Galatians 4:21-31 - Slave or Free - Rick Graumlich

Maybe this is something that you can relate to.

Maybe this happened to you as when you were a kid, or or this uh this happened to you as an adult.

This happens all the time.

You'll maybe see this happen today.

Or a child will be a child will be playing, they'll be doing something, and then they're gonna go try to find their parent, and they go up to someone who seems to be their parent, and they just kind of grab their leg, like, okay, you're my you're my mom, I'm just gonna grab your leg.

And they kind of take a few moments and they look up and then they're shocked.

They realize, you are not my mother.

You're not my parent.

And panic and just kind of shows on their face, and they start looking like, well, where is my mother?

Like, where is the person who I thought you were?

The child would just take a moment to examine the person they were approaching.

They would quickly realize this isn't my parent, and I need to go find my parent.

This passage today is similar.

It's about distinguishing between two different mothers.

Two different mothers.

If you haven't been with us these last few weeks, or maybe you've forgotten, let's just remember what's going on so far in Galatians.

So the book of Galatians is written to the churches in a region called Galatia.

They're beginning to be led astray by a false teaching that is coming from some of the Jews who are teaching that Christians need to still follow part of the law.

They need to be circumcised and carry on part of the law.

These false teachers are telling the church that Paul, the one who planted these churches, is actually the false teacher.

So Paul writes to them and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and he writes to say, listen, I'm going to clarify a few things and reinforce a few things.

One, I have apostolic authority, I am an apostle.

It's a very unique authority.

Unlike the authority of the Judaizers or even the local elders or the church, he was an apostle.

And he wrote to deal with the false teaching that Christians need to keep the law and follow Jesus Christ.

Paul says that if anyone proclaims a different gospel than what I proclaim to you.

If anyone proclaims something else, let that person be damned to hell, for they are preaching a false gospel.

This is no light matter for Paul.

It's no light matter for the church and for you and me, or to Jesus Christ.

This is no mere difference of opinion.

The work on the cross that Jesus did for his people to save his people was enough.

It was sufficient.

Not just like, yeah, sufficient, like it barely got there, but it did the work perfectly.

It is not our job to then add to that work.

By trying to add to it, we're saying, Jesus, the Son of God, your work was good.

Good effort.

We appreciate it.

We'll take it.

We'll take the 99.9% of the work that you did, but let me add in a little bit of my own to help us get to the finish line.

That's not what he's saying.

The passage we're going to look at today in most of Galatians is asking the same question.

Are you believing in the person, in the work of Jesus Christ alone for salvation?

The matter at hand that Paul is getting after is this.

Are you clinging to Jesus for salvation?

Or are you clinging to Jesus plus works plus some other thing that you think you've done?

The Holy Spirit, through the pen of Paul, writes to seek to make clear to the church that Jesus alone, not Jesus plus, something brings salvation.

There's some really helpful insight from theologian John Stott on this passage and how he breaks it out.

He says there is a historical perspective, there is a figurative or allegorical perspective, and then there is a personal perspective.

So thinking historically, let's pick it up in verse 21.

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman.

But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.

See, for the Judaizers, they were teaching that Christians had to be circumcised in order to be saved.

And they believed that history was on their side.

After all, weren't they the children of Abraham?

Paul asks a very important question here.

Who do you, you who desire to be under the law, you who who want to follow this system, who want to seek justification through works, do you even understand the law?

Do you even know what's going on here?

He begins to make this historical argument that they don't even understand the law.

They're making appeals to a thing they don't even know about.

How easy is it for us to claim something to be true?

Oh, this is true.

But we don't even understand the ramifications of that thing that we claim to be true.

So we we can see how this happens.

So we be not gracious, but understand that this can happen to us too.

We just we claim things to be true, but we haven't examined them.

We don't know.

So his question, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?

Shouldn't cause a little bit of question in us.

I claim to be a follower of Jesus.

Do I know Jesus?

I claim to follow the good news and to know the good news of the gospel.

Do I know the gospel?

Could I share the gospel?

Can I tell you what it is?

Do I believe it?

I claim to be a Christian and love the Word of God.

Do I even understand it?

Do I care about it?

Do I spend any time with it?

For it is written that Abraham had two sons.

One of the proudest and loudest boasts of the Jews was that they were children of Abraham.

They belonged to him.

This created a harshness in their heart.

John the Baptist, the man who wore camel clothing and ate locusts and honey and was baptizing people, he dealt with these people trying to earn their salvation.

They were loud and proud of their heritage.

But they were lost.

In Matthew chapter 3, verse 7, we see the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to John.

Matthew 3:7

Verse 7 of Matthew 3.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to baptism, to his baptism, he said to them, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

And do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

Such strong language by John the Baptist.

Brood of vipers.

Here they're coming to be baptized and kind of do what the culture is doing.

Everyone's kind of being baptized.

Maybe we should go be baptized too.

He calls them out on their hypocrisy.

He said, You're a brood of vipers.

Who warned you to flee the wrath and is coming?

It's very implicit there that wrath is coming.

And then he tells them, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

There's no system here where they bear fruit by just being of the bloodline of Abraham.

They bear fruit by repenting and following Christ.

Because they should not presume we have Abraham as our father.

Why?

Because it's not about the bloodline.

It's not about the genetic descendants of Abraham.

He can raise up children to praise him from the rocks.

Children to follow him and to praise God from the stones.

True child or true children of Abraham have faith like Abraham.

So John the Baptist sees this hard heart, this confidence, this arrogance that the Judaizers had.

And in John chapter 8, we see Jesus talking with the Pharisees.

John 8 · chapter mention

He tells them, listen, you're slaves in sin, but I'm here to free you from your slavery.

And they are so offended by this.

How dare they call them slaves?

They're descendants of Abraham.

They're God's people.

They boast about these things that Abraham is their father.

They were proud and confident of their lineage.

They felt like, man, we know how to get things done.

We know how to, we're children of Abraham, we're children of promise.

This is us.

We're going to kind of get things done.

This is how it's going to work out.

Confidence in their lineage.

Some people have great confidence.

Some of you are confident people.

You know full well that you're not perfect, of course.

But in general, you've done pretty well for yourselves.

You've worked hard, you've done well with money, you've done a good job raising your kids, or you've had a great marriage, or your second great marriage is really great, and just you're good with things.

And you got you got good looks, you got good money, you're kind of successful, everyone else kind of is angry about that.

But this is the reality.

People just kind of feel this way.

You're smart, you're confident.

I know how to navigate this world.

You know?

I'm kind of climbing up and I'm figuring this out.

There's some confidence that begins to build in you.

There's other people who feel very unconfident.

They don't really know what success is.

They feel like they're not familiar with it.

They feel like they've seen success.

They've just never experienced it.

They have some questions about it.

They would like to know what it feels like to be successful.

This is you, you generally feel like you're coming up short.

You feel like, man, I'm not sure how all these people figured it out, and I didn't.

But somehow they did, and I didn't.

They all have better houses and better cars and better retirements, and they married better people, and life's just really good for them.

And so you're kind of the opposite of the confident person.

You have no confidence.

You lack self-confidence.

But the confident person and the person who has no confidence are both wrong because they're both measuring themselves against worldly standards.

Worldly standards.

Self-confidence, little self-confidence, two sides of the same coin.

What's behind that curtain of their heart?

Self-centeredness.

They're boasting, or they're they're looking, I should say, at themselves.

You trust that you'll be able to figure things out or make things work.

Usually you do.

Or you trust that you won't figure it out and you'll fail again because you always do.

It's you centered on you, thinking about you and how you're wrong and how you're right and how you're confident.

You are trusting in the wrong support.

You're trusting in your ability to get the thing done, or you're just always doubting your own ability to get the thing done.

Either way, you're looking at yourself and you're trusting the wrong thing.

You're looking to the wrong thing.

Think about a house, a structure of a house.

What gives it structural integrity?

What makes it safe and occupiable?

It's not the siding that makes it look good on the outside.

It's not the drywall or the paint that makes it look good or nice on the inside.

It's what's inside.

It's the wall studs, the two by four is holding up the walls.

It's the floor joists, it's the trust.

It's holding all these things together.

It makes the house safe and sound.

See, our confidence shouldn't be in what we can see, or kind of some kind of lineage that we can connect the dots to.

These Judaizers wanted to claim confidence because they had a bloodline.

And oftentimes we want to claim confidence because we've kind of figured the thing out.

Or we kind of are always feeling self-a little pity party for ourselves because we feel like we can never figure it out.

Either way, it's shallow, it's the surface of things.

Historically, if they understood the law, they would see that the law does not say if you're a descendant of Abraham by blood, that's all that's required.

Be confident.

You've got it made.

Enjoy life and lord it over others.

They did not understand that.

They did not understand that they are not of the line of Abraham because they did not have faith.

But rather they were seeking to be of the line of Hagar.

With me in verse 24 as we begin to think figuratively, Paul uses his language.

Now, this may be interpreted allegorically.

These women are two covenants.

One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children from slavery.

She is Hagar.

Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia.

She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.

But in Jerusalem, above is free.

But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

For it is written, Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear, break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor, for the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.

So now we're thinking this figurative language that Paul's saying, and Paul's pulling from the Old Testament to show something to us, showing something to those who are claiming salvation by works of the law, and who are descendants of Abraham, maybe descendants of Abraham, but of Abraham's son Ishmael, the natural son, not Isaac, the son of the covenant.

Now maybe you're familiar with the story, maybe not.

A little summary.

As you mentioned before, God made a covenant with Abraham, right?

He said, I'm going to come to you, I'm going to bring many offspring.

You have many peoples, and nations will come from you, and even the Messiah.

But Abraham and Sarah had no kids.

They were barren.

They couldn't have children.

They waited a long time, still no children.

They have this promise from God that I will bring many nations, many peoples from you, but no kids.

How was this gonna happen?

Sarah grew tired of waiting on God, and she says to Abraham, You are old, and I am really old, and we don't have kids.

But I have a slave woman.

Why don't you take her and have a child with her, and then we'll have a child, and then blessing will finally come.

We just need to kind of get in there and make this happen.

Now, although this wasn't terribly uncommon practice at the time, you wonder what in the world was Abraham thinking?

Right?

As the saying goes, obviously he wasn't thinking.

He agrees to this little scheme.

He sleeps with Hagar, and the servant she conceives, and she gives birth to a child, and Abraham names him Ishmael.

So here we have Ishmael.

Not the child that God promised, but the child that nonetheless Abraham and Sarah and Hagar work together to now produce.

Thirteen years after Ishmael is born, Sarah conceives.

Keep in mind, she's a very old woman.

Her physical ability to conceive naturally has long since ceased working.

She gets pregnant.

This is quite literally a work of divine intervention.

This is not the natural order of things.

She gives birth to a son, and they name him Isaac, for he is the son of promise.

Isaac was the son of promise, Ishmael was the son of work.

You see that?

You see that laying out for us there?

So with this understanding, we see how Paul uses the situation figuratively to show how those who claim to be Abraham's children or descendants by bloodline are actually figuratively the descendants of Ishmael.

And those who claim to be Abraham's child by claims of faith.

We have faith like Abraham are Isaac's descendants.

Two mothers, two covenants, two cities, one on the earth, one above.

I want to distinguish between the two lines, the line of Sarah and the line of Hagar.

And I saw several kind of variations of this chart as I was preparing.

So if you're taking notes and you want to write this down, I'll kind of go through this.

But there's gonna be two columns.

The top of one column put Hagar, and the top of the other column put Sarah.

Okay, so Hagar, Ishmael, slave, birth by process, covenant based on law, earthly Jerusalem, Judaism.

Hagar, Ishmael, slave, birth by process, covenant based on law, earthly Jerusalem, Judaism.

See a progression there.

Under Sarah, you have Sarah, you have Isaac, free child, birth by promise, covenant based on promise, heavenly Jerusalem Christianity.

Sarah, Isaac free, birth by promise, covenant based on promise, heavenly Jerusalem Christianity.

And what Paul is mapping out to the churches is that from Hagar, from Ishmael, slavery, the natural, just kind of do it on your own power birth.

A covenant based on law that leaves you in the law.

Earthly, fading, corruptible Jerusalem.

And Judaism, false religion that enslaves you.

But from Sarah comes Isaac, comes freedom, birth by promise, covenant based on promise, heavenly, eternal, perfect Jerusalem.

It's true.

It's not false.

It brings freedom, not slavery.

Now which line do you want to claim?

Which woman do you want to cling to and say, this is my mother?

You're claiming clinging to Hagar or to Sarah?

This is what he's getting after when he says, Do you even know the law?

Do you know what you're saying?

To which line do you claim?

Paul then quotes in Isaiah 34 here, in this passage in Galatians, it's a quote from Isaiah 34.

For it is written, Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear.

Break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor.

For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.

This makes no sense.

You first read this.

You're barren.

You're not in labor.

You don't have any children, you don't even have a husband.

How is this going to work out?

Why cry aloud?

Why cry forth?

In Isaiah 34, Isaiah's speaking to when the nation of Israel will be carried off into captivity.

And when Jerusalem is destroyed, the temple is destroyed, and everything's laid barren, empty, destroyed.

He's saying, listen, it looks as if all hope is gone.

You're above the age at which you should be reproducing, and the age by which you can conceive a child.

This makes no sense to you just on the surface level.

But I, God, have made a promise with my people, and I will bring that promise to fruition.

I will deliver them.

The command is to cry and rejoice and cry aloud, even though you're not in labor, even though there's no indicators that things will change, that God will fulfill his promise, he will deliver, he will provide, he will keep his promise for those who belong to the line of Sarah.

He has this figurative language for those who have faith like Abraham, for those who believe in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation.

That God makes really big promises.

I don't know if you've noticed that in Scripture, but He makes really big promises.

Extremely big.

I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Everyone in your life will at some point leave you or forsake you.

Everyone.

Every single person.

You know how?

Because everyone's gonna die.

You're gonna die, they're gonna die.

The relationship you have will be severed.

Only one person can make a promise like this that I will never leave you nor forsake you.

It's God.

He will hold you fast and never let you go.

Only the Creator could do such a thing.

Only God can do that.

It's a promise.

I will give you a new life, a new birth, new heart.

As far as your sin, I'll take it from as far as from the east is to the west.

That's how far I will remove your transgressions from you.

And there's the promise that you will walk with Jesus.

For those who are in Christ, the promise is we will spend eternity with God forever and ever and ever.

You've probably heard that thousands of times, and so it doesn't quite hit you very much.

But this is the reality, one of the greatest promises that we get to spend eternity with God.

And these are just a few of God's promises that he makes to his people.

The difficulty is, and maybe you can relate to this, is that these promises are in his timing.

They're not in our timing, they're in his timing and by his appointed means.

I read the promises and say, okay, this is gonna be really good.

But I have my own thinking about how God's gonna fulfill these things.

Again, I'm taking myself and putting myself in the center of it all.

God never fails.

He never, never, never fails.

Does not fail.

And maybe you feel barren.

Your work, your relationships, you've missed out on things in life, you haven't turned out, life hasn't turned out as you hoped it would.

Surely, surely this isn't God's plan.

How could God begin to bring life in this situation?

There's just so much barrenness.

Yet it's the barren one who cannot accomplish the work by any natural means, who, in God's timing and in God's way, will bear fruit.

Do not trust in your own ability to accomplish what only God can accomplish.

Do not trust in your own ability to accomplish what only God can accomplish.

And do not trust what seems to be barrenness.

For God is at work in his people.

So Paul's addressing these two lines.

Those who hold to the line of Ishmael because they're seeking to earn their salvation, and those who hold to the line of Isaac of promise.

The fruit bears itself out.

Those of the line of Ishmael, legalists.

They're above themselves, they're self-centered, they're confident because of themselves.

Those of the line of Isaac, they're humble, they're forgiving.

They show grace.

They show mercy.

They model the Messiah.

So from the historical to the figurative and then to the personal argument, look in verse 28.

Now you brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.

But just at the time, excuse me, but just as at the time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit.

So also now.

But what does the Scripture say?

Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.

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

Okay, so you look back, brothers.

It's Isaac.

Y'all are children of Isaac of the promise.

But be prepared.

Be prepared because hardship will come.

We see in Genesis 21 how Ishmael despised and mocked and looked down on Isaac.

I don't know how it works for you, but generally speaking, not always, but generally speaking, it's not the atheists and the agnostics who hurt the church the most.

Most of the headaches and the wounds and the frustrations come from those who claim to follow God.

The religious crowd who wants to be recognized as Christians, but they don't want to submit to any actual creed or confession or the Bible as its source.

They mock, they jeer.

Surely you don't actually believe that the Bible is an authoritative book?

Surely you don't actually believe that God tells us to turn from our sin and follow Him?

Surely you don't believe that actually be faithful to my wife and actually provide for my family?

Surely you don't believe that we're guilty and deserve hell?

How?

Who would believe such things?

You feel the scorn, the mock, the mocking, and the shame.

Those who want to claim to be Christians but not follow Christ, they look back and they point the finger and they begin to judge.

I would say there's probably people in your life, even.

This is a principle.

There's probably people in your life who claim to be Christians, but they're seeking to be saved by the works of the law.

If you're not careful, you will allow them to hold you to their standard and to bring you along in their misery.

Make no mistake about this.

Seeking salvation by the law brings misery.

So be on guard.

Don't let law followers hold you to their law.

Because they like to be the judge, the jury, and the executioner.

Rather cling to Christ, to the gift of life.

Cling as free children to Christ.

Now, you who are in Christ.

For those who are believers, we're always seeking to navigate this fine kind of line of how do I seek to be obedient to the Lord while not seeking at the same time to use my obedience as a way of feeling better about myself.

So what can happen is you can hear all these things I'm saying and you agree with them.

Yes, salvation is by grace, by grace alone through faith.

Yes, I agree with that.

Isaac and Sarah, and all I'm there.

I get that.

Praise the Lord.

But then in our hearts, we're not seeking to be justified by our works.

But maybe we are seeking just kind of get away from the guilt and the shame by our works.

If I can just read my Bible more, I won't feel like I'm a bad Christian.

If I just kind of dealt with this sin in my life or grew, maybe I wouldn't feel like I'm a bad Christian.

This is kind of confusing, and I want to be clear on this.

The scriptures should be convicting you if you're not in the word or if you're living in sin.

They should be convicting you, calling you to come to Christ.

Repent and come to the Lord.

But it is not your obedience to these things that changes the way God looks at you.

It is not your ability to follow the law or follow the word or follow the commands in the New Testament that make you more acceptable to God.

Or like he loves you a little bit more.

Or now he's just not angry with me anymore.

And it's so easy to slide into that spot in our own heads, in our own hearts.

And so we're not making this huge error like the Judaizers are in Galatians.

We know where our justification comes from.

It's from Christ.

We know Jesus' work on the cross, where our atonement was sufficient, but yet we're still looking for some kind of self kind of praise.

Or just want my self to feel better.

So we're doing things that we should be doing, but we're doing them from a heart that isn't seeking to glorify the Lord, but rather a heart that desires us to feel a little bit better about itself.

And so by doing that, we're still trading out the glory and the majesty of Jesus Christ.

And we're just slowly, subtly putting ourselves back in the center of it all.

And missing.

We're missing what Christ has done for us.

We have our confidence in the wrong thing.

So we come to Christ.

We're saved by Christ.

He loves us, he lavishes his grace on us.

We're adopted in, we're co-heirs with Christ to the throne.

And then from that place, we walk in obedience.

We follow him and we work.

Matthew 7, verse 24 through 27.

Matthew 7:24–27

Everyone then who hears these words of mine, this is Jesus speaking, and does them will be like a wise man who builds his house on the rock.

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell.

And great was the fall of it.

The call of Christ isn't just to give a mental exercise, and then just go on our jolly way.

No, the call of Christ is to follow Him.

Faith, genuine, real faith, is always followed by action.

Obedience to God's word.

Putting sin to death in our lives, loving and serving one another, loving and serving those outside the church.

We believe, and because we believe, we then act.

Our faith drives us to work.

It drives us to build.

Again.

But what are we trusting in?

What are we building the house upon?

Sand?

Our own effort?

Things we think we can bring to the table?

Any kind of sliver of good thing in us?

Or on the perfect work of Jesus Christ in him alone?

A salvation that is freely given to him, by him to us.

We cannot earn it.

Are we trusting in that?

Or upon a salvation plan that is designed by man and that ultimately seeks to glorify man, not God.

Paul is telling the church that it's grace.

It's grace.

It's simply grace.

You don't deserve this.

But this is what the Father has done for you.

He's lavished it on you.

And to the world, this seems insane.

And it makes them angry.

But do you, do you know grace?

Have you received grace?

Praise God if you have received grace.

How can you not, if you've received God's grace, cry aloud and sing?

For you were barren, you were dead in your sins, and now you're alive in Jesus Christ.

He is working in you and he is bringing forth and bearing forth fruit in you.

That is God's grace.

Praise him for that.

But if you do not know his grace, if you have not accepted and embraced the grace of Christ, you are still dead in sin.

And sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.

And if you reject the grace of God, you are going to spend eternity in hell.

But you're also rejecting the very one who you were created to know and to walk with, your creator, God.

The last song that we sang, the chorus of that song goes like this.

I rejoice in my Redeemer, greatest treasure, wellspring of my soul.

I will trust in him, no other.

My soul is satisfied in him.

Is your soul satisfied in Christ?

If not, I would say you're trusting in something other than Christ.

Do not go another day without calling to Christ to save you.

Seek to be satisfied in God alone.

Church, let's pray.

God, you are merciful and gracious to us.

Your word is infinite, because you are infinite.

Holy Spirit, may you work in us.

The text this morning.

May we examine our hearts and just be honest with ourselves about who it is that we're clinging to for salvation.

May we know your grace.

And as we work and live and build and all these things, we're doing it because you have redeemed us.

Not for our own salvation, for or for our own praise, or to feel better about ourselves, or is it as if it makes us better between you and us, God.

But because we are yours, we walk in this grace.

I pray that you abuse those who know this grace, who are yours.

Encourage them, strengthen them, may they see the beauty that was everything was so barren, and you promised, and you are faithful, and you bear fruit.

For those who do not know this grace, or seeking to somehow do the right thing on their own.

May they repent, may they see the foolishness, the blindness of that.

May they repent and follow after you.

Pray that you would give us strength to be faithful to you.

We pray this in your holy and precious name, Lord Jesus.

Amen.