Scripture: Galatians 4:1-11
Sermon Series: Galatians – Set Free, Live Free – Sermon 10

According to Forbes, there are 3,028 billionaires in the world. If you could be someone’s heir, who would it be? Would it be one of the three richest people in the world? Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, maybe Jeff Bezos What about Mukesh Ambani? He’s the richest man in Asia. Last year he threw a very publicized wedding in India for his son, Anand Ambani and his wife Radhika. The wedding cost some $600 million, That’s a chunk of change, especially considering that the average wedding costs $33,000.00. Out of that $600 million, $10 million was given to Justin Bieber to have him perform at this private event. Mukesh Ambani is worth upwards of $100 billion. Where did he get his money? He inherited it from his father, Dhirubhai Ambani, who died in 2002.

Maybe you’re thinking, “I was born in the wrong family.” Well, don’t be sad because the Bible tells us, “We are heirs and heirs not just of earthly wealth, which ultimately fades away, but of heavenly blessings above.”

The third chapter of Galatians closes with a wonderful picture of the amazing blessings we have in Christ. But Paul isn’t done describing the rich blessings we have in Christ. Galatians 3:29, And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. If you’re in Christ, you’re a descendant of Abraham, which means you’re an heir of the Promise.

What does it mean to be an heir? Being an heir means you’re in line to receive something. It means that you have rights to the inheritance.

Between Galatians 3 and 4, there’s no break. Chapter and verse divisions aren’t part of the original. As we begin chapter 4, we’re not breaking into a new thought. Paul is continuing what he began in chapter 3. The Bible tells us that those who’ve committed their lives to the Lord Jesus are part of Abraham’s offspring. The promise to Abraham applies to every Christ-follower. We become heirs of righteousness and eternal life, all because of Jesus. Are you an heir? Paul tells us about being an heir in verses 4:1-11 (page 915). “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 date 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 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 an heir through God. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain”.

Once we were slaves but now, we’re God’s children with an inheritance. So how can anyone turn back to slavery? In his book, “Knowing God,”

J. I. Packer writes: “If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.” Are you an heir?

1. Immature children can’t handle their inheritance, vss. 1-3 

A child is like a slave in that he can’t handle his own affairs. He isn’t allowed to manage his own estate or make his own decisions.

When Princess Diana died in 1997, she left a sizeable inheritance to her sons, William and Harry, some $20.4 million, but the provision was that they were only able to inherit this estate after their 30^th birthdays.

You don’t give a child millions! You wait until he or she is old enough to make responsible decisions! That’s Paul’s point. A child in that culture was like a slave with someone else managing their life. That’s the way it was for the people of God prior to Christ and His cross.

For 1500 years, from the time of Moses until Christ, God’s people were like children. They were like slaves under the guardianship of the Mosaic Law. There was a clear rite of passage that marked when a child became an adult.

For Jews, on the first Sabbath after a boy passed his 12^th birthday, his father took him to the Synagogue, where he became A Son of the Law. There was a clear dividing line in the boy’s life. Overnight he became a man.

In Greek culture a boy was under his father’s care from seven until eighteen. He then became what was called a “cadet.” For two years he was under the direction of the state, then at a ceremonial act his long hair was cut off and offered to the gods. There was a clear transition from childhood to adulthood.

When a boy was a minor in the eyes of the law, he might be the owner of a vast estate but couldn’t make a legal decision. Everything was done and directed for him. Wealthy families had guardians assigned to care for the boy. The child, though an heir, had no more freedom than a slave. William Hendriksen writes, he was heir by legal right but not heir in fact.

Paul continues the comparison with, In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world (Galatians 4:3). He doesn’t specify what the basic principles are. It seems to refer to the basic things of religion. All the religions of that day and today, have at their heart a system of works. They’re filled with rules and regulations, the obeying of which is thought to make a person right with a deity.

For example, Muslims pray five times a day. A regular prayer routine is one of the pillars of Islam. Hindus offer fruit, flowers and incense to their gods. Every religion apart from Christianity has something you have to DO.

So, no matter what religious system a person subscribed to, he was still a slave to sin. It’s like they were in kindergarten and had to get permission just to go to the bathroom. They couldn’t make their own decisions.  

For the Jew, the Law the law did all of that, even to the point of what to eat and what to wear. Have you read the Mosaic Law? There’s some interesting stuff in there. For 1500 years, the Law dictated the lives of the Jews, because like children, we really didn’t know how to make good decisions. We didn’t know how to handle the rich blessings we had from God.

What are the elementary principles? What enslaves every culture and can enslave us? Let me share three: money, sex and power. They’re all around us. We can’t avoid them. They’re incredibly potent, so sinful creatures like us are constantly tempted to turn them into idols and worship them as gods. Examine any conflict. At the root, you’ll find one or all three.

What’s behind the war in Ukraine? Money and power are definitely there. Why did you have your last fight with your spouse? Was it money, sex or power? Our surrender to them is indicative that we’re still spiritually children. 

Not too long ago, a teenager was in such a hurry to try out his new surfboard that, oblivious of the warning flags, he dashed straight out into the waves. Immediately, an authoritative voice boomed, “You are an inexperienced surfer. Return to shore.” Embarrassed, he returned to the shore but not without asking the lifeguard how he knew he was a novice. “Easy. You’ve got your wet suit on backwards.” Symptoms of spiritual immaturity are obvious too.

So, Christ-follower, to experience the power of your new identity, you need to remember who you were. For your new life to shine through, you have to remember what you were apart from God’s grace, who you used to be. 

If you’re here and not a Christ-follower, I’d like to speak to you for a moment. Christianity isn’t good advice about what you need to do, it’s great news about what God has already done for you. BUT you must see the bad news before the good news makes sense. Here’s the bad. You’re enslaved to the elementary principles of this world. You’re enslaved to trying to measure up to God by your own good works because it’s never enough. You’re enslaved to not being able to meet your own standards. Elementary principles enslave you, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Slavery is our natural state without Christ. And Christian, remember you’re not who you used to be…you’re God’s heir.

2. The child of God’s inheritance is inexhaustible, vss. 4-7

Something radically changes, the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son (Galatians 4:4). The date was set by the Father. We’re no longer like a child, but ready to inherit God’s blessings. The fullness of time is inextricably linked to the first coming of Jesus.

This idea of fullness of time is spoken of by Jesus in Mark 1:15, The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand. This is the time of blessing so what do you do? Keep the law? No! You repent and believe the gospel, which is the Good News of Jesus dying and rising again to save you from your sins.

It’s in Ephesians 1:9-10, Set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him. Jews and Gentiles don’t matter anymore, as long as you believe in Jesus Christ, you’re gathered as part of the body of Christ.

“The fullness of time” was a unique time in history. The time was right politically. Rome instituted the pax Romana (Roman peace), which provided economic and political stability. A road system was in a place that afforded ease of travel over much of the region. There was a universal language, Greek.

Pagan gods were incapable of satisfying spiritual hunger. The Law of Moses had shown the Jews their utter inability to keep its perfect standards.

God always has a timetable. He’s never early, He’s never late, it’s always at the “fullness of time.” God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law (Galatians 4:4). Jesus Christ, the 2^nd person of the Godhead, was sent by His Father to miraculously join His sinless nature in the womb of Mary. He was sent. But Jesus is God and had eternally existed before He came to earth.  

At that moment, the Son of God became the Son of Man. The God-Man was subject to the Law. Unlike all who preceded Him or followed, Jesus met all of the law’s requirements perfectly. His divinity, humanity, and righteousness uniquely qualified Him to redeem those under the law. (Galatians 4:5).

As John Stott explains, “If He had not been man, He could not have redeemed men. If He had not been a righteous man, He could not have redeemed unrighteous men. And if He had not been God’s Son, He could not have redeemed men for God or made them the sons of God.”

What does it mean that Jesus was born of a woman? Why didn’t it say, “Born of a man and woman?” When a birth announcement is sent, we read that a child was born to John and Jane Q. Public. Scripture never says Jesus was born of Joseph and Mary. Born of a woman is a reference to His Virgin birth.

There’s a prophetic reason why Paul chose this exact language. Jesus fulfilled the very first Messianic prophecy in the Bible. The first prophecy about Jesus is found on the third page of your Bible. After the serpent deceived Eve and they disobeyed God, Adam and Eve realized they were guilty. The lie of Satan is that sin won’t hurt you when in fact sin enslaves you and kills you.

After God came searching for the guilty pair, He pronounced a curse upon the serpent. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel (Genesis 3:15). Satan’s offspring are those who live separated from God’s redemption. “Born of a woman” is a fulfillment of this prophecy. The snake tried to strike the heel of the Messiah. At the cross, Jesus crushed the snake’s head. A heal wound isn’t fatal, but no one survives a crushed head.

Let’s read the will for God’s heirs. It has some powerful words.

Redeem. To redeem those who were under the law (Galatians 4:5). When we were in shackles, enslaved to sin, Jesus came to remove our chains, taking them up on His sinless shoulders. To redeem means to “buy back.”

One of my favorite pictures of Jesus as the Redeemer is from the book of Hosea. Hosea was married to a woman named Gomer. After their first child, Gomer grows restless and becomes a prostitute. Her downward spiral continued until she deserts her husband and family to live like a whore. Finally, her lovers grew tired of her. To survive, Gomer has to sell herself into slavery.

Think of the betrayal, hurt and shame BUT who bought her back, who redeemed her? Hosea. Like God, Hosea displayed the stubborn love of God. He searched for Gomer until he found her disheveled, destitute, and chained to an auction block in a filthy slave market. In love for her, he’s committed to redeeming her. He buys her with 15 shekels of silver and 13 bushels of grain (Hosea 3:2). He forgave her and brought her back into his home to be his wife.

What a powerful picture of God’s love for us. We were slaves to sin. Jesus came to redeem us, but He paid something more precious than silver or grain. “Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19). Our salvation is never about what we’ve done; it’s always about what God has done. He sent Jesus to redeem us, so we’re no longer slaves, but sons.

Adoption. So that we might receive adoption as sons (Galatians 4:5). Paul escalates this. Now it’s for someone who was originally not part of the family, brought into the family to inherit the wealth. He ratchets it up another notch, this adoption of sons, a mature son.

In those days in Rome, it wasn’t uncommon for someone who was rich and powerful to adopt adults. Today we adopt, but most adoptions are children. Back then, they’d adopt adults, so they could continue the business or run the empire. Why? When you adopt a child, you don’t know how they’ll turn out. When you adopt an adult, you have an idea what type of person they’ll be.

Augustus Caesar was adopted by Julius Caesar to be his heir. Nine of the Caesars were adopted to become Caesar. Paul uses this idea of not a natural born child, but someone outside the family that God brings into His family.

Nicolas Puech, descendant of the founder of French luxury goods company, Hermès, adopted his middle-aged gardener, leaving him at least half of his $13 billion estate. But his gardener is married with two children. Still Puech bequeathed a significant portion of his wealth to his “son,” the gardener.

Adoption is unique to Paul. No other New Testament author writes about it. It’s the privilege of Christ-followers. We weren’t part of God’s family. Now we can be. Before we were God’s enemies yet now are adopted into God’s family because of Christ.

If a son was adopted into a new family, he was guaranteed legal rights to his father’s property. Roman law made it clear that an adopted child had the same rights as any other child. He gains full inheritance rights. Adoption gave you a new name and a new family. It meant your old life was gone forever.

So complete was the transformation that if you were adopted into a new family and had old debts, at the moment of adoption all of your old debts were canceled. An adopted son was regarded as a new person with a brand-new life.

And that’s us. At salvation we’re adopted into God’s family. We have a new name and a new family. Our old life is gone forever. The only way to come into God’s family is by adoption. Prior to adoption we were spiritual slaves. God loved us enough to free us, save us, and adopt us!

This right to become God’s children is not given to everyone. Only those who put their full trust in Jesus as Savior can become true children of God. God sent Christ so that we could be redeemed and adopted into God’s family.

A puzzled teacher sat with two brothers, who were her new students. “I think there’s a mistake with the forms you’ve filled out. How is it possible that you were both born in the same year but three months apart?” The older brother replied sheepishly, “It’s because one of us is adopted.” The teacher then said, “That’s so special! Can you give me a clue which of you it might be?” The brothers looked at each other and shrugged. Speaking again, the older boy said, “We don’t know. Dad and mom have never told us. They’ve always cared for us the same.” When God adopts us into His family, He loves us fully in Christ, we are heirs and co-heirs with Him.

Abba. “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6). J. I. Packer asks the question, “What is a Christian?” He responds, “The richest answer I know is that a Chrisitan is one who has God as Father.” 

Perhaps the most revolutionary thing Jesus taught is that we can call God, Abba. He taught us to pray, Our Father (Abba) who is in heaven… Abba is an Aramaic word that speaks of intimacy and tenderness. When a baby looked into the face of his father, one of his or her first words would be “Abba.” Our best translation would be “Da-daa” or “Papa.”

People all around us are having identity crises. They go to therapy or attend seminars to discover their inner selves. They search out their family tree or try to build their sense of self-worth by their achievements and awards. But if you want to know who you really are, if you are a Christ-follower, you’re Abba’s child. That’s more important than any other self-identity you’ll ever find.

Do you know how much God loves you? The answer to that has to be, “No.” You can’t comprehend the height, breadth, and depth of God’s love for you.

Brennan Manning, in Abba’s Child, writes: “It takes a profound conversion to accept that God is relentlessly tender and compassionate toward us just as we are—not in spite of our sins and faults (that would not be total acceptance), but with them. Though God does not condone or sanction evil, He does not withhold His love because there is evil in us.”

I’m not “Abba’s child” because I’m good: I’m not. I’m not Abba’s child because I deserve it: I don’t. I’m not Abba’s child because I obey the rules in the Bible: I can’t. I’m Abba’s child because He’s chosen to love me.

Being a child of God means you’re an heir. Every believer is an heir through God (Galatians 4:7). Because Jesus paid our sin price, we are now heirs of God. It’s not through our own merits or efforts. It’s all of grace. Because we are heirs, all that belongs to the Son, belongs to child of God.

3. Some throw their inheritance away, vss. 8-11

Have you heard the story about the little boy whose mother just gave birth to his baby brother? While the baby was sleeping in his crib, the big brother looks into the crib at his baby brother and whispers, Quick, before you forget, tell me about God. The Galatians forgot their salvation, turning their backs on God and the gospel.

If you’ve discipled someone and then seen them slip back into a pre-Christ place, you understand Paul’s heartbreak. He appeals to these new believers to not to slip back into slavery, but to live as heirs of God. He acknowledges that at one time his readers had an excuse for their present behavior. Before they acted like slaves because they were slaves.

We too can look back to a period of slavery in our own experiences. Perhaps it was slavery to a sinful habit like lust or materialism. Maybe it was slavery to greed, selfishness or pride. We treated those things as little gods in our lives, but they weren’t gods. If anything, they were demons that kept us from God.

The day of excuses is over, as indicated “but now” in verse 9. “But now that you know God–or rather are known by God–how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles?”

Some of the slaves emancipated by Lincoln, after trying freedom, went back to their old masters, begging to become slaves again. There was security in slavery. All the slave had to do was obey the rules.

There’s something terribly pathetic about a freed slave who begs to go back to slavery. There’s something even more pathetic about a believer that’s experienced God’s grace, knows the amazing freedom in Christ, but chooses to return to a life of slavery, whose focus is on do’s and don’ts of legalism, or the sinful passions of a lost world.

With heartbreak in his voice Paul asks, “Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?” How foolish! We’re not certain what Paul was referring to.

We do know open sin and legalism are both evil. Both sons in the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 missed the heart of God.

As Tim Keller repeatedly said: picture Christ dying between two thieves. On one side is irreligion or relativism. That’s the younger brother, the life of the pagan. On the other side is religion or legalism. That’s the older brother. It’s keeping the rules. Both are opposed to the gospel. Both keep us from the knowledge of God. Both are lives of slavery and leave us empty.

Let me share what Paul is saying in a more contemporary situation. You were a homeless and hopeless refugee living in a refugee camp dependent on others for your very subsistence. No hope. No citizenship. Abandoned and alone. A visiting rich man notices you, picks you up from the rubble, cleans you up, brings you into his wealthy home. He gives you freedom and wealth you’d never imagined. He goes through the courts, adopts you, making you his heir.

But then some from the tent camp came and told you, conditions are improved. They now have porta potties and have moved up from cardboard boxes to canvas tents. You should come back to the refugee slum.

That’s crazy. You don’t leave wealth you never imagined and adoption into a family that has everything with full heirship and unimaginable wealth in the future to go back to the slum. It’s what the Galatians did and it’s what many Christians do. They leave the joy of Jesus for the slums of their old sin.

C.S. Lewis was right. “The safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

Conclusion

Do you remember the 1998 Disney movie, Parent Trap? Identical twins were separated at birth by their parents’ divorce. They accidentally meet 11 years later at a summer camp. Together the twins plan to switch identities, so each can meet the respective parent she’s never known and try to bring their parents together again.

As Annie, who is pretending to be Hallie, disembarks from her plane, her father is waiting. Annie is tentative but exuberant as she sees him. After a warm embrace they travel home. As they drive toward his home, Annie discusses the camp, ending almost all her sentences with the word “Dad.” He asks her, “Why do you keep saying ‘Dad’ at the end of every sentence?” Annie answers, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was doing it, Dad. Sorry, Dad.” They both laugh. “Do you want to know why I keep saying ‘Dad’? The truth?”

The father says, “Because you missed your old man so much, right?” “Exactly. It’s because in my whole life—I mean, you know, for the past eight weeks—I was never able to say the word ‘Dad.’ Never. Not once. And if you ask me, a dad is an irreplaceable person in a girl’s life. Think about it. There’s a whole day devoted to celebrating fathers. Just imagine someone’s life without a father. Never buying a Father’s Day card. Never sitting on their father’s lap. Or being able to say ‘Hi, Dad,’ or, ‘What’s up, Dad?,’ or, ‘Catch you later, Dad.’ I mean, a baby’s first words are always ‘Dada,’ aren’t they?”

The father asks, “Let me see if I get this. You missed being able to call me ‘Dad’?” Annie answers, “Yeah, I really have, Dad.”

Today it’s called “Father Hunger.” Within us there’s a deep desire to have a relationship with our dad. No one wants to feel like an orphan. The answer is not an earthly dad; it’s God the Father. It’s being His child. It’s being adopted. It’s being an heir of God.

In Jesus Christ we’ve discovered the greatest news of all-that our God is not some impersonal deity. He’s not a distant God who’s so far off He doesn’t care. In Jesus Christ we’ve discovered the most important truth of the universe.  Our God is a father. 

He loves you so much that He did something we’d never think of doing. He sacrificed His own Son to die for you when you were a slave. He loves you inconceivably because He did the inconceivable. He gave His Son for you, proving He is a Father who truly loves His children.

This morning, are you His child? Have you trusted Him? Have you trusted that His Son’s death for your sin was enough?

If you haven’t, He wants to adopt you today. He wants to make you His heir, but you must say, “Yes.” Will you say “yes” to Him today?