It is one of the happiest songs, and it has a catchy chorus, but most people don’t know what the song is about. I’m talking about the 1983 hit “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves. Do you remember that song? Yes. Do you remember what that song is about? No. Ok, we’ll look at the first stanza. “I used to think maybe you loved me now baby I’m sure / And I just can’t wait till the day when you knock on my door / Now every time I go to the mailbox, gotta hold myself down / ‘Cause I just can’t wait till you write me you’re coming around/ I’m walking on sunshine, wooah”
We feel love when we’re wanted and accepted. So how do you think she would feel if she walked to the mailbox and she found a letter telling her how she could be better, things she needed to do, so she could be loved? All her excitement would leave. She’d be deflated. She’d feel rejected.
Something similar is going on in Galatians. Paul went and started a church in Galatia. After he left, some people came in and said, “Paul was wrong. You have to become a Jew before you become a Christian, so form a line right here and we’ll start circumcising you.”
Now, you hear circumcision and think, “Well, that’s not a pressing issue for me.” True, but have you tried to please, impress, or even earn approval based on your actions? Think about it: Have you ever done anything to be accepted, to win favor, to feel worthy, to be lovable? Yeah, you have. We all have.
So Paul writes a letter (and this may be the very first letter of the New Testament) to define what the true gospel is. The gospel tells people that they become justified—accepted, in the club, with nothing to do or worry about, free of anxiety—by putting their faith in Jesus. You are made right by what Jesus did for you—not by anything you’ve done for Jesus.
The main idea of this letter is that there are two ways of trying to be right. You can follow the work of the Law and try to make yourself right and pure and holy through self-improvement projects that take over your life and leave you burned out OR you can live by faith. Paul goes on to say the Law was supposed to bring us to the end of ourselves, to make us realize we can’t keep it. One of my friends likes to say, “God’s office is at the end of your rope.” Paul is saying something similar here. He’s saying that the purpose of the Law was to make us realize we can’t keep it on our own and to reach out for help. That’s where our verses today pick up. Because what happens next? Jesus comes and we are justified by faith in him.
And because of what God has done in Jesus—Jesus becoming one under the Law—we become children of God. Jesus takes our place and comes to be one of us so we can become more than just sinners. He redeems us and makes us holy.
Then Paul says, “Mama Mia here I go again.”
Wait, I’m sorry. That was the Swedish pop group ABBA. But let me talk about this word, “Abba” for a second. If you grew up going to youth group, you probably had a well-meaning youth leader who asked if you ever prayed “Daddy God” and did a devotional on these verses. But that’s a huge over-simplification of what Paul is saying here. He’s not talking about calling God “daddy.”
Paul is using legal language. (Remember, justification is a legal term.) He’s saying Jesus has related and united us to the Father, so we can cry out “Abba, Father.” The point is you are made a son, and because you are a son, then you are an heir. Why? Because you are loved by your Father in heaven. You have been adopted. You have the highest possible rights, full legal standing, entitled to everything as an heir, and this is not some future status for when you’re in heaven, this is who you already are because of Jesus.
Paul is NOT grounding you in the things you are lacking. He’s NOT saying, “You should feel bad about yourself, and that you need to fix yourself and make yourself better.” No. He’s telling you who you already are. You are a child of God. You are an heir of the Kingdom. And, believe it or not, you could NOT be closer to God even if you wanted to be BECAUSE it has all been done in Christ. He has redeemed those under the Law. He has redeemed you. Because of Jesus, you are adopted into the family. And, because of Jesus, you are forgiven.
In 1936, Ernest Hemingway wrote a short story called “The Capital of the World” and it’s a profound illustration of this deep need we have for forgiveness.
In this story there is a father and a son. The son has run away, and it’s so painful for the father that he searches throughout Spain for his son. But he’s unsuccessful. So he goes to Madrid, where the thinks his son has gone to seek his fortune or create a new life, and the only thing the father can think to do to let his son know that he’s there is to take out an ad in the newspaper. The ad says, “Paco meet me at the Hotel Montana on Tuesday at noon. All is forgiven. Love, Papa.”
Days pass. Then on Tuesday, the father begins to make his way to the Hotel Montana in Madrid. As he gets closer, he sees a great deal of activity. A squadron of police are there because there’s no just one Paco, not just a dozen, but 800 sons have shown up. Why? Because they saw that “All is forgiven. Love, Papa.”
Maybe you wonder how God feels about you. Maybe you wonder what God is like. God is like this father. He wants you to know that all is forgiven and that he loves you. Like we saw on Christmas, God arrives before we get our act together. And, honestly, God arrives in a situation where it looks like everything has gone wrong—that’s why the baby Jesus is in a manger—so if it looks like everything has gone wrong in your life, God still comes.
And as we look at the life of Jesus, we see he keeps trying to give this message, “All is forgiven.” Jesus catches a sinner red-handed, and he lets her off the hook. He finds someone in grief or need, and he comforts them. He finds someone hungry, and he feeds him. He finds someone who is physically broken, and he heals her. Jesus does this over and over. He finds someone who thinks he’s important and Jesus invites him to put down the mask and the burden and to live in freedom.
Jesus shows us how great God’s love is for us—even when we show him how cruel and angry we can be, when we hurl everything we have in our arsenal of sin, selfishness, and anger at him. Even then, he doesn’t abandon us. Instead, he goes to the cross and he takes all of that into and onto himself. So that even sin and death—the worst we can throw at him—does not defeat this one who says, “You are forgiven.”
Paul Zahl wrote, “Sin is a disease that is never healed. It is forgiven.”
If you feel like you have NOT measured up, you are correct. But the good news is that you have been redeemed. You have been adopted. There’s nothing to earn.
The church is NOT about resolutions. The church is about reminding you of your identity in Christ. You are a child of God because of what Jesus has done for you.
“All is forgiven. Love, Papa.”
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