Galatians 4 (7)

Opening Prayer: Psalm 116.7-9
Return to your rest, O my soul,
For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.
For You have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
And my feet from falling.
I will walk before the LORD
In the land of the living.

Sing Psalm 116.7-9
(Mit Freuden Zart: All Praise To God Who Reigns Above)
Full well the LORD has dealt with me; my soul from death He delivered.
My weeping eyes, my stumbling feet, He has redeemed forever.
Forever I before His face shall walk with those who know His grace,
and dwell with them forever.

Read Galatians 4.1-31; meditate on verses 9, 26, 31.

Preparation
1. To what were we formerly in bondage?

2. How is it that we are “children of…the free [woman]”?

Meditation
Bondage is a terrible way to live. It is limiting, oppressive, disagreeable, stifling, and maddening. When we were in bondage to sin, this is how we lived. Nothing ever quite satisfied. Every aspiration seemed just out of reach. All our desires were tainted with self-interest. And we left a trail of guilt and shame which, while we didn’t spend much time looking back at it, haunted our every next step.

At least, that was my experience. Yours may have been similar. Sin kept us in bondage from thinking the best thoughts, desiring the noblest outcomes, and valuing the truest priorities. It was a true bondage, like what the Galatians knew, though we may hardly have recognized it as such.

Then Jesus came into our lives and began to live His life in us. Remember the freedom you experienced the first time you cried out to God, “Abba! Father!”? Remember how refreshing it was to confess your sins and have them roll, like Pilgrim’s pack, into the eternal gone? Think of how your soul lights up, how it is truly refreshed and renewed, when Jesus speaks to it from His Word. And when you know Jesus stirring in you, stretching out from your soul, using your words to edify and encourage and your deeds to help or guide, don’t you know a sense of true freedom, freedom from self and sin?

The freedom of true joy!

Why would anyone want to go back from such freedom? Well, the Galatians were thinking about it, and you and I will, too. But Paul reminds us that we must always remember that we belong to God, we are His children and heirs, we are the sons and daughters of faithful Abraham, and all the precious and very great promises of God’s covenant are ours in Jesus Christ. We are free in Him. And, remembering this, let us not fall back into bondage. Ever.

Treasure Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
Slavery is a known, and agreed upon, scourge.
No one wants to be a slave, and no one should propagate slavery of any kind.

Therefore, why would anyone willingly choose to be in bondage?

Especially to this slaveholder: our perpetual enemy—the father of lies, who was a “murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him” (Jn. 8.44).
He does not wish you, or anyone, well; and his lies keep us in bondage.

But the whole truth of Jesus sets us free (Jn. 8.32) when we know it, believe it, and live by it.
The God Who knows and loves us has set us free through Jesus (Gal. 4.9, 26, 31).

“And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness…for holiness” (Rom. 6.18, 19).
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh,
God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,
on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,
that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us
who do not walk according to the flesh
but according to the Spirit.
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh,
but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8.2-6).

This is the Truth that sets us free to keep God’s commandment: “that we should believe on the Name of His Son Jesus Christ and love on another, as He gave us commandment. Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us” (1 Jn. 3.23, 24).

God’s preamble to the Ten Commandments sums up the reason to obey Him:
“I AM the Lord your God,
Who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage” (Ex. 20.2).
He set us free from slavery to become His obedient children.
Why would we ever choose to go back to Egypt?

Reflection
1. How do you experience the freedom you have in Jesus Christ?

2. Why is daily reading and study of God’s Word so important to our realizing the freedom we have in Jesus?

3. How can believers help one another to know more of the freedom we have in Jesus?

The heavenly Jerusalem, the true church from above, represented by Sarah, is in a state of freedom, and is the mother of all believers, who are born of the Holy Spirit. They were by regeneration and true faith, made a part of the true seed of Abraham, according to the promise made to him. Matthew Henry (1662-1714), Commentary on Galatians 4.21-28

Pray Psalm 116.1-3, 10-19.
Thank God freeing you from bondage to sin into the perfect liberty of the sons and daughters of God. Call on Him to fill you with His Spirit and guide you by His Word.

Sing Psalm 116.1-3, 10-19
(Mit Freuden Zart: All Praise to God Who Reigns Above)
I love the LORD because He hears my cries and pleas for mercy.
Because He bends to me His ear, my prayers shall ever thus be.
The snares of death encompassed me; hell’s grip could not unloosened be;
distress and anguish pressed me.

Afflicted, I believe His Word, though lying men would undo me.
What shall I render to the LORD for all His blessings to me?
Salvation’s cup I lift above and call upon the God of love
and pay my vows most truly.

How sweet to Him when saints depart—make me Your servant, Savior!
From sin You loosed my wand’ring heart; I praise Your Name forever!
On You I call, my vows to pay; here in Your Presence I would stay
Your praise to offer ever.

T. M. and Susie Moore

If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter.