Grace World Outreach Church
From Slaves to Sons
Galatians 3: 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
I love that… But, today, I want to look at why so many of God’s children don’t live like they are His heirs!
Galatians 4:1 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.
With so many fathers absent or emotionally absent from the home…many tend to get their identity from the world. Many live by the world’s validation of us, by its standards…
When we live by the world’s validation of us:
– What others say
– What the culture dictates
– What others expectations are
When we live by their standards, all too often, we find ourselves falling into self-destructive patterns of performing to please others:
– Success at all cost kind of thinking
– Feeling abandoned or rejected… almost like being an orphan!
And that can lead to feelings of inferiority:
– I am not good enough
– I never measure up
– I don’t belong
– I have no real value
– I am not important
We feel we have to be perfect to be accepted and are always looking for validation…
And this leaves us with a sense that “I have to earn your love type of works mentality”. Even with or in Christ!
Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Romans 3:9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and death spread to all men, because all sinned. (See, Adam was sort of like mankind’s representative, and when he fell all of man fell.)
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Romans 6: 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ephesians 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, (Mercy- We don’t get what we deserve) because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace (Grace – We get what we don’t deserve) you have been saved—
KEY VERSE FROM PAUL
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
1. By grace through faith! Ephesians 2:8. “For by grace you have been saved through faith.”
2. It is a gift of God! Ephesians 2:8b. “and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,”
3. It is not of Works! Ephesians 2:9. “not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
Galatians 4:8 “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?”
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.