This week, Pastor Matthew continued with our Galatians series with a sermon out of chapter 4: 1-7.

People have the potential to be enslaved to many different types of influences – both physical and spiritual. Pastor Matthew made three primary points on this topic:

1. We are enslaved to elemental spirits

These elemental spirits govern the way things are done within our society and culture. They represent ideologies such as politics, religion, militarism, nationalism, imperialism, capitalism, and other societal laws that control and constrain us. They exist before us and outside of us.

Within Galatians, Paul challenges us to examine how these elemental spirits have shaped and continue to shape us – and how they come up against the Gospel and the way of Jesus.

So many of these elemental spirits we are taught not to challenge, and often they are presented to us as being synonymous with Christianity itself. This is very dangerous, and it enslaves us.

2. God sent Jesus to redeem us and adopt us as sons and daughters.

Jesus paid all and any debts we have. He redeemed us fully and completely. He adopted us into His family as sons and daughters. When Jesus came, He did so free from elemental spirits and He brought with Him a completely new Kingdom and way of life, with a new set of values.

Too many of us fail to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, doing the hard work of renewing our minds through the Word of God.

3. He has given you His Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the key. We must be filled with and receive it, learning to yield to the Spirit at all times. The same Spirit that filled Jesus, fills us.

It is the Spirit that empowers us to walk in freedom, who gives us gifts, and who brings us hunger and thirst for the Word. Too many people try to walk the Christian life without yielding to the Spirit of God.