Set Free to Live Free - Live Like Free Born Children - January 11, 2026

I'm trying to go live at Pax House.

It's just across the street. Well, what a great, great space,

great place. I'm looking forward to seeing

how the community develops there.

Wanda, we, we've been cruising through Galatians.

So if you've got your Bible, you can go ahead and open it to

Galatians 4. But I wonder if you've had some

occasion where someone said to you, I wish we didn't have the

Old Testament. Did you ever have somebody say

that I wish we didn't have the Old Testament?

Or maybe they they just said, I, I don't like the God of the Old

Testament. I like the God of the New

Testament. I don't like the God of the Old

Testament. And so they want to be able to

divide it up. In fact, I, I sort of have this

feeling that this is a little trend that runs through our

lives at different times for, for a while before you version,

it was very popular to just carry around your New Testament.

And I was like, you know, that's an, that's an old heresy.

We don't actually think of it that way, but it's an old heresy

to just have the New Testament. There was a guy named Marcion

who in 85 was gathering up the letters of the church and he, he

rejected the Old Testament completely and said no way.

But the rest of the bishops around the Mediterranean and

from North Africa all the way up into Rome said no way.

That's heresy, that that's not something we want, we actually

want to maintain and keep connected the Old Testament and

New Testament to have coherence about the expression of who God

is. This might not be the burning

issue in your life right now, but I imagine that as you share

your life and faith with others, you will have friends who say

Leviticus is boring or like Joshua, why is it so violent?

Or why did I read all these other things where it seems like

God was just mad at people? And that's really those are fair

questions that really do need to be worked out.

But the apostle Paul was also having to work out this issue

not just for getting people who wanted to get rid of the Old

Testament. He was having to deal with the

other extreme, saying anyone who comes to Christ needs to come

under the Old Testament law. And so these are two sides of

the same problem in question of what do we do with the full

testimony of the Scripture? How are we going to respond?

And Paul has a really curious move.

You know, last week we talked about how he's been building up

in the book of Ephesians to a big ask.

He wasn't going to ask somebody to marry him, but he was going

to ask the church in Galatia to do something extraordinary, to

do something that was going to in some ways, press for a

resolution of the conflict they were experiencing.

Now, you know Stephen Covey, some of you know the seven

habits. He, he had a really interesting

phrase about beginning with the end in mind and he said you need

to begin with the end in mind so that you will have a clear

understanding of your destination.

And in knowing your destination, you can determine the steps, the

small steps that you take are going in the right direction.

That's good advice, isn't it? I think the Apostle Paul was

really clear, and we can, as some of you have been reading

Galatians all the way through now a couple times.

You're starting to see that the Apostle Paul seems to have some

sort of vision, some end goal. But the text we're about to

read, you're going to feel like what in the world is Paul doing?

We're going to try to geek out here in the Scripture a little

bit, but bear with me. It's it's a little tedious just

moving through this, but we're going to try to simplify it and

get to 3 really keen observations for application in

our own life. So if you would let's follow as

we read in Galatians chapter 4. Tell me you who want to be under

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

the law. Are you not aware of what the

law says? So he's pushing back their

question to say, hey, watch this.

You want to be under the law? Watch this, for it is written

that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other

by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was

born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was

born as the result of a divine promise.

These things are being taken figuratively.

The word figuratively is, is the Greek word allegorical.

So he's creating an allegory here, a little different from

the Greek tradition about allegory, but nonetheless he's

creating an allegory here not with a moral picture, but a

picture of the community that God intends to create.

And so let's follow his argument.

He says the woman, the women represent 2 covenants.

One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be

slaves. This is Hagar.

Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the

present city of Jerusalem because she is in slavery with

her children. But the Jerusalem that is above

is free, and she is our mother. For, it is written, Be glad,

barren woman. You who never bore a child,

shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labor, because

more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who

has a husband. Now you, brothers and sisters,

like Isaac, are children of promise.

At that time the son born according to the flesh

persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit.

It is the same now. But what does Scripture say?

Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's

son will never share in the inheritance with the free

woman's son. Therefore, brothers and sisters,

we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

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. Now for most of you hearing and

reading this text, no fireworks went off, but I guarantee you

that for the Galatian Church churches when they heard this

part of the letter read, some would would have probably gone

what and there would have been a rumble and Mumbles through the

congregation because this is the climax of the letter.

This is the big ask where he lets Sarah, Abraham's wife

preach to them and they would have been shocked it it went

like water off a duck's back for us.

You didn't feel the emotional impact of it at all.

Let me just remind you what Paul's envisioning.

Paul's envisioning that the church in Galatia would know God

in fullness. Last week we saw that he shows

this as the highest form of spirituality, knowing God and

being known by God. Knowing God in the fullness of

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, experiencing deliverance from

sin and from the powers of darkness.

Paul's starting with the end in mind.

He's remembering and always reminding them that they were

meant to really know God. And in knowing God, they're free

because they're forgiven of sin and they're freed from the

powers of darkness. Second thing is that he's

reminding them that they're to be one family, that the church

is meant to be one family together, an extraordinary new

family where it doesn't matter if you're Jewish or Gentile,

whether you're a slave or free, whether you're male or female.

What matters is that you're all following Jesus, the crucified

Messiah. That's his vision of the church

is that we are all following Jesus, the crucified Messiah.

And so the way we relate to each other isn't on these ideas of

status, legacy, heritage, race. Instead, we relate to one

another because of the power of the Spirit in our lives.

And then third, he's imagining and keeping in mind that his

vision of the church is that the church will reveal Jesus and the

freeing, delivering power of his gospel by transforming

relationships everywhere through the power of God's love.

He gets to this a little bit later in Galatians.

Some of you have been reading it.

And so you're like, Oh yeah, he starts to talk about love a lot.

Now let's let's look a little closer at what Paul is doing.

Paul is trying to organize how they read the Old Testament.

He believed that if you started following Jesus, everything in

your life would be organized around Jesus the Messiah because

he's the One, and that all of your life, even the way you read

scripture, would be organized around Jesus the Messiah.

Now he's trying to move them from having the center of

gravity in the way they read Scripture, being all about the

law, and instead he wants them to anchor it in the promise that

God made to Abraham. What was the promise God made to

Abraham? Many children, many nations.

You're going to have a family. Abraham.

And God kept telling him this. And Abraham, I'm sure, was

wondering because he was getting older.

He was 99. Where's my children?

Sarah's getting older. Where's my children?

But Paul's wanting the church to reorganize the way they read the

Scripture, that they read Scripture through the lens of

Jesus crucified. So they look back and he says,

look back to Abraham, what God promised him to make a family of

all nations, and then look forward into the future through

the cross of Jesus, seeing that family involved in the new

creation. We'll get to that.

But he's saying look through the cross of Jesus and look back to

Abraham, what God promised. Notice what he says.

He's creating an allegory. He says, I'm going to create

this story, this little narrative so that you begin to

see. He reminds them again of

Abraham, who had two sons. His first son actually came

about because Sarah said, look it, I'm getting older.

I'm not having a baby. God's made you a promise.

Let's get on with it. You take Hagar, my handmaiden,

my servant, and you make a baby with her.

And it says Abraham did, and Ishmael was born.

Talk about complicating family life right away in our reading

and narrative about this, we're like, wow, you didn't just can't

complicate family life. You complicated the life of

nations in this hostility that was generated between Ishmael

and Isaac, who was born later. For God told Abraham, no, look,

you will have a son with Sarah, and this child will be the child

of promise. And so Paul says I'm going to

create an allegory with two women, two families, 2 covenants

and two mountains. He lays it out.

Here's Hagler, here's Sarah. One's a slave and the other is

free. 1 is going to have a child according to the flesh, but one

is going to have a child according to the promise.

And he's saying now these two families have their roots in

this story. What's surprising is which

family he believes you're a part of.

He, Paul, believes you're a part of the family of Sarah.

Now, his opponents might have already said, you Gentiles,

you're actually part of the family of Ishmael.

But Paul's insisting, no, you Gentiles are actually part of

the family of Sarah and Isaac. And here's how he did it.

He says, look, Hagar and her people are from Arabia.

That's where Mount Sinai is. We would say, oh, they're Arabs,

but he says, look, Mount Sinai is there in Arabia.

Why is Mount Sinai important? It's because that's where God

showed up with Moses and gave the law and he's, look, the law

is actually in the land of slavery.

Wow, Paul's really messing with them.

And he said then these this line of the law is now in Jerusalem,

in the present day Jerusalem and from Jerusalem.

Are people worried about the flesh?

Are you circumcised or not? Are you Jewish enough or not?

Are you under the law so you can be completely accepted by God?

And they've shown up in Galatia to persecute you because of your

freedom in Christ. And so they are the persecutors

like Ishmael. So in the story of Abraham and

Sarah, Ishmael tormented Isaac and one day Sarah saw this

happening, that Ishmael was making Isaac's life difficult

and she came to Abraham and she said send them away, they will

have no inheritance. Isaac is the child of the

promise. Now for us, we were like, this

sounds really harsh. This is terrible.

And in a whole nother line of preaching and work, I would

preach that what's the deal with Abraham and Sarah knowing God?

And they're so harsh with Hagar and Ishmael, but that's a whole

different sermon. It's not Paul's sermon.

Paul is creating an allegory to arrive at a very startling

conclusion where he let Sarah preach at them and say get rid

of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will

never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son.

Now Paul's flipped it around. He's saying, I need you as the

church to align your theology and your actions so that you

know you don't have to be in slavery again.

You all are actually the children of the promise.

And there you go of Isaac. But I'm not Jewish.

He's like, no, anyone who is in Christ is now the children of

the promise. Would you turn to your neighbor

and say, are you a child of the promise?

See, he's training them to rethink not just the reading of

the Scripture, but the reading of themselves.

He's trying to get them to now identify themselves as, wow, we

are humbly included in the family of God.

This is amazing. Now, for those who also didn't

really want to accept this, that maybe Paul is just doing some

strange juju with the scripture, right?

He said this is a weird way of reading the scripture.

In this passage, he alludes to an extraordinary Psalm.

We read this Psalm at the beginning of our service today,

Psalm 87. And he's wanting to connect the

promise, the Messiah and the nations all together.

And so he alludes to this Psalm 87.

Let's read it together again. Next slide.

Well, I'll show you the illusion.

Here it is. Now you don't have to go

anywhere. It's in the slide.

So here's this illusion, he says, but the Jerusalem that is

above, where is the Jerusalem above?

They only knew the Jerusalem that was down here.

He says there's a Jerusalem above, It's free, and she is our

mother. Oh my goodness, Paul, what are

you doing? He's saying there's a heavenly

city, a heavenly Jerusalem, and it's free and she is our mother.

When in the Scripture is Jerusalem the mother?

That's in Psalm 87. Here we go.

That's next slide. Next slide.

Don't worry. It's by the sons of Korra.

It's a Psalm, a song, and it says this.

He has founded his city on the holy mountain.

The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the other

dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are said of you,

city of God. I will record Rahab and Babylon

among those who acknowledge me. Now Rahab is reference to Egypt.

He's saying I will record Egypt and I will record Babylon as

those who acknowledge me. Philistia.

Wow, the home of the Philistines.

And Tyre, along with Cush, they will say, say it with me.

This one was born in Zion, indeed of Zion it will be said,

this one and that one were born in her, and the Most High

himself will establish her. The Lord will write in the

register of the peoples. This one was born in Zion.

And they will make music, They will sing.

All my fountains are in you all my life, you know, if you've

ever been in the desert and thirsty, you know, this is your

life. You got to have water.

And they're saying all my life giving source is there in that

city that Jerusalem. Why would people from Egypt and

Babylon and Cush and Philistia and Tyre all say I was born in

Zion? That's unheard of.

Lauryn Hill sang it. This one was born in Zion.

Lauryn Hill was teaching how to read the scripture, she says,

you know, in this, you all don't know this, do you?

Does anybody know who Lauryn Hill is?

All right, there's a few of you are really cultured.

She's a artist and and she has this great CD called The MIS

Education of Lauryn Hill. I recommend it to you, a whole

new generation. But in it, she's recognizing

something about this phrase, this one was born in Zion, about

her own child and their own, her own history and how she wanted

to be able to say you were not a mistake.

You were born in Zion in the very heart, and I have God, you

matter. This one was born in Zion.

And so Paul is trying to say, hey, look, there's some people

who've shown up there in Galatia and they're trying to miss

educate you. They're trying to miss educate

you and I'm trying to help you see that it's always been in the

heart of God that the nations would be joined together and

organized around the Messiah and that they would say of Jesus,

He's changed my life, He's changed my birthplace.

I've been born in Zion. I've been born in the very heart

and city of God. I have citizenship in the very

heart and city of God. Now, what a powerful, powerful,

powerful gift Paul is giving to this church.

And so the question becomes, were you born in Zion?

Turn to your neighbor and ask them, were you born in Zion?

Were you born in the very city and heart of God?

Is your name written in the Registry of the Peoples?

In fact, this is what Jesus said when the disciples came back and

said, Oh Jesus, we've got so much power, the demons even

submit to us. He says, oh, don't rejoice in

that. Rejoice that your name is

written in the Lamb's Book of Life in the Registry of the

Peoples, that you have a new inheritance.

This one was born in Zion. See, Paul views the church as

God's great rehearsal reversal of Sarah's barrenness.

Sarah was barren. Sarah is a stand in for Israel.

Paul is seeing the church as the great reversal of Israel's

barrenness, that now they're truly producing what the Messiah

intends, that the nations would be blessed.

Barrenness is a scary thing for some who find that, oh, I'm not

having children, but how can God give children to those who don't

even have a husband? But notice what Paul connects it

to. Keep going here.

He he quotes from Isaiah 54 and he says, for it is written, be

glad barren woman, you who never bore a child, shout for joy and

cry aloud, you who were never in labor, because more are the

children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.

Now for those who knew, he was quoting Isaiah 54.

So now he's he's really trying to also speak to not just the

Gentiles, but the Jewish believers, even those whose were

persecuting the church in Galatia.

He's trying to speak to them and remind them of this incredible

moment where Israel is declared to have lots of children.

And how is it possible? It was possible because of

Isaiah 53, the suffering servant.

So I encourage you go and read it.

The suffering servant is the Messiah who actually makes it

possible for what was barren to be fruitful, to actually become

a blessing to the nations. All right, did anybody get

excited? You're born in Zion.

How is that possible? Here's three things I think are

really important for us as application today.

We're going to move through them really quickly.

The 1st is that where we see and fear barrenness, God sees an

opportunity to create new life. Where you think, hey, this is

the most unfruitful, desolate, dark period of my life.

God is able to reach in and do something that brings new life.

It requires waiting, It requires patience, It requires trusting

in the dark. Sarah and Abraham had their

moments where they didn't, but God was still faithful.

The second thing is this, the church must protect itself from

all kinds of destructive ideologies by pursuing and

celebrating the multi ethnic familiness of Jesus's new

family. Here's a Babylonian in Jerusalem

saying all my fountains are in you.

See, when the church starts to get away from celebrating the

multi ethnic nature of God's family, we can start being drawn

into all kinds of isms that are destructive.

Nationalism actually has almost no room in the life of a Kingdom

follower of Jesus. Besides the the closeness of

loving your neighbor and you're saying, well, I'm in Ghana and

all my neighbors are Ghanaians. OK, So I guess I better love my

Ghanaian neighbors, you know, But after that, your nationalism

has to bow to Christ whether you're in Canada or you're in

the USA, kind of ethnic nationalism actually has to be

set aside. Paul is begging them and says

become like me, he said in the passage last week.

Because he had submitted his nationalism to Jesus at the foot

of the cross and was willing to embrace the nations.

anti-Semitism has no place in the life of the church and where

the church has actually not celebrated the multi ethnic

dimensions of the gospel had not celebrated their connection to

Abraham in his family. They actually fell prey to the

work of Hitler and Nazism. But this move that Paul's making

here in this passage is actually a corrective where we who are

new to the family and adopted in have no place for arrogance

against Jewish people. 3rd observation.

We must carefully read and reread the Scripture through the

lens of the cross of Jesus so we can maintain and enjoy our

freedom in Him no matter the trends of our times.

Do you know what book only 1% of university graduates have read?

It's a top 10 bestseller all the time globally.

It's the Bible. Only 1% of university graduates

have actually read one of the most influential books in the

world from cover to cover and gotten to know it.

I hope you're in the 1%. Do you know I, I'm, I'm actually

want to press in a little bit here to say that though You have

the Bible on your phone, there is no substitute for holding the

Bible in your hand. The studies are coming, folks,

That you actually read better when you read off the page.

That you've not trained your minds to read deeply and make

connections when you read on a screen.

And so you read Psalm, you read Isaiah 54 with no connection to

whatever came ahead of it, Isaiah 53, unless you're

actually holding it in your hand and marking it.

And so I, I just want to encourage you, do you all own a

physical copy of the Bible? Great, 10 points.

Are you reading it or is it collecting dust?

I really want to press in here to say that reading as a skill

is disappearing. Reading deeply and making

connections is disappearing. It is the trend of our times.

And in order to actually maintain your liberty, your

freedom in Christ, you are going to have to read the scripture.

And this is going to be a big challenge in the next 20 years

that you will hold the Bible. You will know the God of the

Bible and that you'll develop the habits and the skills of

that kind of reading so that you know God and you're known by

him. Paul goes on to say, look, it is

for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Stand firm. Then he's like, put your feet

down and brace yourself. Stand firm then and do not let

yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

For the Galatian church, the yoke with slavery was coming

because someone's like you got to get circumcised in order to

really know God. And there's going to be all

kinds of trends that come at you in life that says in order to be

completely blessed, in order to be a completely successful

person, you have to have this in your life.

I think the greatest thing is that you know God and are known

by him. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, as we come to your table today, we pray that

you would speak to our hearts now, for we see in Jesus the

suffering servant who who came to the altar of the cross and

gave himself freely. You were despised and rejected

by mankind. O Lord, You are a man of

suffering and familiar with pain.

People hid their faces from you. You are despised and we held you

in low esteem, but surely you took up our pain and you bore

our suffering. You were pierced for our

transgressions, you were crushed for our iniquities, and the

punishment that brought us peace was on you.

And so by your wounds we are healed.

Lord, we all, like sheep, have gone astray, and each of us has

turned to our own way. But Yahweh laid on you the

iniquity of us all. You were assigned a grave with

the wicked, though you had done no violence and there was no

deceit in your mouth. You bore the sin of many and

made transgression or intercession for all of our

transgressions. And it's because of you, Lord

Jesus, that we can sing. We can sing because our life in

sin was fruitless and destructive.

But now our life in your grace is one of freedom and of joy and

of love and life transformation. We're so grateful.

And so we come and celebrate you today.