with Christ?

2.    Where am I still identifying my life as a slave would (by race, by class, by gender) instead of an adopted son of God?

3.    When did I last cry “Abba, Father”?

You are baptised into Christ, clothed with him, one in him. So don’t identify yourself as a slave would, but as God does: his adopted son.

Let’s pray.

“Father, thank you for sending Jesus to save sinners like us, and for adopting us as your sons. Forgive us when we live as though we were still slaves to the ways of this world, and by your Spirit let the life of Jesus be evident in us. Help us to identify ourselves as Christ’s, to live as Christ, and to love Christ’s own. Make us a church whose identity is not Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, but all one in Christ. For his sake we pray, Amen.”