Shownotes
Pastor Justin shares how God’s family is built on grace rather than rules, effort, or background. Through Jesus, we move from spiritual insecurity to the freedom of being fully adopted sons and daughters. Stop striving for approval and start living from the security of knowing you already belong.
He shares how Christ’s finished work replaces striving with settled identity, and how your adoption opens the door to inheritance, diversity, and unshakable belonging. Whether you’ve felt disqualified, overlooked, or “not enough,” God’s promise is clear: you’re wanted, included, and already family. Watch now and step into the freedom of grace.
Bible References
Deuteronomy 32:8-9; Job 1:8-11; Matthew 4:8-10, 28:18-20; 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, 13:11; Galatians 3:25-29; 4:1-31; Colossians 1:20
Key Insights
- Christ's sacrifice created a way for everyone to be part of God's family.
- True freedom comes when you act from sonship, not for it.
- Legalism and spiritual performance are replaced by adoption through Jesus. Stop trying to earn what’s already yours.
- Diversity across backgrounds, ethnicities, generations, and languages in God’s family is a mark of God's beauty and intention.
- Struggles with feeling like an outsider or “not enough” are answered by God’s unbreakable promise to make you His.
https://springhousemidweek.captivate.fm/episode/foundations-galatians-4
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- Wednesdays, 6:00 PM
Contact Info
Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167
CCLI License 2070006
Transcripts
This is my first midweek in
Speaker:this room. Okay, so he's not
Speaker:entirely wrong. It's not an untruth. It's not a lie, it's an untruth,
Speaker:right? Okay. It's close. It's
Speaker:close. If you got your Bibles, go ahead and open up into
Speaker:Galatians chapter 4. That's going to be our working text. I will
Speaker:bounce around a little bit. I didn't bother putting
Speaker:anything on the screen, um, because you've got your
Speaker:Bibles and she You got one too, right there. So
Speaker:tonight, the focal point that we're gonna look at in
Speaker:this text is understanding the difference between
Speaker:law and salvific grace and how they are partners in
Speaker:ministry and how this creates a space for us to
Speaker:comprehend the fullness of chapter 4 and the family
Speaker:dynamic of the kingdom. I began studying Paul's
Speaker:letter to the Galatian church about 15 years ago when I
Speaker:was in a program And I remember getting so excited, and
Speaker:there was a guy in the program with me. There was about
Speaker:10 of us, and his name was, uh, his name was not Slim, but
Speaker:we called him Slim, okay? And, uh, I remember running
Speaker:up to Slim. I'm reading chapter 3, and I'm running up,
Speaker:and I said, hey Slim, Satan wants to be with you. And he
Speaker:said, what do you mean Satan wants to be with me? I said,
Speaker:no, no, no, he wants to bewitch you. He said, yeah,
Speaker:what's that supposed to mean he wants to be with me? Why
Speaker:would Satan want to be with me? I said, no, he wants to
Speaker:bewitch you. And he— you saw— I could see him start
Speaker:to process, and he was like, you talking about like the show? I
Speaker:said, yes, he's trying to trick you. He's trying to put a spell on you,
Speaker:trying to hex you. And he said, oh, that makes more sense than he wants
Speaker:to be with me. And so I was sad when I
Speaker:got assigned chapter 4 and not chapter 3, but I thought, guess what? I can
Speaker:say it anyways. Because I'm
Speaker:up, man. I thoroughly
Speaker:enjoyed— I thoroughly enjoyed last week's session.
Speaker:And it brings up kind of an interesting point with Pastor Jonathan. He was
Speaker:talking about a certain dynamic and how there's an—
Speaker:there is this instinct to be
Speaker:polarizing with the scriptures. Okay. And
Speaker:part of what Paul is doing is he's wrestling with the
Speaker:idea of this collective theology of the
Speaker:church along with everyone's individual
Speaker:personal theology. And the church— when I say the church, I
Speaker:mean the big C Church— we kind of don't do any
Speaker:favors to new believers because we say, hey guys, you need to be
Speaker:reading your Bible. And then we hope that you
Speaker:understand what you're reading and that you come to the same
Speaker:conclusion that we, us learned folk, have
Speaker:already come to. But we won't help you along the way,
Speaker:but unless you're wrong. And then we say, your theology theology's jacked up. Let me,
Speaker:let me help you with this, right? And so part of the
Speaker:reason for these letters were the
Speaker:larger church had this collective theology, but a
Speaker:bunch of individuals, it seemed to get
Speaker:muddy along the way. And Paul's trying to help everyone
Speaker:wrestle with the scriptures themselves while understanding the
Speaker:big picture of the story of the Bible. Paul starts
Speaker:chapter 4 this way. I mean,
Speaker:chapter 4, verse 1. Where's it at? Is it up there? We ain't got it.
Speaker:You got it in your Bibles. Here we go. Chapter 4, verse 1. I
Speaker:mean, there it is. So clearly the
Speaker:king of the run-on sentence was not finished with his thought.
Speaker:Paul was definitely the king of the run-on sentence. Like, They had to put
Speaker:numbers in there somewhere. You'd be like, there's no way this
Speaker:is verse 5. It's a page, right?
Speaker:So the king of the run-on sentence was not finished with his thought, and we
Speaker:just cut him off and said, here, this is going to be chapter 4. So
Speaker:let's go back and look at a few important verses to get context. You guys
Speaker:know, if you've sat under any of my teachings, I'm like, what are we
Speaker:talking about here? Where are we coming from? And all of our teachers
Speaker:have done a fantastic job about giving us the bird's-eye view of
Speaker:why Paul is writing this letter as we're working through the nuts and bolts,
Speaker:and I want us to zoom out a little further and look at it from
Speaker:a total Bible point of view, okay?
Speaker:So we're gonna look at the eligibility requirements,
Speaker:seeing the big picture of Scripture. Right now there's a big controversy in college
Speaker:football where the NCAA has declared
Speaker:that some players, if they didn't get their 5th year of
Speaker:college football, that even though they're in
Speaker:the NFL now, if they get cut by a team, they can go back
Speaker:down, right, to college football. And you know
Speaker:who's spearheading this project? Lane Kiffin. You know, everybody loves him, Lane
Speaker:Kiffin at LSU, right? So today, all 15 out of the
Speaker:16 presidents of college football in the SEC
Speaker:voted, we're not gonna allow that, right? They said these guys are
Speaker:ineligible. Right? They're ineligible. We have
Speaker:certain requirements that you have to meet. There are
Speaker:criteria that you have to meet in order
Speaker:to be a part of this team. Well, the scriptures are
Speaker:clear that historically there have been eligibility
Speaker:requirements to enter the kingdom, to be a part of
Speaker:God's family. And of course, there are outliers along the way. We run
Speaker:into Rahab, and she was the only one saved. You've got
Speaker:Ruth, who pledges her life to Naomi. And you've got You have
Speaker:other individuals who were grafted into the
Speaker:family of God, but never, never
Speaker:have nations been allowed to join the
Speaker:family. Historically, since the Babel
Speaker:event, it has been God's people, Jacob,
Speaker:Israel, his allotted portion, and everybody
Speaker:else. And now Paul is
Speaker:responsible for bringing the Gentiles
Speaker:the good news and that they grafted back
Speaker:into the family of God. They meet the eligibility requirements.
Speaker:They still have some NCAA eligibility. I
Speaker:currently have all 5 years of my NCAA—
Speaker:No, sir. Whatever. Okay?
Speaker:So we're going to back up just a little bit. Galatians chapter 3,
Speaker:verse 25. Okay, we're gonna read 25 through
Speaker:29 real quick. It says, But now
Speaker:that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,
Speaker:for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as
Speaker:many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Speaker:There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free,
Speaker:there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And
Speaker:if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs
Speaker:according to the promise. So Paul says
Speaker:that the law was our guardian. The law
Speaker:had a temporary and protective role, and it
Speaker:kept people mindful of their condition and guided them towards
Speaker:maturity in God's ways. The law keeps you
Speaker:mindful of your condition. Why is that? Because you
Speaker:constantly fail to keep it. And you have to be mindful
Speaker:of ways you don't measure up.
Speaker:We are now eligible for adoption according to verse
Speaker:26 because of Christ's atonement. I mentioned that
Speaker:this was not a possibility. We didn't even have the
Speaker:eligibility requirements as Gentile nations before
Speaker:Christ came. Deuteronomy 32:8-9.
Speaker:says, when the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he
Speaker:divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the people
Speaker:according to the number of the sons of God. But the
Speaker:Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted
Speaker:heritage. So at Babel, they, they first off,
Speaker:they broke a lot of rules because he said, I want you to
Speaker:be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and spread out.
Speaker:And instead they gathered together. So God says, hey, I want you to
Speaker:go spread out. And they said, no, no, no, we'll gather together. Then they tried
Speaker:to build a mountain temple. They built one to
Speaker:make their names great instead of making God's name great.
Speaker:God, he changed the languages of the
Speaker:people and he divided the nations and he took Jacob
Speaker:as his portion. And this is where we have the
Speaker:foundation for the Jews being God's chosen people.
Speaker:He took that nation and placed the other ones
Speaker:under the sons of God. Satan's
Speaker:temptation of Christ in Matthew
Speaker:4:8-10. You guys are
Speaker:familiar with the temptation of Jesus, and Satan comes
Speaker:to Jesus 3 times when He's in the
Speaker:wilderness, and he says to Him in verse 8,
Speaker:Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all of
Speaker:the kingdoms of the world and their glory, And he said to
Speaker:him, all these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.
Speaker:Then Jesus said to him, begone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the
Speaker:Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.
Speaker:So Satan says, hey, I want you to see all these kingdoms. These
Speaker:are actually mine. And if you'll worship me, I'll give them to you.
Speaker:Basically, Jesus, you don't have to go to the cross to get
Speaker:these kingdoms. If you just worship me, I'll give them to
Speaker:you. And we don't see in Scripture Jesus arguing with
Speaker:Satan about the validity of his claim. Right. He doesn't
Speaker:argue if you actually have dominion and power over these
Speaker:nations. Instead, he says, begone, Satan! It is written,
Speaker:you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you
Speaker:serve. So we see the dividing of the nations, and then we
Speaker:see in Jesus' time Satan says, hey, these nations
Speaker:actually belong to me, but if you'll bow down, I'll give
Speaker:them to you. Take the easy way out, Jesus.
Speaker:Now let's flip to Matthew chapter 28,
Speaker:verses 18 through 20, and
Speaker:this is beautiful. I love this. I love this.
Speaker:This is after the resurrection, okay? So this— He's been
Speaker:crucified. He's come back to life. He's
Speaker:raised Himself from the dead, right? And this is what he says.
:18-20,
:he says, And Jesus came
:and said to them, all authority in
:heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore,
:go— go therefore and make disciples of
:all nations. Baptizing them
:in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
:teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with
:you always, even to the end of the age.
:So Christ says, my atonement legally
:purchased the authority over the nations.
:God divided them up early on. We— it's in the,
:the, the first 14 chapters of the Bible we see the nations
:divided. Thousands of years,
:and then we see Christ's atonement on the cross, and we have
:been merely minimized in our thinking
:that it was only the sin that held them there. There
:was a legal claim and jurisdiction that the
:enemy held that was broken and nullified
:at the cross of Christ. That is an important distinction to
:understand. That he has no legal
:grounds over the nations anymore.
:There is no legal ground that he has. You
:guys remember in Job where Job is about to be
:tempted and the Lord says, have you considered my servant Job? And he said,
:I would love to. I would love nothing more than to torture
:Job. I'm obviously acting this out as
:if I'm the accuser. And he says, but I
:can't do anything to him. You have a hedge of protection
:around him. There was a legality that was in
:place that prevented Job from just being destroyed
:by the enemy. That same legality has been destroyed by
:Christ's atoning work on the cross, and now the Gentiles
:have an eligibility that they have never had
:before. Verse 27 in
:Galatians, where our text that we're working in, in 3:27,
:it says, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have
:put on Christ. This is the same language as become the curse
:or became sin. It says he put on sin. He
:became sin who knew no sin, that he might become the
:righteousness— that we might become the righteousness of God through him. Amen.
:Does that make sense? Are you tracking? Well, he says, you put on
:Christ, and Paul's using the same language when he says,
:Christ put on sin. Paul's emphasis
:is on the categories that divide us. He says, there's
:neither Jew nor Greek,
:slave nor free, male nor female. He said, these are the
:things that usually divide us: race, social status,
:and gender. And Paul is saying,
:it's not that they don't exist, but they don't apply.
:That's a big deal. It's not that race, gender, and social
:status are all of a sudden completely dismissed because he's in
:the Roman world speaking to these people right now. He's saying it's no
:longer applicable. He didn't say they
:don't exist, they don't apply. Why? Because the Bible Because
:God is one and he is reconciling the world to
:himself, 2 Corinthians 5, and he is establishing a
:single unified family. The
:Bible is the story of God redeeming and restoring
:his family to him from start to finish. It is all
:about one big family, the whole
:thing. Now, I love how he
:closes with this. And if you are Christ's, then you are
:Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.
:Paul's phrase, I mean, shows us that he
:wants to give a practical example of a theological lesson,
:right? Jesus was a master at this. We call them what?
:Parables. Parables, where you tell a regular story
:to show an example. I told a regular story on Sunday.
:About somebody I know who takes a lot of ibuprofen.
:At one time.
:And, uh, I hurt my finger this weekend and I thought about taking
:16 ibuprofen at one time, right?
:When Paul says, I mean, he— then you read what he
:says. He's trying to give a practical example of a theological lesson
:because a good teacher wants their students to think. A
:good teacher wants their students to think. Some of the best teachers I have ever
:had didn't, didn't encourage me to
:recite and memorize information. They taught me to think about the text.
:They taught me to think about what God's doing in this. What is he— what
:is, what is the Lord trying to say in this place? They taught me how
:to think. A good parent
:wants their children to understand, but they want them to think with their
:brains. Right? My kids don't always think
:with their brains. Sometimes I don't know what they're thinking with. I'm like, is
:this— do you— I feel like we're speaking the same language.
:I don't— we don't speak anything but English in my house, and sometimes they look
:at me like I don't have no comprende. And I'm like,
:look, what— your mom don't speak Spanish to y'all,
:okay? 1 through 7,
:Paul begins by comparing the child and the slave. Let's go ahead and
:read 1 through 7. 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 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 an heir through
:God. Paul begins by
:comparing the child and the slave.
:The Greek word used here is nepios,
:which it means child and refers to an infant or
:a minor unable to care for himself or herself.
:Paul uses the term elsewhere to describe the immaturity of
:believers. 1 Corinthians chapter 3,
:which we've been journeying through 1 and 2 Corinthians in the 12.
:And, um, I'm thankful to get to 2 Corinthians and see Paul just kind of
:mellow out a little bit, man.
:Yeah. And there's a fun fact. There's actually a
:calendar year between 1 Corinthians and 2
:Corinthians. It's only a page in your book, but the reason
:I tell you that is because you can see a
:difference in Paul's tone after he's had a year
:For things to settle, after he's had a year of growth,
:after he's had another year of leaning into the Holy Ghost,
:another year of refining, right? Praise God,
:I'm not the young lion that Barbie spoke of, uh, on Sunday,
:right? That was a beautiful season, but I'm thankful for the
:maturation process that only
:comes with time. 1 Corinthians
:chapter 3, verse 1. But I,
:brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the
:flesh, as infants in Christ. Verse 2,
:I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready
:for it. And even now you are not ready. You are still of the
:flesh. So Paul uses that same word, uh, for
:child and infant there. And something interesting
:about the difference between milk and meat. For the
:longest time, I thought milk was like Bible
:101. You know what I mean? Like introductory things,
:like there's a Father, a Son, and the Holy
:Spirit, right? And I thought like
:the meat was like, do you know the minor
:prophets, right? Can you name all of
:the 12 tribes of Israel? Right? Some of you are back there panicking right now.
:I had to take a test, by the way. Pastor Ronnie had a brutal
:100-question test, and he would grade that thing with
:a red pen too, man. Yeah, it had names
:of rivers and cities and kings, and you're going, which was the evil
:king? Which was the evil king? Which was the evil king? Wow. It was intense,
:man, but I appreciated that because you had to really dig and understand, right?
:No, no, no. When Paul says the difference between milk and meat is
:not the substance, but the form, okay?
:A baby can eat carrots, but it's a different type
:of carrot than you're gonna eat as an adult. Does that make sense?
:It's still the same stuff, but it's given in a different
:way that's palatable. And Paul's saying, man,
:you're not ready to chew on the carrot. I have to spoon— I
:have to give it to you. like a baby, right? Charlie remembers that,
:right? Here comes the airplane, right?
:That's what God does with me sometimes. He's like, you're still a baby,
:right? And you, you just, 'cause you're an adult, man. Hello.
:All right, there are things that will stunt your maturity
:emotionally, right? Um, I, I
:heard a study one time that once someone starts using
:Drugs or alcohol, they stop maturing emotionally.
:And I didn't realize that until I'm having arguments with people
:in my 30s after being sober for some time. And I'm like,
:what is wrong with you? And you're going, yeah, so think about when you started
:using drugs and alcohol at 14 and you stopped
:processing your emotions in real time.
:Instead, you begin to medicate over decades,
:and you wonder why you have a lot of immature adults who
:don't know how to handle conflict resolution, hard
:conversations, the list goes on and on. Now, it's not
:solely drugs and alcohol, but there are things that can stop and
:prevent your emotional maturity, even
:though you continue to get older and bigger.
:Does that make sense? Yes. So when Paul says,
:Uh, uh, that uses the word child here. He says, an heir,
:as long as he is a child, is no different than a
:slave. In Paul's time, children
:received their inheritance when they came of age. Until then, they
:didn't have decision-making rights or freedom. Kind of like my house,
:right? My children don't have the decision-making rights.
:I had one try to wear a softball uniform to church tonight.
:She was told by her mother, you're not wearing the softball
:uniform to church, right?
:FaceTime them, get them on in here, right? This phone
:shut off. Yeah, I don't know what happened. It just rang, right?
:All my friends are here. Who would be calling me, right?
:She goes back in there, comes back out. Can I at least wear the jersey?
:You've got one more time to come out of that room.
:Right? You don't have decision-making rights, or you're not free to do whatever you
:want in this house, right? Apollo was the god of
:divine distance, the god who made the mortals aware of their own guilt and
:purified them in the Roman pantheon. He presided
:over religious law and the constitutions of cities,
:who communicated with mortals his knowledge of the future and his will of his
:father Zeus. In glaring contrast, Paul
:says in 1 Corinthians 13:11, when I was a
:child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a
:child, I reasoned like a child, but when
:I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
:Paul is contrasting and comparing
:the world and the kingdom of God in a way that the readers would have
:obviously understood because of the
:culture. Culture is a very funny thing.
:Culture will get you in a lot of trouble. Culture,
:um, can drive the direction of a people group.
:Culture can be dictated and influenced by,
:by, uh, certain peoples. Um, we've long held
:the belief here at Springhouse that whoever
:controls the arts Controls the culture.
:Controls the culture, right? If you don't
:believe me, uh, look at, look at the United
:States of America. Who controls the arts
:right now, right? Why do you think that there
:is a theatre in this house that is, that is
:historically— have we always got it right?
:Absolutely not. Have you ever been around
:people, right? Have you ever been in any kind
:of long-term ministry Right? You know how
:many talkings-to I've had, right? You got
:that, right? Historically, the theatre
:exists to be salt and light, not so much just to
:the community, but to those in the theatre
:community itself. Yes. That is, that is the
:overall big vision there, right? And that
:takes a lot of work. That takes a lot of
:missteps. That takes a lot of reining in
:because the theatre in itself, like the big T
:theatre, right? You like that? That was a
:better one. Not our theatre. Our theatre. The
:big T theatre, right? Right? Is controlled by a
:certain culture. So if you say we have a theatre
:at our church, that sends you somewhere in your
:mind for the most part. Yeah. And then you
:experience it in a different way, right? So
:when Paul is giving these examples, he's
:speaking to a culture that understands it.
:Now the danger is to dismiss the scripture
:solely based on the culture. I don't even want to get into that
:because then you're going, which Which parts do I
:take and which parts do I not take, right? So it's important to
:understand who he's writing to in the moment, but
:what is God trying to say in the big picture? Make sense?
:So then Paul says children are no different from a
:slave. Under Roman law, underage children could not exercise
:legal power over their inheritance. They could not
:exercise legal power over their inheritance. Their status was almost identical
:to that of a slave, and Paul uses this analogy to illustrate the
:condition of those living under the law. Now let me
:give you a little bit of information about slavery in the first century. In the
:Roman Empire, people were either slaves or they were free.
:You're either a slave or you're a free person. Like, there's no in-between.
:These 2 statuses were central to the social and
:legal fabric of the Roman world. Unlike in
:recent history here in the States, slavery in Rome was not based on
:race or ethnicity. Anyone could
:become a slave, and nearly any slave could become free.
:Consequently, the Roman world was composed of these 2 groups of people
:who lived and worked together and were distinguishable by their
:social status. Prior to the 1st century AD, the majority of
:the slaves in the Mediterranean world were prisoners of war. So
:your country would be taken over, your town would be destroyed,
:and all of the people that were not killed in the siege were
:marched off, and you are now slaves in the next
:town under whatever king or proconsul or
:ruler was in that area. Got it?
:By the 1st century, however, the primary source of slavery was
:through birth into the slave system. A child born to a
:female slave was also a slave,
:regardless of the status of the father. A freeborn
:child could also become enslaved, and exposure of
:newborns was a practiced form of, of
:post-birth control. Leave the baby out. If the
:baby dies, the baby dies. And these
:infants who were left exposed to the elements
:to die, Slavery in the Roman world was not necessarily a permanent
:state either. Emancipation was possible under certain
:legal stipulations. Now catch this: owners were
:prevented, however, from releasing a slave from service
:directly. So you can't just go be like, hey, uh, thank you
:so much, I appreciate all your help, uh, you are free to go. That's not
:how that worked. It was like, hang on, timeout, government got to get
:involved. You can't do nothing. You can't do nothing. My
:birthday is June 24th, 1983,
:right? Most of the time, if you have like a, uh,
:something to do with the government, it's usually issued
:and expires on your birthday, right? My
:driver's license expired August 17th,
:2026. Have no idea why. Right.
:Until I'm on a website or a government thing the
:other day, and they say, hey, take a picture of the front of your ID.
:And I take the picture. This won't work. This is expired. And I'm like, on
:August 17th is when we're deciding the expiration date? So I said, that's
:fine. I'll just call to renew it. Go online, try to renew my license.
:They said, we— here's the 3-digit code we sent to this phone
:number. That's not my phone number.
:Okay. So I called the lady at the Tennessee Department of— not Corrections.
:I've made those calls, right? What is your ID number?
:35090— anyway, look, I
:don't know what department it was. It was not the Department of Corrections. And I
:said, hey, my phone number's wrong, right? But before I could do that, they had
:to put me on hold and then issue me a callback 72
:minutes later, right? And then you call back
:and they say, hey, okay, so I know you want to renew your
:license. All we can do is help you change your phone number, right? But we're
:actually not going to do it for you. We're going to reset your account. Then
:you go back on and put your own phone number in. So they reset my
:account. I go back online, I put the new phone number in, I hit renew.
:They said, matter of fact, you're going to have to come in in person. That's
:okay. So I look up, what's the closest kiosk to me?
:Drive by there today, walk in, the lady's like, can I help you? I said,
:yes, ma'am, I'm here to renew my license. I don't see the kiosk. She said,
:yeah, they repoed that one from our facility. We
:don't— it broke. We don't have it no more. I'm like, I'm probably
:gonna go to jail if I get pulled over driving around all over town trying
:to get this driver's license. She said, here's what you need to do. I said,
:I probably gotta go to Murfreesboro, right? She said, you don't have to. You can
:go anywhere in the state. I'm like, I live in Smyrna. Where can I go?
:And she's like, you can go to Shelbyville or Woodbury. I said, no, I don't
:want to I go wanna to Woodbury. go to Shelbyville. Where is this kiosk at?
:She said, there's 2 in Murfreesboro. Don't go to this one, go to this
:one. And it prints me out a sheet, highlights it, right? So I got
:it on my calendar. I'm gonna try, I'm gonna be in Murfreesboro tomorrow. I may
:or may not have a new driver's license by tomorrow, right? Why am I telling
:this story? 'Cause you can't just simply do anything when there's a government
:involved. You can't be like, hey, I
:want you to be free. The Roman government says, not so fast, we'd
:like to be a part of this decision as well,
:right? So the owners
:were prevented from releasing a slave from service directly. Both the
:slave and the owner were required to appear
:before a magistrate in a ceremony where a
:freedom tax was paid to the magistrate on top of
:the price already being paid for freedom. Of
:course, right? This isn't nothing new.
:Taxation, right? I better say this quietly
:because all these cell phones are on and
:listening. Yes. I, I could see why they threw
:all that tea in the harbor. I really— I, I get it
:now. I'm getting it now. They were like, 2%?
:You're going 2%. We're 2%? You,
:you, you, you, 10 of us, let's go. We're fixing to throw all this.
:2%? Have you lost your mind? And they threw all the tea overboard.
:I'm getting hit coming and going, right? You can't even let your slaves go
:free. They're like, yeah, yeah, you got to pay a freedom tax on top of
:the price you already had to pay, right? But isn't that so
:symbolic? There's all these legalities
:and all these hoops that you've got to jump through You can't
:even be set free without a price being
:paid. Oh my God, are you paying attention? That's where we're
:going. Come on, listen, you just stick with
:me long enough and we will get to the point, right? Get
:to the point. There's a price that
:has to be paid for your freedom.
:A price must be paid. Becoming a freed
:person meant acquiring certain social and economic
:advantages. Former slaves owned by a Roman citizen
:could, under certain requirements, now become citizens.
:So I didn't even have the opportunity to become a citizen,
:but now that I've been set free, I can belong to
:this kingdom.
:This new status placed them in a social level above slaves and
:free non-citizens, but restricted their status below that of
:freeborn citizens. In chapter 4,
:verse 3, he says, in the same way, we
:also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary
:principles of this world.
:Paul applies the contrast he has been developing to the
:Galatians. As an underage child or slave, there's no possession or
:inheritance no decision-making
:rights, no freedom. And in verse 3, he's not
:only referring to the legalistic teachings, the pagan
:rituals and beliefs that contradict the gospel of Jesus,
:but the spiritual forces who held authority over the nations.
:He goes on in verse 9, and he's expounding on these elementary
:principles to include the malevolent forces of the world.
:He says demonic as in evil, not as in demons. And this
:gives us a complete picture of the opposition. situation that
:is facing the people. I love this! In
:verse 4, he says, but—
:he spends all this time telling the people how
:they have no rights, you are considered to be a
:slave, and there is a price that has to be paid, that
:you don't have the same ability that the other people
:in the family of God have, and then he says,
:But. But. And anytime you hear that word, but, you can forget
:everything that was just said, right? I love that
:shirt.
:But— and then you go, okay, right?
:I love you. Now, I love you, but—
:right? You just go and hang that up. Don't listen. We're there, right?
:But! But! He says, but when the fullness of time,
:God sent forth His Son. At the right
:time! Christ could have came at any point in human history.
:Any, any point in human history, and He came
:at the right time. And then I love
:that Paul uses the qualifiers here. He says,
:God sent His Son, To do what? What did he send him
:for? To redeem those under the law.
:Redeem, the Greek word used here is—
:ooh, should have studied for this one.
:Exagor— I don't know. It's a word. It's a hard word. I
:said I was going to do better with that. I told Barbie I was going
:to do better. I have failed at that because I said I got tired of
:just standing up here going, it's a hard name, or just butchering it,
:not even trying. And then I told Barbara, I said, I'm gonna do better at
:that. And I'm still about where I was at,
:right? I'm still, here comes the airplane,
:right? Right? I really wanna do better. I'm
:saying that because it's like an admission of where I need
:to grow as a teacher, okay? I don't need to just get up here and
:because I speak Southern English, try to give you Greek words
:and I can't even say what they are, right? I just feel like that's insincere
:from me, so I apologize. The word is,
:however, a legal term which means buy out, to buy
:out. The idea is that Christ's death has brought
:freedom for those who are enslaved to the law, and then he
:enlists the redeeming conditions. He says,
:born of a woman, woman. Born of a woman. Now
:this is a throwback all the way to Genesis 3, to
:the seed war, where he says that, uh, that she
:will give birth to him, right? This is a callback all the way to Genesis.
:And then he says, uh, born under the law.
:So born of a woman, born under the law.
:And then he says, to redeem those
:who were under the law so we might receive adoption as
:sons. Adoption is a well-known legal procedure in the Roman
:Empire. Yahweh adopted the Gentile
:nations and grafted them into his
:family. What I've often
:wondered— why, why did you have to divide them up?
:Why couldn't you just keep them all with
:you the whole time?
:Why couldn't they just be yours the whole time? And we don't have
:to have any of this. We don't have to have all these nations fighting, even
:though I know siblings fight and bicker and
:argue, but why do you have to take this nation and, and
:then let all them nations be under the rule
:of the evil one, only to then buy them back?
:And the key for me is understanding the
:process of adoption.
:Understanding the process of adoption.
:When you are grafted into the family, you are
:brought in in a way
:that there's no difference between you and those
:who are naturally born into the family.
:So most of you guys know that me and Jess adopted 4 kids,
:4 children from the foster care system. They were a package deal.
:I'm dead serious. I remember the day my wife called me. It was a
:Tuesday. Y'all think I'm making this
:stuff up. You couldn't make it up if you tried, right? It was a regular
:Tuesday. She said, hey, just, just got something to ask
:you. We just got a call for a sibling
:group in, uh, They wanna know if they
:can bring 4 kids to the house. I said,
:excuse me, what? I said, how many are there? She said, there's 4. I
:said, 4? I said, we only got 4 beds. How are we gonna
:take 4 kids, right? And I said, what is the option?
:What are our options here? And she said, well, we could take them all or
:we could split them up. I said, what do you mean split them
:up? Well, they'll just make them pick their sibling, or they'll say maybe one can
:go here and one can go there, one can go there. I'm like, golly, that's
:a lot of kids, 4 kids. At one time.
:Instant family, here we go. And I've already married a woman with kids,
:so I know about instant family, right?
:And then they come to my house,
:and the day they came, I said I knew they will never leave
:this property. And those kids
:have become my kids. They have been grafted into
:my family. They have my last name.
:I have laid down my life as a
:sacrifice. All of the things that I wanted to do in life, they do
:not matter anymore because there are people that did not
:have a father— Hello. That need to be
:grafted into a family where there is a Father who loves them
:and will protect them, and their situation was not
:of their own doing. These people that were born to these Gentile nations had no
:choice. They were born into it. But the one who
:had the choice chose to lay his life down
:for them to graft them back into the
:family. Amen. It is so beautiful to see
:God adopt, adopt, and bring in, because I
:see firsthand now, I see my kids
:struggle. I'm not, I'm not really a
:Bashir's kid. And I have to speak right to
:their heart. You have— you are no
:different than my— I only— I got 8 kids and
:only one of them is blood born. Like, so
:what do I look like? What is it that— none
:of us are Bashir's. That may be me. I'm the
:only one in the house, right? Yeah.
:Ain't none of y'all blood related. You
:know what I'm saying? Think about this, man. I got kids
:that were given to me, right? And I never tried to
:replace their dad. I said, you've got a good dad. Honor him,
:respect him. I'm your bonus dad. God gave you a
:man who will be an example of repentance,
:of humility, of missing it, of confession
:and repentance, of hard work and effort and prayer over you.
:and provision. Don't ever disrespect and dishonor your
:dad, and don't ever compare us. I'm not trying to be your dad. I'm trying
:to be your bonus dad. God loved you enough to give you an extra,
:to give you another voice to come to. And then I got one
:biological son, and then I have 4 adopted
:children. I have 3 sons, 3 different ways.
:Okay. And I'm
:going, why, God? Why would you— why would you— why wouldn't you do it the
:way I would think you would do it? Because how much more beautiful is it
:for me to do it all these different ways and bring everybody into my
:family? Because I can see in my sovereignty what I could prevent in my
:power. And I chose to do it this way because it's much more
:beautiful when you see a multi— multiethnic,
:multigenerational, uh, multigender
:family included in
:the kingdom of heaven. Isn't it much more beautiful when
:God says, I could have made you all in the same family, but then you
:wouldn't understand what it took for me to get you back. Yes.
:Then you would not have understand the lengths that I would go to as a
:Father to legally buy you
:back. It took my Son.
:And he played the long game. God could have done it at any
:time and any method, and yet he
:came at the right time to be the atonement
:that would provide the necessary payment for us to be liberated,
:no longer slaves, and grafted into the family of God.
:The indwelling of the presence of the Holy Spirit legitimizes the
:Galatians' identity as the children of God. And because you are sons,
:he says, formerly when you did not know God, verse 8, you were
:enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that
:you have come to know God, or rather 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? That's why he said Satan He wants to bewitch you!
:He wants to bewitch you! 'Cause he wants to
:trick you to operating like a slave who is not an
:heir instead of a son who is grafted into the family, or
:daughters, apply it appropriately. When he says son,
:he means, hey, you're in the family, which means you're an heir to
:an inheritance, a beautiful inheritance.
:Don't you see? This is a settling.
:Chapter 4 is a place that needs to settle you
:in your spirit. Chapter 4 needs
:to be a place that we work from
:the cross and not towards the cross. So that all
:of your efforts, all of your, your, your, your pursuit of holiness,
:all of your, all of your prayers, like everything that you're doing that James tells
:us to do, Show me your faith and I'll show you my works, because my
:works prove my faith. You know what I'm talking about? All that stuff needs to
:flow from this settled place instead of trying to work towards being an
:heir. You're already an heir. You're already grafted into the family.
:So you live and operate and move from that settled
:place, a place of
:sonship, a place of
:prominence that the King of Glory
:Would be the ultimate payment for
:you to be grafted into a family.
:And this is Paul's big idea
:to the Galatian church. Let us pray.
:Father, thank you that we are sons and daughters, that we
:are heirs. Lord, I pray that any of the things that,
:that I got wrong or I didn't say right, that you would
:find a way to, uh, to clean it up,
:find a way to use it, find a way to minister through it.
:Lord, I thank you that we are sons. I thank you that you, you
:did make a way for us to be back into the family. God, I thank
:you that we were born in this millennia, that we were
:born in this time to look back and see all that you've done.
:I pray that we would recognize that we are a part of this big family.
:And that you would, you would help us to share this good
:news with others, that more would be adopted and
:grafted into the family, that we would see more
:people brought to this good news, this revelation that we
:have an inheritance in you, Jesus. I pray that you would
:use these scriptures and these passages to minister to us, to
:settle us, to to put us in a place where
:we understand even just a fraction of,
:of what you've done for us, and that we would
:respond with a life of gratitude, and
:offering, and service to you, Father. Lord, we love
:you, and we thank you for being here with us tonight. Thank you for letting
:me teach from your word, and I just pray that your people are
:encouraged and ministered to, Father. Lord, we love you, and we
:thank you. It's in Christ's name I pray. Amen
:and amen. Amen.
