Today’s Sermon Notes: 8-30-2026
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Love Made A Way
A Sermon Series on Images of Atonement
“Living In Freedom As God’s Adopted Children”
Galatians 4:1-11
Introduction
This four-week series looks at four atonement images or metaphors in Scripture: adoption (family), redemption (marketplace), justification (legal), and rescue/victory (conquest). A well-rounded understanding of the ways God has provided our redemption inspires us to live well as redeemed, victorious, free children of God.
Have you ever had a time in your life to where you want to return to how your life was before Christ? Do you have a desire to return to previous sin, previous relationships, even previous ways of dealing with stress, disappointment, or loss? As you looked at the road before you, you thought it would be better to turn around and go back.
Exodus 14:11-12 “They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
There is always the temptation to return to the slavery we know than to step out in faith and move toward something we don’t know.
Choose Freedom Because You Have Been Adopted and Are Spirit Filled (vv. 1-7)
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, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Romans 8:14 “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,. . .”
The Christian prayer is a child talking to their loving Father.
Salvation has two things happening;
1) our sin is transferred to Christ and is done away with and,
2) the Son’s rights and privileges are transferred to us.
John 17:21, 23-24 “ . . . so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”
What is better than the Father’s love for us?
How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He would give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One
Bring many sons to glory
Choose Freedom Because You Are Known By God (vv. 8-11)
8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 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? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
Conclusion
Luke 12:48 “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.”
Seek to be like Jesus.
Seek God Constantly.
Seek to be Led by the Spirit.
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[1] Colossians 2:8, 20
[2] W. Robertson Nicoll, The Expositor’s Greek Testament, Volume III (Grand Rapids, Michigan; WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1967) 176.
[3] Wilson, 134.
[4] John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Galatians (Chicago, Illinois; Moddy Publishing, 1987) 107.
[5] Todd Wilson, Galatians, Gospel-Rooted Living (Wheaton, Illinois; Crossway Publishing, 2013) 133.
[6] R. C. Sproul, Galatians, An Expositional Commentary (Sanford, Florida; Ligonier Ministries, 2022) 86.
[7] Timothy Keller, Galatians For You (United States; The Good Book Company, 2013) 98.
[8] Keller, 97.
[9] Russell Moore, Adopted for Life, The Priority of Adoption For Christian Families & Churches (Wheaton, Illinois; Crossway Publishing, 2009) 46.
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