When the fullness of time had come

But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. – Galatians 4.4-5

Happy Christmas to you all.

In the midst of all the hustle and bustle and confusion today is the day that we have chosen to commemorate the birth of our Saviour. We all know that Jesus probably was nor born on the 25^th of December, but that doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that we have chosen a day to remember the miracle of the Incarnate Deity.

'In the fullness of time' God says, when everything was just right, 'God sent forth His Son...'

If I got started on trying to deal with this entire verse we would be here all day. There are so many lessons we can glean from this passage. But I just want to take one to heart today. It might be a slightly different focus for this Christmas Day.

About 1993-94 our fund raising to move to Ireland was going quite slowly. I was, believe it or not, discouraged. We wanted so desperately to get to Ireland. I was sharing this with some friends when one of them said 'remember, God has never been late.' We can get very impatient with God. We often want God to work in our time-frame  Right now our poor daughter-in-law Karen is waiting on her child and is four days overdue. We were talking yesterday afternoon when I remembered what our friend and shared it with her. God, indeed has never been late.

God sent forth His Son in the fullness of time. For years generation after generation of Jewish families had waited for Messiah to come. But God wasn't late, He never is. He acted in the fullness of time. Jewish prophecy had prepared the way spiritually. The Romans had built a great road system and the Pax Romana would expedite the spread of the gospel. Greek was the lingua franca of that part of the world and would ease the transmission of the gospel as the written word.

It was the fullness of time.  God’s timing was perfect.

But then God’s timing was perfect for us to get to Ireland. God’s timing will be perfect for Karen’s baby.

God always acts in the fullness of time – we just need to realise that He is not, never has been, and never will be, late.