Galatians 4:1-7 From Slaves to Sons

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community and service. We're currently studying Galatians in a series called Off the Chain, Finding Freedom in Galatians.

Here's Pastor Don Filsack.

From Galatians 3 to the Transition in Chapter 4

This morning, as we jump into Galatians chapter 4, some of you might know that the verses, the chapters, the way that that all came together wasn't original. Like if you were to look at the original letter from Paul, it's not like he wrote chapter 4, verse 1, this, that.

It wasn't broken down like that. That was something that was added on later. But they did a pretty good job. So 4 marks a transition, chapter 4, that we're going into this week in the book of Galatians.

Paul spent the first three chapters giving arguments for the gospel based, that the gospel is based on grace alone. And he's saying it's not because, you don't get to heaven, in other words, by doing good works, by keeping the law, by being a good Jew or by doing the Old Testament law or making sure you don't lie, cheat and all that stuff and just by acting good.

That's not how you get to heaven. The scale doesn't work is what Paul was saying last week. The idea that our good goes on one side of the scale, our bad on the other, and as long as your good outweighs your bad, you're going to get into heaven.

That's false. That's a false notion. That's an actual, I believe that that's a tool of Satan, a concept given by Satan to try to lull us into thinking that we can't be good enough and that's not true.

That it is by grace, in other words, it is a gift from God. It is by faith and putting trust in the promise that he made to Abraham that he would send a Messiah and he sent that Messiah and the Messiah was Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins and has given us new life.

And so that's what he's been defending. He's been saying we are saved because of what God has done for us through Jesus Christ on the cross. And so now the pathway forward for us to live is based on what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross.

A life of trying to keep the comprehensive laws of the Old Testament was never the primary plan of God. It was never what he intended for humanity as the centerpiece. And so many people I mentioned last week see God as the law giver and that's it.

They see him as the great law giver and they don't understand that he is the great promise giver and the one who keeps his promises, the faithful one. And so there's a different way that we approach a law giver versus a promise keeper, one who keeps their promises, right?

So we talked about that last week and that was Paul's main point as he wrapped up Galatians 3. The plan of God has always been that he would send his chosen one, born as a descendant of Abraham, and he would provide the blessing of forgiveness and he would restore us to a right relationship with God.

So in our text this morning, Paul is going to explain further the concept that under the law we were slaves. There was a point in human history when we were slaves, but now in Christ we are sons. Sons in the sense of recipients of an inheritance.

And so for some of you, I just want to get this out of the way at the beginning, some of you, like the word sons is a male term, right? And so how do the women in the room feel about being called sons?

Well, what you need to understand is that the inheritance laws, that was a valuable thing for Paul to call people then. Because a son, unfortunately with the way that history worked back in those days, women did not inherit and that's not a good thing, that's a bad thing in a cultural sense.

But by declaring that we are sons in God is to say we are all equal inheritors, male and female alike. And he said there is neither male nor female, there is neither slave nor free, there is no Jew, there is no Gentile.

We are all equal inheritors of the blessing that was promised to Christ through God. And so we are no longer slaves. No longer as those, we don't live as those under his scrutiny, under God's judgment, or under God's wrath, but we are of those that are now in his family.

And as we go through this text, I hope that it impacts you the way that it has impacted me this week. Because I've multiple times been moved this week as I've thought about the concept of being moved from the position of being a slave to God to being now declared a son of God, a child, an inheritor in his kingdom.

And the way that we relate as a slave to a master versus the way we relate to a son that's in his inheritance to his father is very different. So I want you to open your Bibles please to Galatians 4, 1 -7, that's page 834 in the Bible that's in the seat back in front of you.

So take that out, turn to page 834. And if you don't own a Bible, please take that one home with you, just keep it in your hand and walk out the door with it. One of the only times you're going to hear a pastor say, steal something from the church, you can take that Bible.

But Galatians 4, 1 -7, and as I read this, I want you to consider in your mind what your personal, your relationship with God looks like. Are you relating to God as if he is your master and you are a slave?

Or are you relating to God like his child? And not just that, but a child who has already come into his inheritance. So listen in. Paul speaking, I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything.

But he is under guardians and managers until the day set by his father. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 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 were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

And because you are sons, God has sent 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 heir through God. Let's pray. Father, as we have an opportunity to lift up our voices right now in praise and worship to you, I think about this concept of adoption and just what worship has risen up for me this week as I've just considered this concept of my adoption into your family.

That you are like a daddy to those who are your children. Not like our broken image, our broken understanding of father. You are not a father like our father was a father. You are the father that our father should have been like.

And so, Father, I ask that you would bring this to light, this glorious and awesome truth this morning, that we are adopted into your family. We do not relate to you as though we are your slaves, but we are inheritors in your kingdom.

I praise you for the way you have shared that with us. And Father, again, as we offer up worship to you, I ask that we would offer out of hearts as children lifting up our heavenly Father who has done great and mighty and awesome and faithful and loving things for us.

In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thanks a lot to the band for leading us. I appreciate that. And then, remember you can get up and get coffee or donuts or juice at any time. And just to remind you we're in Galatians chapter 4, page 834.

If you take the Bible in the seat back in front of you out, page 834 in that Bible. But Galatians 4, 1 through 7, I know that not everybody was in here when I read it at the beginning of the service. So it would be helpful probably for you to track with me if you have your Bible open in front of you.

So that's why I give that every week. But Paul wants to expound on the notion here in the book of Galatians, in this particular section of the book of Galatians, that we are heirs to the promise that had once been given to Abraham.

And we talked about that last week if you were here. And so if you look back at Galatians 3, 29, you're going to see why he's going to end up talking about our sonship and that we are heirs because he introduced that theme in verse 29 of Galatians chapter 3.

So look down at your Bibles for just a second. And if you are Christ, that is, if you belong to Jesus, notice it's possessive. If you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring. Heirs according to the promise.

Heirs according to the promise that had been given to Abraham centuries ago. And I mentioned last week, I mean the main point of my message last week is that we are inheritors of this awesome promise that was given centuries ago.

God has this overarching story that he has been doing from the beginning till now. Ever since we fell, he has had this plan to send a Messiah. And we're going to see here that that Messiah has already come.

And that's going to be part of the point of this passage. So Paul tells us that as long as an heir, here in verse 1, as long as an heir is a child, he is practically no different from a slave. See that?

He says, I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is not different than a slave, even though he is, in essence, the potential owner of everything in the estate. Right? He's the potential owner of everything.

Everything belongs to him, but he still is treated in some sense like a slave. The child is protected. The child is hedged around by rules. The child is hedged around by regulations. The child is expected to do his chores and has very little rights.

Right? Consider the common understanding that we have of this in our culture. Don't we kind of understand how that works in practicality? Maybe we have never been so direct as to say our children don't have rights, because they do have certain rights, obviously.

But just think about that for a moment. Your child doesn't have access to your bank account, right? Right? Do they? That scared me for a second there. Do they have unfettered access to your financial means?

They can just go, you give them a checkbook and they just write checks out of your account? Is that how that works? No. Of course not. If they misuse, if your child misuses their cell phone, what happens to their cell phone?

You take it from them, I hope. But you take that cell phone from them, right? They are under your charge. And although we need to be careful, obviously, to not abuse the power, we exercise a significant level of control over our children.

Would you guys agree with that? In our culture, we exercise a large level of control. And yet in a very real sense, there will likely come a day when everything that we have accumulated goes to them. Is that right?

I mean, in likelihood. The stuff, like if you're into restoring old cars, either you're going to end up selling the car and they're going to get the money from it, or they're going to get the car itself, right?

I mean, all of the stuff that we have is going to end up being theirs. Including the junk that we've accumulated, they're going to have to deal with. They're going to be the ones having the estate sale.

You know what I'm saying? Okay, that's their blessing. But in reality, they are, right now, in essence, they don't have access to all of that wealth, right? If they're young children, if they're young, they don't have access to all of it.

But one day they will. One day they will come into their own and they will inherit and they will be the ones who divide up our wealth. Now, Paul further enhances the illustration by using two Greek words to describe this time period of a child who is an inheritor, who is an heir, but has not yet come into their own.

He says that while the heir is a child, they are under guardians and managers. Well, these are just two words that he's using to somewhat describe the law. I don't think that we need to get into a lot of detail here because they're just parts of the illustration.

But the guardian is like a nanny. That's the word that's used in Greek there. So that's like the one who takes care of the children themselves. But then the manager is a financial kind of word. It's like the financial advisor, the one who is actually caring for the wealth that the child hopes to one day inherit.

So two different Greek words, but it's like the child has protection of the finances and then someone who's taking care of them personally. But both are serving the child, even though the child has no sense.

And that's what Paul wants us to know. The child has no sense that all of this is going on. It has no sense that there is an inheritance that is really ultimately all theirs in the end. Verse 2. Verse 2 then is full of anticipation.

Notice, he is under guardians and managers until the day set by his father. A day is coming. An age is coming when the child will reach the age of inheritance that is set by his father. There is a date and a time when the child becomes an heir, when the child comes into their own.

Now, in our culture, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense and it needs some explanation because that day is generally a sad day in our lives, isn't it? It probably should be anyways, sad, because usually a child comes into their inheritance when?

When the parents are both gone, right? That's when the inheritance happens. But that's not the point of this illustration. As a matter of fact, in some Roman inheritance documents that have been uncovered, the child begins to receive his or her inheritance around the age of, well, his in this culture, but his inheritance around the age of 20 to 25 in pretty common Roman law.

So that the inheritance was not seen as that which was left by the deceased, but that which the child begins to come into, two things, both responsibility in the household for, it's a responsibility to take care of things, but equally an opportunity to benefit from the blessing of the wealth.

So they now kind of like, maybe at age 20, 25, they get the checkbook, but they also obtain a role to play in the estate. So now there's the responsibility of managing things and taking care of things, but equally they inherit some of the benefits and blessings of being under that, you know, as heirs now.

Is that making sense? You're getting that? So they're basically coming into their own while their father is still alive, the child begins to benefit. But the point Paul is making is an extended illustration that I think we can all get.

A child might be the heir of everything. They might have access to, they might literally be the heir of everything, but until the appointed time, he's just like any other hired hand, just like a servant, just like a slave.

If we ended it there, we'd be like, thanks Paul for catching us up to speed on Roman inheritance law. Like, that's cool, okay, we get that, but so what? But this is the Bible, so of course he's going to make a spiritual application of this.

So if you look in verse 3, he starts, in the same way, now he's going to draw an analogy between everything that he's just said and something. In the same way, us, we. And because the scope of the next few verses are a sweeping statement about human history, I truly believe that the we in verse 3 applies to all of humanity under law.

Anybody under the law is incorporated in this we that we see. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of this world. Not when we were literally physically children, but when we were in that era, in that age, under law.

And I think that still applies to anybody in this era, in this time, who is operating in their primary relationship to God based on law, based on rules, based on regulations. And there was a time, this text says, when all of humanity was like a child.

We were like slaves under the hand of God. We were enslaved, the text says, to the elementary principles of the world. Do you see that in the text, that phrase? Now that phrase, elementary principles of the world, is used multiple times in ancient Greek documents.

So it's not just a biblical phrase. It's something that we can actually see and notice in a variety of different writings, from philosophers to just common documents. Elementary principles of the world is a phrase that's used for a lot of different things.

But it has all these different usages have one thing in common. So it's used of the elements of nature. They didn't understand the periodic table yet. Helium, oxygen, neon, xenon, all of these elements.

But if they had the periodic table, they would have used this phrase for it. The building blocks of things. Their concept then was earth, wind, fire, water. And so they thought everything in the world was made out of those four elements in different mixtures.

And so they used that word, this elementary principles of the world, for that. They used elementary principles of the world for the rank and file of the military. The elements that build up, that make up the military.

So commander and all the different ranks, all the way down, centurion, all of those ranks. If you're talking about those ranks in general, you would use this phrase for it. They would often use this phrase to denote their own alphabet.

Are you getting what's in common with this word, the usages of this word? Basic stuff. The building blocks, the components that make things up. They were the parts used to build a whole. And in a sense, the use of the word elementary works great since we just started back to school, right?

So a lot of families are thinking about school. Those of you with children in elementary, thinking about elementary school. What are some of the things that people learn in elementary? Think about those early grades, kindergarten, first grade, second grade.

What are some of the things that we learn? Alphabet, colors, how to write, you're learning how to read, you're learning basic fundamental things about education, right? Not a lot of quantum physics going on, right?

Okay, social skills, you're learning all different kinds of ways to relate, ways of working together to learn better, right? How the social interactions work. So you're learning even foundational math skills.

You have to be able to add before you can do algebra, right? So these things that are building components. So we were enslaved in essence. At one point, to be under the law is to be enslaved to the basic stuff.

We were like kids with the alphabet, but still no concept of words, let alone sentences and paragraphs, not to mention novels and great works of literature. We could not fathom the depth of the usage of letters.

We just knew there were letters there. We knew there were rules, we knew there were laws, but we didn't even understand what they were for. We just knew we had this hodgepodge of building blocks. We had a very basic understanding of spiritual things.

Do you hear what Paul is saying? He's saying if you operate in your relationship to God based on laws and rules and regulations, you are just scratching the surface, barely scratching the surface of a relationship with God.

You are just very basic in your understanding. And regarding our relationship to God, we were enslaved to our limited concept at one point. The word but is one of the best words in the Bible, and yet it also is funny when people use it, right?

Because, you know, like have you ever heard the pastor say, there's a really big but in the middle of my text? And everybody's like, what? And then there's Snickers from the junior hires, and it's kind of funny.

And there's Snickers for me, and then I feel really immature. But there is a big but in the middle of my text here. If you look at it in verse four, it's right there in the beginning. So do you hear what Paul has just said?

There was a time in spiritual reality for all of humanity when we were like children. Okay, I just acted like a child in making that illustration about the but. But we were like children, enslaved to a limited understanding.

We had the potential to be heirs. We had the anticipation of being heirs of the promise. We knew that God was going to do something, and there was anticipation that God was going to send a Messiah. He was going to make right his promise.

He was going to fulfill it, but it had not been done yet. But when the fullness of time had come, at the right point in human history, at the appointed time by the Father, like verse two says, when the time of inheritance was here, God sent forth His Son.

The fulfillment of the promise at the right time. We were enslaved to the elementary principles of law and rules and regulations, trying to approach God in the Old Testament through sacrifices and through mediators and through priests and temples and all of this.

No real one-on-one relationship, but always going through intermediaries and mediators and trying our best to please God with a very limited understanding. And at the culmination of history, the arrival of the promise, the coming of our inheritance, the transition from slaves to sons, the arrival of the Messiah, God in flesh.

And Paul goes on further and says, and He came born of a woman, born under the law. I believe there's three things that Paul wants to make clear about the coming of the promise. Paul wants to point out the way that Jesus came, He was sent forth by God.

That is, to send Him forth implies that He pre-existed this incarnation. It's not like He was born and that's when He came into being or came into existence, but He was sent forth by God. He was around before His birth and was sent forth.

And He came through physical birth, that's the second thing. So the first thing is He pre-existed the incarnation. The second is that He was born of a woman. Paul makes that clear. It's physical birth, that's how God in flesh came to be with us.

But here I believe Paul intentionally echoes what in scripture is the very first hint of the gospel all the way back in history, Genesis 3 .15. If you're taking notes, you can jot that down. Genesis 3 .15 is the very first place in scripture that we have any clue that God is going to make right our broken relationship with Him.

And what it is, is right away when Adam and Eve had fallen, they had eaten the fruit, they've fallen in God's eyes, they have now sinned, broken His commandments, broken the contract between humanity and Him.

He had said don't eat it, they ate it. Now they are in trouble and God calls them into the office and says, I've got some words for you, Adam. I've got some words for you, Eve. And I've got some words for you, Satan.

And in his conversation with Satan, he actually says, but Satan, what you need to understand is that one is going to be born who is an offspring of woman and he is going to crush your head. He's going to be the one who destroys you, Satan.

There is one coming, the promise of the Messiah, the promise that an offspring would be born of woman, an only woman, the virgin birth, and one offspring is going to come through woman, through the line of Abraham, through the line of David.

Jesus meets all of those requirements and is the chosen Messiah, is the one who God has sent, the promised one. And I think that by saying born of a woman, Paul wants us to think Genesis 3, 15. He wants to echo back to that very first call, the very first hoop that the Messiah had to come through, born of a woman.

Many Christians, I fear, jump from Christmas to Easter with very little consideration of the way that Jesus lived. And that's why the third thing that Paul says here is important. He came as one under the law.

He was born of a woman, born under the law. In other words, he wants to highlight that Jesus didn't come into this world to ignore the law or to change the law, but he came into the world as one under the law who would perfectly fulfill it and keep it as a sinless offering.

And so when we as Christians celebrate Christmas, the incarnation, awesome celebration, awesome thing, especially if we can keep our focus on what the point is, right? Kind of hard in our culture, but we can keep the focus on God in flesh.

That's an awesome thing. That's worthy of celebrating. And then we jump ahead and we go to Easter and he died for us on Good Friday and was raised again three days later. Awesome celebration. Again, we celebrate that in our communion, every week, the focus of his sacrifice for us, the centerpiece.

But what happened in between those two? Nothing less than a sinless life happened between those two. That's nothing to scoff at, right? That's nothing to ignore. I mean, that is amazing. And that was important because he kept the law.

He fulfilled it. What we couldn't do, he did as God in flesh, fulfilling and keeping it. His sinless life gave him the unique right to redeem those under the law. If he was a lawbreaker, he would have been under the curse himself.

But as a perfect keeper of the law in flesh, he had the authority and right to bear the curse for others the way that God designed it. And now anyone, anyone that is in Jesus, the son of God, by faith, anyone that has come under the umbrella of Jesus' protection, anybody who has said, you are Lord and Master and bowed the knee and said, please save me.

And that requires humility, right? Like there's a humility that's involved in bowing your knee before somebody and saying, I need you. And that's, I think, the hardest element of the gospel for us as humans, right, is actually humbling ourselves and saying, I can't do it.

Because what is the, what is one of the centerpieces of American independence? Individualism. I can do this. Everybody has to have an I can do attitude, right? The way you get into the kingdom of God is having an I can't do it attitude.

That's hard, isn't it? And yet that is what he is saying we need to have. And so anybody who has come under that umbrella of the protection of Jesus Christ is now adopted into the family of God. If you are in Christ and you are here, you are in God's family, adopted, no longer a childhood slave to the elementary principles, but now full sons of the inheritance.

And since we are now sons, we are not left to the elementary things, but God has propelled us forward by sending us his spirit, the spirit of Jesus into our hearts. And that spirit in our hearts cries out two things, two very similar things, Abba, Father, two different words for the same thing.

And we'll get there here in a minute about how those play out. Because I think Paul moves so quickly from verses five through five and six, so few words that have such meaning that I want to catch you up and I want to make sure that we're all getting this tracking with what Paul is saying through five and six.

You can look down as I kind of walk through this. He says, Jesus, the son of God and perfect law abider has the power to buy us back. We were slaves, but God wanted us to be his sons. He wanted us in his family, but we were servants of the law.

We were broken and imprisoned under sin. And so he sent Jesus as the one who would buy us back, if you will, to redeem us. Like coming to the slave market, as horrible as that was in our history. I've been to the slave market down in Charlotte, North Carolina before.

Have any of you been to one of those before? There's a place where they used to sell people, a horrendous place, but like stepping up onto the block and they would actually auction off people. And it's like Jesus came to the auction and said, I want you, and bought us back and took the shackles off and gave us freedom.

He redeemed us. Awesome picture. That's what redeeming is like. If we accept him by faith, trusting him as Lord and asking him to save us, we are welcomed with open arms into his family. He says, you know what?

You don't come and live with me and serve me and wash my feet and take care of the toilet and do all of these things. You come and you live in a nice room. You come as a beneficiary. You come as an heir and you sit at my table and you eat food with me and we have fellowship together and we enjoy each other's company.

Anybody get chills at the thought that that's what he's done for you? He's bought us back when we were slaves. And now we come under the promise of his blessings to us. We've been adopted by God himself and his spirit takes up residence in our heart.

And that spirit testifies that we are his children by calling out to us, Abba, father. Do you get that? Are you getting that? The spirit comes in and testifies that he is our father. But it's a different question to say, do you get it?

And do you get it? Do you get it in here? Does your heart echo that cry of the spirit in you, Abba, father? Is that the way that you see God? If you are in Christ, you now have the spirit of God residing in you.

And if this is true, then you now realize God as your father. But more than that, you realize that he is your papa. You realize that he is daddy, your Abba. The first syllables that are often spoken in the Middle East even today, still the same word that's used by a young child, by an infant, Abba, daddy.

It's dada. Maybe it's uncomfortable for some of us to think of God in those terms. It's a term of endearment often used by Jesus himself of his heavenly father. And you see the Holy Spirit in us drives us to a desire to know God in terms of endearment, not in terms of fear.

The spirit of God, if he resides in you, does not drive you to fear God, does not drive you to a slave type of relationship with God. He drives you deeper into his love, deeper into his mercy, deeper into his compassion.

In terms of a relationship of healthy dependence, an infant should reasonably, a young child, a toddler should have a reasonable sense of dependence on his parents or her parents. Would you agree with that?

It's healthy for a toddler to have dependence on their children. You guys agreeing with me? And if you know God primarily, think, just be honest with yourself, be brutally honest. If you think, if you know God primarily as the big boss man, the big guy upstairs, the harsh, abusive father, the absent, apathetic, workaholic father, then one of two things is true.

And I want to make sure that you understand there's room for both of these errors and I understand. Either we are misunderstanding our relationship with him as our heavenly Abba because of a broken human relationship and therefore we are squelching the call of the spirit in our lives that is testifying to us, he is your Abba, he is your Papa.

Either you're squelching that cry because you've misunderstood father potentially for a good reason, or the other side is possible and that is that the spirit is not in you. That's possible. That the spirit of God is not alive in your life, that is then that you are not a child, you are not in his family because everyone who is a child has the spirit of God in them and everyone who is not a child does not have the spirit of God in them and maybe that's why you're uncomfortable calling him Daddy.

I want us to seriously consider that this morning. But let me take on the first potential issue first because I think this is a significant one in our culture, not just our culture, it's a significant problem for humanity.

Some of you have had a very poor example of a father and that's reality for you and I don't want to minimize that. It's been 31 years since I had anybody in my life that I could call father. My dad died when I was eight years old.

Difficult thing. I would love to have my father back and I don't know if any of you have lost a parent or lost a loved one at an early age but your mind can't help but wonder how things would be different if that hadn't happened.

I'm sure that that's the case for some of you in this room and yet in a strange sense I count myself blessed in one way and that is that I cannot relate to what it means to have a father that abused you and some of you have and I think better that my father was taken than that he abused me because I never had a father who abused me.

I never had a father that ignored me. I never had a need-to-please relationship with my father and some of you have. In my heart, I mean, my emotion right now is not for me, it's for you. For those of you that have suffered under what it means to have a father that was cruel to you and some of you here in this room have suffered greatly.

So when you think of God as Papa, you are getting it wrong and I want to correct you but I also want to be sensitive to you and understanding towards you. But in reality, you're thinking about this wrong.

God is not saying, I'm a father like your father was. He's saying, your father should have acted like me. You getting it? I am the quintessential father. I am the loving one. I am the one who is all gracious and all merciful and kind and I have an inheritance for you and you're in my family.

Come one, come all and join in this and one day we will go to his house and it will be a glorious place. A place set aside for us with joy and with good things. All other fathers are to be measured against him as the standard and he says, who among you, the best that fathers are here on this world, he says, what father if you ask him for bread is going to give you a stone?

Saying, I'm not a father like that. I wouldn't give you a stone if you ask for bread. I'd give you bread. If you ask for a fish, what father is going to give you a serpent or a scorpion? He says, I'm a good father.

I'm a loving father and God has in a very real sense been my father over these 31 years. I've turned to him when many of you have picked up the phone and called your own dad, but I can testify myself and you can come and talk with me about this.