Beacon Hill Church

05/31/2026

Sermon Recap
May 31, 2026
Galatians 4:1-7

I have entitled today’s sermon “Living Broke When You Are Rich.”

I had lunch with Garrett Opel this past Thursday. He is the current children’s pastor at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church where he has served faithfully for the past 10 years. He went all in at Mt. Pleasant. He met, fell in love with and married one of the senior pastor‘s daughters. If there was ever going to be a lifer at church, Garrett would be the one, as long as his father-in-law is the pastor.

But God.

About a year ago, Garrett and I were talking ministry down at the hangar and he told me about his passion for foster care and adoption. We talked about ways to incorporate that passion into the ministries of Mt. Pleasant. God kept tugging on his heart, and he recently announced his stepping down from the role of children’s pastor to help start Blue Ridge Harbor ministries in Bedford, VA that will be focused on those who are either orphans or about to be orphans, if a miracle doesn’t take place.

On the surface, it sounds crazy. He is leaving a thriving ministry that is booming with a secure paycheck to start something that is completely by faith. Many in the church would call a move like that radical. But my question is, when did being Biblical start being known as radical?

There is a story of a man named Phillip in the book of Acts who left a thriving ministry to go to the desert with nothing but the hand of God upon him where he would lead an Ethiopian Eu**ch to the Lord.

Garrett is doing something crazy by the world’s standards, but not by God’s standards. The Bible calls us to live by faith and not by sight. Too often in the church people live by sight and not by faith. This is why our number one plum line at Beacon Hill Church is to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Because as long as you live in your comfort zone, you will never embrace and experience the riches that come from following Christ Jesus.

This morning, I want to challenge you to stop living the meager life and embrace the fruitful life that is available to you in Christ Jesus.

I. OUR LIFE BEFORE CHRIST (1–3).
Paul is talking to people who are saved, but are acting like they are not. They are acting no different than their life before Christ. They are living under the law when they should be living under grace. Paul uses some of the characteristics of childhood to illustrate the spiritual immaturity of those living under the law. In Roman times, although a child may be an heir to a great estate, he still lived and functioned as though he was broke. A rich infant doesn’t know they are a rich infant. In the Roman world, children of wealthy people were cared for by servants. They may have had parents, but they lived as though they were orphans.

We’ve been talking about rumble strips the past couple of weeks and those rumble strips are good for us and serve a purpose even though they can’t save us. Living under the law performed its function of keeping us out of trouble and disciplining us during our immature years until God offered us maturity through our acceptance of salvation by grace.

Get your Bibles open and underline these words: until the time set by his father.

In ancient times, the coming-of-age was a big deal. The age of accountability is found nowhere in the Bible. Proverbs 22:6 says “Train your children up in the way they should go so that when they are old, they will not depart from it.” It does not say, train up your child until they are a certain age. We are to pour into our children from the time they are in the womb. The coming of age is determined by the father.

When you get saved, do you tell God when you are going to get saved or does God tell you when you are going to be saved? That is the intersection of the sovereignty of God and the free will of man. How that works is beyond our comprehension.

The Bible says that God draws all people to Himself. Which tells us that we all reach maturity at different times. When you start to learn how to walk with Jesus and the freedoms that come from knowing you are part of the family of God, and have all the riches of Christ available to you. It is so freeing.

Paul was absolutely dumbfounded that the Galatian believers would choose to revert back to the state of discipline they lived under the law when Christ had given them freedom. They are trying to please God by works, which offers false hope by saying if I can just do this, I’ll please God and be set free and then when you invariably fall short and get trapped into the cycle of effort and failure, it leads to more effort and failure.

A lot of preachers like to end their sermons with a to-do list. Do this, do that. And the next week, the same thing at the end of the sermon. Do this, do that. What happens is that you cannot do it all. We need to stop beating ourselves up when we fall short and apply grace instead of legalism into our spiritual life. We apply grace when we understand that His mercies are new every morning. Stop living like your life before Christ and start living in the riches of Christ.

II. GOD‘S PERFECT TIMING (4–5).
God’s timing is always right on time. When Jesus came into this world the first time it was at the exact perfect time. The Jews had been wondering when their Messiah would come for centuries when He came. And if you look back, you can see that there was never a more perfect time for Him to come. Conditions were right for the spread of the Gospel. The Romans had ushered in an era of relative peace. Their roads were such that made travel more convenient. There was widespread use of the Greek language that made communication easier. And at the same time, the multitude of empty religions had people craving for something genuine.

God knew that it was the time to send His Son. There is only one answer to this world‘s problems, and His name is Jesus. Scripture says that He was born of a woman and born under the law. Being born of a woman, Jesus faced temptations and problems that we face. Being born under the law, He faced the same expectations that everyone else faced. Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law through Him.

Verse 5 tells us that Jesus came for 2 purposes. Purpose 1: to redeem us. That is to set us free from the bo***ge of sin. Living under the law, it was impossible for us to perfectly please God, it was impossible for us to save ourselves.

But God.

But God sent His only begotten Son, so that whosoever shall believe in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. God sent His Son to become sin so that we would be free from the bo***ge of sin. God came to redeem us and set us free.

Purpose 2: so that we might receive adoption as sons.
Before Christ we were orphans. When you are adopted, you go through a radical life change. You go from thinking there is no hope and no one cares about you, to having a family that absolutely adores you and loves you and wants to give you everything that they have. That is what Christ did for you on the cross of Calvary. He adopted you into His family and made available everything that He has to you. And while all of us who are saved and have been adopted into the family of God have been richly blessed, some of us wonder why it took so long for us to come to Him.

Don’t beat yourself up or try to live in the past. God saved you at the perfect time to use you for His glory. The Bible says that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. I’ve never seen God save someone without having a purpose for them. Just as the perfect time was ordained for God to come into this world, you were saved at the perfect time to make Him known in this world. And we must not waste that gift from God because there is a time that has already been set aside for God to come back and usher in His kingdom and we can’t live like we have forever.

III. EMBRACE YOUR SONSHIP
(6-7).
If I could boil these versus into one succinct statement, it would be this. Paul is pretty much saying, you are God‘s kids start acting like it. Despite the way they were acting, they were still children of God. How did Paul know this? Because God sent the Spirit of His Son to live in their hearts. As God had sent the Son, He also sent the Spirit. God sent His Son to redeem us. He sent His Spirit to seal us. And the Holy Spirit cannot be bought or earned.

Look at Acts chapter 8 and you will see that Simon tried to buy the Spirit, and Peter said you can’t buy the gift of God with money. You can only receive the Spirit by repenting of your sins and trust in Christ as Lord of your life. Having the Spirit of God is proof of your salvation. You cannot be redeemed apart from receiving the Spirit. They are part of the same transaction. When you are saved, you are sealed with the Spirit. And the Spirit of His Son cries out Abba, Father.

Abba is the Aramaic word for Father. It was a very familiar and endearing term used by a child when addressing his or her father at home.

You can’t have a personal relationship with the law. But you can have a personal relationship with the Father. The Spirit cries out with grumbling too deep for words. When you are unable to pray as you ought, the Spirit intercedes and says this is what my child wants to tell you.

Some of you are acting like you have no access to the Father and living and praying as lost people when you have the Spirit inside of you wanting to cry out to the Father with you.

I was talking to Garrett and said doing what you are doing should be normal. When I was at Enon, we had a picture of a lady who was sent out as a missionary 100 years ago. And while that is cool, it is also sad. Why is it not normal that we abandon life’s comfort for the sake of the advancement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

God wants to use you. There is so much more that can be done in this city and God wants to use you to do it. God brought you here at the fullness of His time for a purpose. You just need to let go and let God. Stop living broke when you are rich.

05/31/2026

Good morning and welcome to Beacon Hill Church. As we prepare to worship please invite your friends and family to join us online. We will begin shortly.

05/30/2026

05/29/2026

Good vibes, grateful hearts and the SON that never stops shining! Come see us at Free Food Friday!

3:30 devotional
4:00 distribution

05/24/2026

Thank you for joining us today. As we prepare to worship, please invite your friends to join us. Service begins at 11 am.

05/22/2026

You already know how PUMPED we are that it’s FREE FOOD FRIDAY!!!

Come on out! Let’s pray together, serve our community and glorify God through it all!

3:30 Devotional
4:00 Distribution

05/17/2026

Sermon Recap
May 17, 2026

I have entitled today’s sermon: Does the law really have a purpose?

Six years ago this month, a movement started in several cities across America, including Minneapolis and Seattle, to either abolish or defund the local law enforcement. Seattle passed a resolution reducing the Police Dept budget by 20%. The city council in Minneapolis went as far as publicly pledging to dismantle the entire Police Dept and replace it with community lead policing.

A few crooked police led them to think, in their minds, that they could better uphold the law than any public Police Dept. It did not take long for them to realize they messed up. In less than one year homicides grew 24% in Seattle. They were unable to handle the 911 calls and were understaffed to deal with other crimes in their cities.

It took less than two years for Minneapolis to completely restore their Police Dept and Seattle was right behind them. They found out the purpose of the law and their need for law enforcement.

In today’s text the same question is being asked but in a spiritual context. Do we really need the law?

If you have been tracking with us, as we have dove deep through Chapter 3 of Galatians, Paul had made several distinct observations about the law. The law could not give the Holy Spirit (3: 1–5). The law could not give righteousness (3:6–9). The law could not justify; only condemn (3: 10–12). The law could not change the fact that righteousness only comes by faith in God‘s promises (3: 15–18). Listening to Paul, one could think the law had no purpose and it sounded like Paul may have actually been opposed to the law.

In these verses, Paul explains the purpose of the law and its role in the plan of Salvation.

I. THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW (19–20).
For those who do not know what rumble strips are, they are these things on the edge of the outer lanes of highways to alert you when you are going off the straight path. Whether the rumble strips annoy you or not, they do have a purpose. They are there to keep you on the right path and studies have shown that they reduce accidents by up to 60%. But they can’t keep anyone accident free. The law is our rumble strips. The law was given to us so we will know when we are heading off course.

Romans 3:20 says that the law gives us knowledge of our sin. The law is there to show us our sinfulness and our inability on our own to please God by our own works and our need for authority in our lives. The law drives us to realize how insufficient we are to handle this life on our own and make us aware of our need for a deliverer. When you break the law, you are not just running off the road, you are sinning. And sin against a holy and righteous, God is not something to be laughed off because you will have to one day give an account before God for your life. The law’s purpose is to show us our willful violation of the will of God who rules the universe and holds us accountable for our sins.

If you don’t realize you are a sinner, you will never see a need for a savior. God’s gracious gift of salvation is meaningless to a person who feels no need of help. The law can’t save us, but can point us to the one who can save us.

II. THE LAW IS INFERIOR TO THE PROMISE (19B – 20).
Has anyone ever gone through mediation? As a pastor, I do a lot of mediation between couples. These people who thought each other were once perfect, now need someone to mediate their imperfections. A mediator works between two or more parties to aid in broken communication, work towards an argument, or settle a dispute.

In these verses, Moses is the implied mediator who communicated between God and Israel. God, through angels, mediates the law to Moses, who then gave it to people. The thing about mediation is it only works if both sides keep up their end of the agreement. While God kept his, the people of Israel could not keep theirs. Thus, the law is inferior to the promise. And while the Judaizers put Moses up on a pedestal, they had no place to exalt Moses or angels over God himself as they were doing.

This was a master class of Paul pointing people to Christ. We often put people up on a pedestal. The Judaizers put Moses on a pedestal. The law was only temporary to point people to Jesus and mediators are only temporary to point people to Jesus. Just as God dealt directly with Abraham in the Abrahamic covenant, he must deal directly with you.
1 Timothy 2:5 tells us that there is only one true mediator between God and humanity, and that is the God man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all.

III. THE LAW IS NOT CONTRARY TO THE PROMISE (21–22).
Paul, being a Jew of Jews, knew what the Judaizers were thinking before they had the opportunity to ask it. He said you must be thinking that the law is somehow contrary to the purposes of God and that this is far from the truth. The law and the promises of God work together, and not against one another. The law shows our need. The promise shows our solution. The law was never meant to save. It was not able to impart life. If it were able to, then it would have been contrary to the promises of God because it would have provided an alternate and conflicting way of salvation. It would have made the death of Christ on the cross of Calvary tragically unnecessary.

The law could not and cannot give life. But the law has a purpose. It levels the playing field. None of us have perfectly kept the law. That’s why we need Jesus.

This world has a lot to say about the Bible. It mocks the Bible because it doesn’t understand. The world doesn’t accept the truth because they do not understand it. Scripture says that everything is imprisoned under sin’s power. Whether you think so or not, you are in jail without Christ, and there is no way out on your own power. The Judaizers were infiltrating the church and saying there is another way out and giving people false hope.

You can find a church or a religion that will tell you there is another way, but the Bible says that there is only one way to salvation and that is through Jesus Christ. John 14:6 says that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through him. The Bible does not say that Jesus is a way, or one of many ways, Jesus is the way.

Are you ready to be set free from the bo***ge of sin into the marvelous light of Christ? Are you a lawbreaker and it’s time to give your life to the chain breaker and his name is Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ I share with you today is not an invitation for us to do but a declaration of what God has already done. God gave his life up on the cross of Calvary, so that whosoever shall believe in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. We deserve death, but the gift of life is available to you today through Jesus Christ.

IV. THE LAW IS OUR GUARDIAN (23–25).
Anybody ever have a babysitter growing up? I’m talking about a drill, sergeant nanny. We can’t hide it, but slavery was a thing back then. And in the Jewish culture, a slave was assigned to each child to es**rt them to school and assist in their supervision. Every time the child took liberty without permission on the way to school to play or goof off, the nanny pointed their finger to the child, and in no uncertain terms told the child what it had done wrong and delivered the punishment. By correlating the law with the nanny image, we learned that the law was given to point out sin and threatened punishment if people didn’t straighten up. Man’s own inability to straighten up causes men and women to long for a better way. The law was God‘s schoolmaster for the Jews in their infancy. The law kept the Jews in line until Christ came, and the full revelation of the gospel was given to the Jews and Gentiles. When you place your faith in Jesus Christ, you are no longer bound by legalism, but you are set free into his grace.

V. BECOME A CHILD OF GOD (26).
It’s cute when people say that we are all God‘s children, but we are not. We are made in the image of God, but we are not all children of God. The Bible says in Romans 5:10 that we were enemies of God. That is what all of us were before Christ and some of you today still are. That may sound harsh, but to tell you otherwise would be a lie and contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. But there is a way to become a child of God today. That is by coming to him in faith. Some of you have been hitting the rumble strips of life for too long and you’re about to fall off a cliff and there will be no second chances. Let today be the day of salvation for you.

05/17/2026

Good morning and welcome to Beacon Hill Church. As we prepare to worship please invite your friends and family to join us online. We will begin shortly.

05/16/2026

Check out Pastor Michael's podcast: OnMissional. Learning how to live missionally for Christ!

Listen to Mission versus Missional Episode 1 by OnMissional on