October 26, 2025 | Freedom's cry

Freedom's Cry | Galatians Part 11

Galatians 4:1–7

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, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. (ESV)

“Freedom’s Cry” centers on Galatians 4:1-7, showing how life before Christ leaves people enslaved to performance and the elementary principles of the world. In the fullness of time, God sent his Son, born under the law, to redeem us and grant adoption. God then sent the Spirit of his Son into believers’ hearts, forming a new reflex in hardship and in worship: Abba, Father. That cry, not a moral résumé, marks the children of God. Christian freedom is belonging to the Father amid distress, no longer slaves but sons and heirs who rest in his favor.

Transcript of Freedom's Cry | Galatians Part 11

Humans Rally Around Cries

Jed Gillis: Humans often rally around cries that define them. And if I said some of them, you probably could respond with them. If I said all for one, and you know the response is, and one for all. If you think about stories that we watch on TV or we read about, there are these battle cries.

You think of William Wallace running across the field dealing freedom for Scotland forever. Or for my Lord of the Rings fans, it's Aragorn turning and saying For Frodo. There's cries of our hearts. There's battle cries that rally us. We're on the sports field, we get go Vols or, or roll tide, or whichever version of it you want to use. There's certain sounds, certain words, certain concepts that unite us, that define us.

And perhaps the most defining cry for you individually started off really early. Because some of you have young babies. We've had several of those born in our body and it's a wonderful thing. And you know when you hear that baby cry, we all know babies have distinctive cries. I know all the moms in the room know that. Not only do they have different kinds of cries that they use, there's the angry cry and the tired cry and the hungry cry and you know all those different cries. But your baby sounds like your baby.

In fact, it's interesting, I went down a a rabbit hole of chasing some of the studies that have been done on this, apparently, according to some studies anyway, you could hear a French baby and a German baby at two days old. And they've studied that the cadence of their cry is different. They literally cry in an accent, essentially, from two days old.

And not only French and German or any other language that they hear, but babies adapt somewhat of their, their mom's rhythm of the way she speaks. You can actually trace it onto, that's the way babies cry. They cry like their moms. That's why when you're in a group of parents and you hear a, a child, a baby, a toddler or something crying, what do all the parents do? They freeze and go, wait, whose is that? And dads might not know, but moms do. That's because there's something distinctive about the cry of a baby.

And this text in Galatians four, Paul says, there's something distinctive about the cry among God's children. He describes it as Abba, Father.

Reading Galatians 4:1-7

Jed Gillis: Let's read Galatians four. Paul says, I mean that the heir, as long as he's a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything. But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God.

Do You Cry "Abba, Father?"

Jed Gillis: Paul drives us to this cry. The cry that says Abba, Father as the cry that God's children make. So our question for this morning is as we look at ourselves, do you see that cry coming out of your soul? As we as brothers and sisters function together, do we hear it coming from the people around us? And do we rest in that?

Paul starts, we'll begin in verse six and we'll go back and catch the first five verses as we go. But beginning in verse six, Paul starts off with, because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts.

Now don't press too much on, on the order of the way he does this. Like if you stop and think, wait, so we're sons first, and then the Spirit comes. And if you went to other texts of scripture, you'd see it works the other way around. The point is that what Paul's doing, he's not trying to give you a detailed order of how everything works. What he's doing is connecting at the beginning of salvation adoption or becoming sons with the receiving of God's Spirit. Those two things are connected at the beginning of our lives, and they not only work at the beginning of our spiritual lives, but they have an ongoing impact on our lives. So he connects it and says, if you are a son, then you also have the Spirit of God within you crying this phrase, Abba, Father.

So we could ask it this way. How do God's children experience the Holy Spirit in their lives? If I asked you that without Galatians four, maybe you'd talk about. Well, he helps me to see the truth of his word. He brings conviction on sin. He works powerfully in these situations. He gives me words to say, you say all kinds of different things that we might go to, but here what Paul points you to is God's people experience the Spirit of God as a cry. Coming out of them. The Spirit of God's sin to our hearts comes out Abba, Father, because the Spirit is within us.

What Type of Cry?

Jed Gillis: The word cry, the word used here for cry is, is not the generic, weaker version of this word. It's a very strong word. In fact, it's used different ways in the New Testament. I'll give you a couple examples to give you a flavor.

It's used when the crowds reject Jesus. They cry, crucify him. They're not whispering that in a back corner somewhere. It's a cry from their soul. They cry a cry of rejection. They're crying out. We'd rather have this murderer run free than have Jesus as our king. That's one place this word's used.

Another place is a cry of worship. When Jesus comes into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and they throw their cloaks before him, and they say, Hosanna. They cry, Hosanna. That's the same word. It's a cry of worship there.

It's also used when the disciples are in the boat and the storm comes, Lord, save us. They cry. When Paul uses this word here and he says, the spirit in your heart cries Abba, Father. It's crying out.

That's the reason I use the example of a baby, because babies are pretty insistent and they keep going. And they cry out. They don't, they don't worry about how loud they are and they shouldn't. Right? So Paul is saying the children of God cry out, and this word is used for a cry of distress. Lord, save us. Everybody cries out in distress.

What is Your Cry in Distress?

Jed Gillis: So one of the questions I want you to ask as we look at this text, what is your cry in distress? When things are difficult in your life? What cries come out of your mouth? Or maybe not out of your mouth, but out of your soul at least?

I don't deserve this. That's one kind of cry. I'm really a good person. This shouldn't happen to me. That's one kind of cry. I just don't know how much I can take.

Those are all cries of distress because we live in a fallen world where there's a lot of distress. But my cry of distress can often be self-justification. I don't deserve this. I'm a good person. This shouldn't happen to me. That's one kind of cry of distress, or it could be a cry of pride and self-reliance. Life's tough, but when the going gets tough, the tough get going. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. You know? Freedom. I'm gonna fight it.

When there's distress, we all cry something. You can cry. A cry that says. I'm relying on my performance. I don't deserve this. You can cry. A cry that says, fine, I'm just gonna grip my teeth and deal with it. 'cause this is hard, but I can make it through on my own.

Or the cry of the children of God in distress. Abba, Father. It's not self-justification. It's saying you have justified me. It's not self-reliance, it's total dependence. That's what God's children cry out.

Abba, The Cry of a Child

Jed Gillis: This phrase, Abba, and many of you are familiar. It, it's an Aramaic word that means daddy, means father. It was the close term, it was an a term of endearment.

It's like, and as I was thinking about this sermon, I, there were so many examples of this happening that that stood in my mind. I have a 3-year-old, many of you know, my little 3-year-old, and she comes up and says, Dadda. And the other day I'm sitting on my front porch swing and I was doing something and she comes up and dadda and she just starts talking. She doesn't sit here and go, wait, is he busy? Should I speak now? Maybe I'll wait. Maybe he doesn't want to hear from, she doesn't do any of that. She just says, dadda, and then starts telling me about whatever's going on. Or I was just walking out in the lobby in between Sunday school and the service, and I was doing things and talking with people, and I hear this little voice, Dadda, I drew a picture. And she just comes because she belongs to me. She doesn't do that to you the same way.

Sometimes when there's other things going on and you're distracted or you're upset, and the little toddler doesn't even notice, she comes and says, dadda.

That's the cry of God's children.

In your distress, you go to your Father. Not dependence on me, not somebody else. Not if only they did it this way, then my life would be easier, just Father. And sometimes when she's hurt, my toddler might not even get the word Dadda that out. But she knows who to look for.

And maybe your life, you feel like you're hurt sometimes and you can't even get the words out. But Paul says in Romans eight passage, that's strikingly similar to this one, he speaks of the Spirit. Says, you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. And he says, when we have groanings in our heart, two deep for words, the Spirit intercedes for us. The children of God, the cry that defines us as we run to our Father. We run to our Father in distress and we cry out, and even when we can't get the words out, that's where our souls go.

It's interesting, the phrase Abba, Father is used three times in the New Testament, Galatians and Romans that I just read. It's only used one other time. And it's a good reason that we call it a cry of distress.

A Cry of Distress

Jed Gillis: And remember, Paul didn't walk with Jesus on earth. Maybe he saw him some, but he didn't walk with him throughout his ministry. Paul wasn't in the garden of Gethsemane. So what Paul knows about Jesus saying Abba, Father is given to him through either Jesus when he appeared to him possibly, but most likely through the apostles telling him.

When he thinks the phrase Abba, Father and writes it in Romans and writes it in Galatians, this is the situation he's probably thinking of in scripture. The only other place the phrase is used is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. While he's praying, while he's sweating, teardrops of blood, knowing he's headed to the cross and he cries out. Abba, Father. All things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.

In the mouth of Jesus, this phrase, Abba, Father, is a statement of belonging. He, this is my Father. He knows that he belongs in relationship with his Father. It's a cry of closeness, but it's also in the garden of Gethsemane. It's a cry of distress.

In Galatians four, Paul specifically said, God sends the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying. Abba, Father, your cry of distress, you can go in distress to your Father. Daddy. Dadda. Help me. You can go to your Father. That's your cry of distress. Not because of you, but because God has sent the spirit of his Son into your heart. And that's exactly how Jesus cried to his Father. In distress, in pain, in fear, he cries Abba, Father.

For Paul and if we think in, in Galatians, we think the context here, the cry of God's children is not, I descended from Abraham. That's what some of the false teachers wanted to teach the Galatians. It's not, I follow circumcision in feast days and the law, that's not the cry in distress. It's not I follow all of these symbols around God's promise. It's Abba, Father, I rest in the grace that my Father has made me where I belong. I belong to him.

The Cry of God's Children is Not Based on Your Morality

Jed Gillis: So I want you to take this idea of the, the cry of God's children. I want you to think of, of two things. First, the most basic indication that you are a child of God, according to Galatians four, is not your morality. It's not that you do good things. It's not that you don't do bad things.

That would mean your relationship was primarily built on performance. Not that those things have nothing to do with our lives, but that's not the most basic indication that Paul looks at. Paul says, if you want to know what the children of God are like. They cry out in distress. This is the way they call daddy.

I'm not reliant on me. I'm not reliant on my effort. I'm reliant on my Father.

And this word's not just a cry of distress, it's also a cry of worship. So the days when you say, I really don't feel crushing distress in my life right now, enjoy those. Those are good. But the days where you feel that, your cry is one of worship. Father.

And we know it when it's a toddler. We know toddlers come to their dads and they think they're amazing and they just wanna talk to them and they want to hear 'em.

And we know they come when they cry. And their moms, it's not just their dads. Probably more to mom when they're hurt, actually.

The most basic indication that you are a child of God is that in both distress and in worship within you, the spirit cries out, Father. Not whether you do good things or don't do bad things because one who is not a child of God is still gonna cry out in distress. We all have distress. We all cry out.

But eventually one who is not a child of God because they worship something else, eventually will cry out. I'd rather have Barabbas crucify him. I'd rather have my comfort, my way, my pride, my selfishness. I'd rather have my lust or my anger or something. I'd rather have that than have Jesus. Eventually the child of God cries that. Sorry, said that backwards. That would be heresy. Gotta make sure you're awake somehow. Eventually, the one who is not a child of God cries that out. We say, I'd rather have something besides Jesus. Give me something else. Give me my own comfort. I don't want to take up my cross and follow Jesus. I want my own way.

In distress and in worship, one who's not a child of God will cry out that way. They'll cry out, let me earn my way. Let me do all the good performance. But one who is a child of God doesn't cry out in order to earn anything. They cry out because they belong. They cry out because they belong to their father. That's why toddlers cry out. Not to earn anything.

So that's one of the two things I want you to think about. The most basic indication of your adoption as a son or daughter of God is the cry of your soul, not the performance of your life.

The Cry of Christian Freedom is Not the Absence of Distress

Jed Gillis: The second thing, this means that the cry of Christian freedom is not the absence of distress. In fact, it shows up the most, it's most specifically revealed in distress. So you will find in our world, you'll find false teachers who teach you that Christians should always have health and and material prosperity, and that somehow, if you have distress in one of those areas, it's simply your lack of faith. That's not true. For a million reasons through scripture, but one of them is that the most fundamental here you're a child of God has to do with your cry in distress. That's part of your confidence to say, the spirit wells up in me and I can't go anywhere but to Jesus. So the cry of Christian freedom isn't experienced as absence of distress. It's a cry within distress.

The Cry of Freedom

Jed Gillis: Now, I called it just then the cry of freedom, and there's a reason for calling it that. It's because of how Paul led into this section. So go back up with me to verse one and let's see. Here's what Paul is doing in the overall flow of the book.

He says, 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, the heir he's told us just before this, in, in the end of chapter three, an heir is a, a believer. You see the last phrase in chapter three if you're, or the last verse, if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. So he's continuing that picture in saying, well, the heir, the true believer, the one who has eternal life can be, can look just like a slave in some ways. As long as he is a child. He's no different from a slave. He's an owner of everything, but he's under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.

Paul is gonna say, look, salvation history has been advancing and there were, there were stages and God has done new things. In Christ coming there is something different than had happened before. And because now the false teachers are looking at the Galatians and saying, you need to go back to what it was before. Paul has to give them this theology lesson. And Paul says, the slave and the heir are both under guardians and managers at one stage.

And we get a hint, by the way, in verse two, at Paul's point here, he doesn't say. They were under the law. He doesn't just say they were under a guardian or a manager. He specifically says the, the heir as a child is under guardians and managers like, well, that's interesting. You just said the law was, was a manager. What? Or guardian. Why did that change? Why did you say Now he's under guardians and managers? We'll get to that in a second. Just an observation at the moment.

What Are the Elementary Principles to Which We Were Slaves?

Jed Gillis: But he continues in verse three to say. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.

Now we get this phrase, elementary principles, and if you have a different translation, it's translated a couple different ways, which could seem fairly different in some ways. It could be elemental elementary spirits. Of the world is translated that way. That's because this word that's translated here is used three different ways.

And I think all of them matter. For Paul's point, the, the first way it's translated is as, uh, the elements, like the elements that make up the universe. We don't tend to think this way, but in, in the ancient world, they would've talked about like earth, wind, fire, water, those kinds of elemental forces. And they would use this word to describe essentially like the way everything is constructed. It's just the way the world works. From their viewpoint. That's one way they use this word.

Another way would be to talk about the, the rudiments or like the basic pieces of understanding, like the ABCs you say, I, I, you learn your ABCs. We don't literally mean you learned three letters. We mean you learned your alphabet, right? But the ABCs are a simple starting place. Word's used like that.

Or it can be used to refer to the, uh, elemental spirits as translated that way, demonic spirits within this world. Paul does use it in, in at least two outta those three ways. I think he uses it in all three in different places.

But Paul uses this word that has all three of those meanings for reason, because here's what he's saying, apart from the grace of Jesus, if you were a Jew who had the law, if you were a Gentile, who is stuck in pagan worship, or if you said, I don't believe in any of that stuff. I'm just trying to figure out life. I'm just living by my common sense. Verse three lumps all of them together to say in the same way, we also, all these groups were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.

So I wanna walk through that. If he's using it to say, here's the basic building blocks, like Hebrews five uses this. When he says, uh, you need someone to teach you again the foundational ideas of God's law. He said, like Jews, you had the foundational ideas of the law. You thought you knew how to get to God, but the way you were relating to God was one of slavery and not freedom.

He says, both Jews and Gentiles were enslaved to something, and he uses this word that's big enough to lump all of them together. It says, as a Jew, you saw the, the law and the way it was described in the Old Testament, and you were enslaved to the performance of that law because of how they approached it. They didn't approach it recognizing a gracious God behind the law. They approached it as, I've checked off all the boxes. Now God has to bless me because I've done the right thing. They were enslaved apart from Christ.

But it's not just the Jews. The Gentiles were also enslaved. Now. They didn't know the law. They didn't have the mosaic law. So what were they enslaved to? Well, some of them followed pagan worship, pagan deity, worship, if you will, false gods. So they had to perform in a certain way to appease the gods. And you're familiar with how this would work? You had, you had statues, you had religious places. And if you thought, I really want a good harvest. Then you had certain rituals, certain ways of performing you went through to try to appease the the goddess of fertility so that you would then get this great harvest. And they were enslaved to performance to try to manipulate these false gods so that they got what they wanted. Or at least so that they avoided what they didn't want.

So Paul's point here is that both Jew and Gentile had a standard of performance and the way they approached it, they were trying to manipulate the supernatural for their benefit.

When the Jews approach the law in this way, they come and they say, here is the good commands of God. I'm going to keep them. And then God's going to bless me. And so they ended up with things like, you remember the story in the Old Testament? We have the arc of the covenant. Of course, no one's going to conquer us. And they thought they had manipulated God through their performance, through their possession of certain, you know, artifact, that now God was not going to let them be conquered. Of course, you know the rest of the story, God lets them be conquered and the ark goes in, and then the false gods fall in front of it. Because God doesn't depend on the Jews for his power or you for his power.

So Paul drives us because remember his whole point, he already said it back in in chapter three. This is what he's doing in this whole section. Verse 22. The scripture imprisoned everything under sins so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

He says, Galatians, these false teachers are trying to tell you something that's not true. So I'm gonna back up and I'm gonna point out that they were enslaved to a kind of elementary principle. The law, you were enslaved to a kind of elementary principle or elemental spirit. Same word that he can use both ways. You were enslaved to pagan worship. And you might think, well, that doesn't apply to us, but we are really just less obvious about it. In, in pagan worship, they, they worshiped power and they symbolized it by the God of war, sitting on a shelf somewhere that they bowed before and did rituals for. We symbolize it by our bank account or we symbolize it by our title. We may symbolize it different ways, but we still worship power. They worshiped pleasure. And symbolized it by the, the goddess of love or whatever it was. And we worship pleasure and we symbolize it by a, a hypersexualized culture or just incessant entertainment. We worship the same idols. We just don't put the statue on the shelf.

And Paul says, both of those were slavery. In other words. What he's doing against the false teachers is driving the Galatians to see that if you approach God's law as a human performance system in order to force God to bless you, it is just as much slavery as false pagan worship. Paul says both of those were enslaved. It if that's the way you came to the law.

But there's a third group and that's why the third meaning of this word could work. There could be people who would say, I don't know about those statues. I don't really believe in all that. I see the Jews with their laws. That's kind of weird. I'm just gonna live according to my common sense.

They had these people back then, just like we do now, who would've said, you know, I'm not too committed to one religion. You can just do whatever makes sense for you. That's fine. I'm just gonna live the way I think the world works. So they'll say things like, do good and good is more likely to happen to you. I'm gonna do good works to make up for my bad works. I'll try to outweigh that. And in their view, they're like, these are just the basic building blocks of human interaction.

In other words, they're the third meaning of that word. We translate elemental forces, earth, wind, fire, and water. This is just how it all works. I'm gonna live in a way that I'm performing according to just how the world's put together. And Paul's point by using this word that covers all three of these, Paul makes the point that there's a certain truth to human existence apart from Christ. Before God's grace is poured out through Jesus Christ, everyone, every human is in one sense enslaved to human performance.

Christ Came to Free Us From Slavery

Jed Gillis: And in that sense, the Jew who lives according to the law, viewing it as human performance, the Gentile who worships the idols, and the person who says, this is just how the world works. I'm just performing the way that's gonna work out best for me. They're all enslaved. They're all relying on human performance, and they find the, the unrest, the curse that he describes all who rely on works of the law. That includes mosaic law, but any human standard of performance, all who rely on that, find a curse. They find slavery.

And that's why Paul says here, everyone is enslaved. Why? So that he can deliver the good news of that message. That God sent forth his Son to redeem to free. That's what redemption means, right? To buy from slavery. To free. Everyone's enslaved so everyone can look to Jesus to find freedom. That's why Paul communicates it, because you have to know you're a slave to be genuinely set free.

I, I started looking up examples of stories or historical accounts. That used something like this as a theme. There were way too many of them. I couldn't stop. You go back to to the nineties and the Matrix, and Neo has to know he's in a computer program before he starts to break free. You go to Narnia and Edmund has to realize he's deceived by the white witch before he can be set free. He's really serving her, but he needs to be set free. You could go to Les Mis and Jean Val Jean had to realize that he had anger and self pity that was running his life before he could be set free. Go. He's outta jail yet, but he is not really free yet. Not until later.

You could go on and on and on and on and find stories that resonate with our souls that say people didn't realize they were enslaved. They found out they were enslaved and they found freedom, and that's the message of God's truth and his salvation. Paul says, all of us were enslaved to human performance without grace, undeserved favor poured out on us through Jesus, but God is the best and really the only true liberator. The one who sets us free.

So you get in verse four, when the fullness of time had come in God's perfect plan, God sent his Son. Notice you get the Father sends the Son, and then verse six, he sends the Spirit. It's the triune God. Father, Son, and Spirit are all working together to free God's children. So he says, God sent his Son, born of woman, born under the law, and this is his purpose, to redeem those who were under the law.

Jesus paid the price and we, we know this, but. Think of it in these terms. Jesus paid the price of perfect performance. We know, oh, he kept the law perfectly right? So when you think instinctively, I've gotta perform this way to be good enough, I've gotta perform this way to earn blessing, I've gotta perform this way, I've gotta measure up. Jesus paid the price of perfect performance so that he could set you free from that. To redeem those who were under the law.

Paul drives these people to realize, now remember these Galatians, they've heard the message of grace. Now the false teachers are coming and saying, no, you need to go back to human performance through the law of God that you didn't have before. That's why it's gonna be better. Paul says, no thinking that your justification comes through your performance. That your favor, that your acceptance comes through your performance is slavery. No matter what it looks like.

And Jesus has sent, has come, to pay the price to free you. That means if your trust is in him, you have a new status, you have a new ability to cry out. Abba, Father.

Your status is something that happens outside of you, but the cry of resting in the favor of the Father happens inside you. And Paul wants these Galatians to see that God doesn't want you to stay enslaved to perform. He wants you to have freedom.

God Wants You to Rest in His Favor

Jed Gillis: So Paul really concludes this whole section of Galatians and I want you to come to these thoughts as we conclude our time in Galatians this morning.

God has promised rest for your soul because he justifies you by grace, by his undeserved favor. Through Jesus. And now you start to see what is the result of resting in that promise. Paul describes it with freedom. The freedom of belonging as God's children. The the performance slave cries out in distress, but they cry things like, I've lived a pretty good life. I've done more good than I've done bad. God can bless me now because I've done pretty well. The performance slave cries out like that.

The Grace Child cries out, Abba, Father, you are my refuge when I fall short. Your favor is that much greater. God doesn't want you to audition for his favor.

I want you to sit with that phrase just a second. God doesn't want you to audition for his favor. He wants you to rest in his favor.

So brothers and sisters, when distress comes in, what do you cry out? Is your cry I'll do better next time? If that's the cry of performance. Or is it the cry of adoption? Abba, Father.

What does your soul cry out? Because the cry of freedom isn't a self-reliant roar of strength. It's a child saying, Dadda, Father.

Even when your voice is weak, the spirit of God's Son is what cries out within you. Even when your voice is weak, the Spirit himself cries. And so when you know from day to day, you know this distress in your soul, when you know that distress. You may find yourself struggling, but at the root of it, when you sit with your Father, do you hear within your soul? Do you feel I can't go anywhere else because he is the one who bought me?

You don't have that because of your performance. You have that because God sent the spirit of his Son who cried out Abba, Father, I don't want to go through this, but not my will, but yours.

And when you cry out Abba, Father, that cry is like a baby saying, I belong to this person. That cry means you're not enslaved anymore. It means you're a child. It means your Father welcomes you home.

We went to the prodigal son a while back. When he comes back to the father, his speech is, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. That's not the cry of the child. That's not Abba, Father. That's recognizing performance. That's thinking my performance made me worthy, and instead of, I'll try better next time, I'm no longer worthy. What God wants from us is that his Spirit within us would cry back to him, Abba, Father, and we would rest in that.

That's what God invites you to. So I'll invite you now. To close your eyes and respond to God's truth, ask him to work to show you where your cry of distress, trust in the wrong thing, and ask him to fill your soul with the love of His grace. Invite you just to respond to God in prayer, and then we'll sing together.