Today’s Sermon Notes: 11-9-2025
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Grace Abounds
A Sermon Series Through the Book of Galatians
“Born Free”
Galatians 4:12-31
Introduction
John 8:31-32 “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” But freedom comes from resisting any claim (apart from the true gospel) that promises God’s displeasure unless we submit to said claim.
Prayer
The Appeal of Affection (vv. 12-16)
12 Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. 13 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, 14 and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. 15 What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?
2 Corinthians 12:8-9 “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Galatians 6:11 “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.”
2 Corinthians 11:24-28 “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for pall the churches.”
Their blessedness was being replaced with Self-righteous law following.
Joy is replaced with hard-heartedness.
The Warning of Too Much Appeal (vv. 17-20)
17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. 18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, 19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! 20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.
Matthew 23:15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”
There are some spiritual leaders that only care about your wallet
and your head counted in the room.
Genuine spiritual leadership is concerned about your spiritual growth.
John 11:45 “Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, 46 but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
The Appeal of Allegory (vv. 21-27)
21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written, “Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.”
Allegory: “a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.” “Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory of the spiritual journey”
The crucial question is, “Who is your mother?” (Hagar or Sarah)
– that determines whether you are a slave or free.
In the eyes of God everyone is either an Ismael or an Isaac. Do we seek our salvation by trying to be a good person (some other means other than Jesus), or do we seek God’s grace through faith?
The Appeal to Be Rid of Those Who Support Slavery (vv. 28-31)
28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.
Conclusion
Paul has given multiple arguments to the Galatians for the sake of their receiving the true gospel: in spite of illness he went there and preached the gospel, 1) his authority as an apostle 2) the gospel is from God, (a revelation) not from men (or angels) and those that preach another version are accursed 3) the other apostles and church leadership agree with Paul, 4) an example from church history (Paul confronting Peter), 5) their own personal experience, “did they receive the Spirit by work?” 6) Biblical history, theological study (Abraham received righteousness by faith before the law was ever given) 7) Theological arguments (Christ became the curse for us), 8) law arguments (God’s covenant with Abraham), 9) cultural examples of how the law was a guardian and its purpose as a prison, 10) How a person becomes a child of God (we are adopted) 11) and here today, yet another allegorical argument of how we have one of two mothers, another point from the Old Testament, and we still have two chapters to go.
Paul does not just give one argument
People need to hear the truth about Jesus.
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[1] Frank Thielman, Expository Commentary, Volume X, Romans – Galatians (Wheaton, Illinois; Crossway Publishing, 2020) 632.
[2] Lehman Strauss, Devotional Studies in Galatians and Ephesians (Neptune, New Jersey; Loizeaux Brothers Publsihing, 1974) 61.
[3] John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Galatians (Chicago, Illinois; Moody Bible Institute, 1987) 114.
[4] MacArthur, 116.
[5] Archibald Thomas Robertson, Word Pictures In The New Testament, Volume IV (Nashville, Tennessee; Broadman Press, 1931) 306.
[6] MacArthur, 124.
[7] Philip Graham Ryken, Reformed Expository Commentary, Galatians (Phillipsburg, New Jersey; P&R Publishing Company, 2005) 183.
[8] Jason C. Meyer, NAC Studies In Bible & Theology, The End of the Law: Mosaic Covenant in Pauline Theology (Nashville, Tennessee; Broadman & Holman Publishing, 2009) 133.
[9] Meyer, 135.
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