Children of Freedom
March 16, 2025 Morning Service
Immanuel Baptist Church, Wagoner, OK
Rick Boyne
Message Point: We are children of the promise, not of bondage.
Focus Passage: Galatians 4:21-31
Introduction: Show two keys. Explain how for years, one of them worked just fine. That is, until we changed the locks on the church. Tell how there is no reason at all to hang on to the old key, as it will never work again. If you want in, you have to use the new key.
I. The Two Covenants: Law vs. Grace (Galatians 4:22-24)
a. Hagar (Ishmael) represents the Old Covenant—bondage to the Law.
b. Sarah (Isaac) represents the New Covenant—freedom through grace.
c. "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." (John 1:17)
II. The Children of Bondage vs. the Children of Promise (Galatians 4:28-29)
a. Believers in Christ are like Isaac, the children of promise.
b. The world (symbolized by Ishmael) persecutes the children of promise, just as Ishmael mocked Isaac.
c. "It is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring." (Romans 9:8)
III. Cast Out the Slave Woman: Living in Freedom (Galatians 4:30-31)
a. Paul quotes Genesis 21:10, where Sarah tells Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away.
b. Spiritually, this means we must reject legalism and embrace the freedom found in Christ.
c. "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1)
d. "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." (2 Corinthians 3:17)
Application/Call to Obedience: We must cast out anything in our lives that brings us back into slavery—whether it be legalism, sin, or fear—and live in the freedom Christ has given us. Choose to live as heirs of the promise, embracing the grace and freedom found in Christ alone! The Bible says, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” (Romans
