Galatians | Miraculous Grace (January 7th, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

We are back into uh our Galatians series here today, and you would actually turn there in your Bibles uh now.

And uh, as we get uh reacquainted with uh Paul's letter here to the Galatians, I was kind of thinking about it this way.

Uh, you know how this time of year is just atrocious uh when it comes to driving?

The weather is awful, um, the roads are bad, and not it not even just the the the you know the wind or or the snow and the ice on the road, but the actual quality of the roads themselves, the actual asphalt is bad because the the cold and the weather this time of year uh creates for us countless potholes.

You experience this kind of thing?

Um now I'm the kind of person who takes uh just a little bit of pride, probably more pride than I should, in being the guy who tries to memorize where all those potholes are.

Are you like this on your morning commute or anything like that?

And you try to memorize them and then try and swerve around them kind of like an indie car driver.

And I feel like I've got all the potholes memorized from my home to the school here, and uh, I love uh kind of going around all of those and trying my best to avoid uh these uh these potholes.

Uh but inevitably what happens over the course of a winter?

Uh we hit them, right?

We hit lots of them.

And uh, you know, what does that do?

That causes sometimes just some kind of like minor damage.

It causes our our a wheel alignment on our vehicles uh to get out of whack a little bit, doesn't it?

And and your car, you notice it, your your car wants to start to pull to one side.

And so you're kind of you're kind of constantly fighting it until you can go get that taken care of.

Well, Galatians, in many ways, is a realignment for Christ's followers.

That's what it is.

Okay, just like how your car needs a uh a wheel alignment or realignment, however you want to look at that, from from time to time, believers need a realignment with the gospel.

Now, unlike your car uh from potholes, it's not just like a once or twice a year thing or maybe less.

Uh, when it comes to our realignment with the gospel, it's it's a constant thing, isn't it?

It's uh it's a daily thing.

Uh as the tendency of our of our hearts is to tend to pull, right?

To pull us towards us trying to be our own saviors in in some kind of a way.

We you know, we fill our lives with with things that we think will give us ultimate, I don't know, joy and meaning and comfort and you know, all of those things, those things other than Jesus Christ.

And and I mean, we know, uh, at least on some level, we know that our salvation is purely an act of miraculous grace, right?

Like we've heard that before, especially if you've you know been in our church for any amount of time or you've grown up in the church, you've heard that.

You know that it's accomplished by God alone, okay?

But functionally, we operate a little bit differently.

We operate in all kinds of different subtle and not so subtle ways, as though we can earn God's love.

Right?

We we we think that we can we can get that from him.

We think that we can, you know, fix our flaws and our and our faults.

We think that we can impress the Lord in some way by our own merits.

All right, well, Paul has been reminding the the Galatian churches here all the way through this of the gospel that they claim to believe.

Okay?

And the idea was that their their hearts, the reason he's reminding them of it is because their hearts would and our hearts would be gloriously, gloriously realigned to the to the good news of the gospel, that our hearts would be anchored, that our our hearts would be rooted deep down uh into the you know the the the truth and and and the and the hope and the transforming power of the good news.

Right?

The good news that that God loves you and I simply because he's loving, right?

Simply because he's decided to love us, that that he's saved you despite you.

All right, that that our hearts won't find what they're really looking for until we learn to find our all in Christ.

These are the things that that Paul has been reminding these churches of in this region called Galatia, and these are the things that we have been trying to anchor our hearts to as well here as our church.

And so let's read this then.

We're in Galatians chapter 4, believe it or not.

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

We're getting our making our way through all of this, and uh, starting in verse 21, we're gonna read down to uh the end of the chapter, that's verse 31.

So why don't you follow along with me in your copy of God's word?

This is what it says.

It says, uh, 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.

Now, this may be interpreted allegorically.

These women are two covenants.

One is for Mount Sinai, bearing children for 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 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.

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

But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so also it is now.

But what does the scripture say?

It says, 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.

God, as we gather as your church, it's the first Sunday of 2018, Lord, and we so long to have our hearts in the right place, God, I pray that we would long for that even more, Lord.

I pray that we would we would come into this year uh that much more uh humbly dependent on you and desperate for you to do a work of change in us, in our hearts.

And God, I pray that as we focus our hearts and recalibrate and realign our hearts with the glorious truth of the gospel here, Lord, I pray that we would just glory in the salvation uh that has been given to us, granted to us through Jesus Christ.

Lord, I pray that our hearts would delight in this, that we would marvel in who you are, in what you have done, Lord.

I pray that we would have a sweeter spirit about us as individuals and as a church, Lord.

I pray that as others who are who are outside of our church see us and get to know us, they would say, wow, there's something different about these people, and it's because of you, Lord, it's because of who you are and what you're doing in us.

And so, God, as we uh get into your word here, Lord, I pray that you would bless your name.

I pray that you would challenge us and encourage us, Lord.

I pray that 2018 would just be an amazing year of growth and an amazing year of you seeing, uh you doing work uh in our lives, in our midst.

God, we also just want to pause and just thank you for uh the good news of the offering and the budget, Lord, and what you have done.

Lord, we we praise you for that.

And Lord, we pray that as you take care of all of our needs, we would trust you for this going forward this year, Lord.

Thank you for this being a new day for us, as we are, you know, now uh an independent church.

And Lord, uh, though that means some things, that's great, Lord.

We never want to be uh independent from you, Lord.

That is the death of the church.

And so, Lord, I pray that again we would cling to you deeply, we'd cling to you desperately.

Lord, help us in all of these areas and all of these matters.

We pray all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right.

So, Paul, we had some lights go out, didn't we?

Did everyone leave when I prayed?

That's like hard to see.

It's okay, some power went out.

I got, I don't know, I got some power up here.

We're working on it.

You guys good?

If you want to use your phone to like shine it on your Bible or whatever, just do your thing, all right?

I'm just gonna keep trucking.

All right, so so Paul's been uh reminding the Galatian churches kind of all the way through this here, and uh, and and again reminding us, and we've been looking at this here at how at how these um these false teachers that have been creeping into the church, they were just running amok and they were leading the the churches astray here and they were getting them really off base, and and really this was a bit of an indictment on the churches themselves and the leadership there, and and these churches had had let these teachers creep in and get their message out, and it essentially kind of handed a microphone to them a little bit and allowed them to lead them into lies.

And and listen, we know this.

If we get away from the truth and we allow lies to grip our hearts and we proclaim lies, and that's always, always, always gonna get us into some kind of bondage, and in some kind of trouble, and lots and lots of problems.

And and so this is what was happening, and and so much of what Paul, you know, says here all throughout Galatians is in response to these false teachers.

And of course, our passage is no different.

It's no different at all.

He's engaging with them uh for sure.

These false teachers were trying to drag these people away and kind of a regression back into uh a deeper commitment to uh to the law and and a reliance on their obedience to the law um in order to be, you know, um spiritually mature, in order to be, you know, uh have a sense of completion as individuals, and as a way to garner God's love and God's approval and and all of all and all of that.

So really their basic message uh at the end of the day was, yeah, believe in Jesus, believe in the gospel.

Okay, they weren't saying reject Jesus, that would have been a really obvious false message.

No, they were saying, yeah, believe in Jesus.

Jesus is is is great and good, but but also perform morally up to the law's standards to get God to be really pleased with you.

Okay, so you get that?

You see how they were kind of blending in some legalism here?

Okay, in other words, at the end of the day, when you strip it all down, okay, they were basically saying that Christ's sacrifice on the cross wasn't truly enough to save us.

It wasn't truly enough to take away our sin.

We also have to bring our efforts and our own performance and our own behavior and abilities and all of that.

At the end of the day, it makes the gospel about works and not about grace.

And Paul's like, no, no, that's not what it's about at all.

It can't be done.

You cannot earn your salvation.

Your salvation, my salvation, is purely this act of miraculous grace.

It's this it's this awesome thing, unattainable, okay, by any scheme, I can devise myself.

And that's really the first thing here.

If you are into taking notes and you've got that, the lights are back on, so you should be able to see what you're writing.

That's always helpful.

All right, take a look at this now, verse 21.

We're gonna work our way uh through these verses.

Look at this.

It says, uh Paul says, Tell me, okay, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?

Okay, see what he says there?

He's asking, he's like, he's like, those those of you who who desire to submit yourself to you know to the law as your means of salvation or your systems of salvation, do you not realize what the law actually requires?

That's what Paul's asking.

He's like, Don't do, do you not get it?

I mean, we've spent a significant amount of time already as we've gone through Galatians, you know, uh looking at how the law presents uh a standard, right?

A standard of moral perfection so far out of reach for us.

It's so far out of our grasp and our our clutches, it's it's completely unattainable in terms of a goal because why?

Well, because we're corrupt.

We're crept uh corrupt hum humans, right?

And so when we hear, for example, you hear uh do not covet, they do not covet is is the tenth commandment out of the ten commandments.

You know, what what should our reaction to that be?

Our reaction shouldn't be, well, all right, I'll just try really hard then to uh to not covet.

No, the the response for us should be, ah dang.

Right?

Because I've coveted a million times.

Right?

I I've looked at what you know people have, I've looked at what my what my neighbors have and what what I what other people have in this world, and I've I've wanted that, right?

And I've coveted from my heart, which which completely warps us.

That one sin alone does it, not to mention you know, all the thousands of other times uh that we have sinned as well.

And and because of because of sins like that, listen, we are not in good standing with God anymore.

We're not.

We're we're not right with Him, if you will, and and nothing that we can do can make it right.

And so Paul, he's like, guys, like you you need to think about this.

You think that you're like performing in a way that's gonna get God to pat you on the head like a little puppy.

That's not the way it works, right?

You you you you've blown it and you you can't fix this problem.

You need to think deeply about your legalism.

Okay, and then he he proceeds to say to say this.

And as I'm telling you right now, it's gonna sound like it's completely out of left field.

Like, where's Paul going with this?

But trust me, it's gonna make sense here.

Verse 22, take a look.

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

Now remember again that that all through Galatians, Paul's engaging in the the arguments, the the message of of these false teachers.

And so as you kind of do some deduction based on what this passage is is saying here, you you can realize that they would have been saying, hey, listen, church, uh uh Galatian Christians, again, Jesus is great, but but to be true children of Abraham here, who again, Abraham was the father of the Hebrew, the Jewish race.

He said, to be to be true children of Abraham, you also need to be law followers.

You need to follow the law.

And so what Paul does here in this section of scripture is he actually takes us back to back to Genesis, back to you know the story of Abraham and how the Jewish nation uh came to be here.

And it was all uh for the purpose of showing us that salvation, well, it was never about works.

It was always about glorious grace.

Now, in Genesis 12 and and in chapter Genesis 15, if you want to jot that down, uh we find the story here of Abraham, and God calls him and and and ultimately he promises him that Abraham's gonna have a son.

Right?

And we've talked a little bit about this for sure, right?

And he says that his his offspring is gonna be more numerous than what?

Than this than the stars in the sky.

He's like, you are gonna have, you're gonna have a lot of kids, right?

And they are gonna have a lot of kids, and this nation is going to be uh gonna be massive and and large and all of that.

But listen, by the time we get to Genesis chapter 16, okay, Sarah, who's who's Abraham's wife, was she was getting up there in age.

Genesis 16 · chapter mention

Okay, more on that in a second, but she was getting up there in age, and and she had not yet given him a son.

Okay?

And so what does she do?

She she devises this scheme.

She kind of comes up with this plan on her own, and Abraham agrees to it for her to give Hagar, who is her you know, Egyptian slave, to Abraham as a wife.

Say, I'm old, I'm infertile, and so here, why don't you take Hagar and she can conceive, she can be uh your wife.

Having more than one wife sounds like a bad plan uh for sure.

And uh and it was, it was one of the things that was pretty common, and it was it was customary back in that day.

Interestingly enough, the Lord never, all throughout scripture, ever signs off on that.

He never says that's a good plan, that's a good thing at all, but this is what uh Abraham and uh and Sarah come up with, and uh and so that's exactly what happens.

Hagar gives birth to Ishmael, right?

And and the he is the son of the slave woman that we see the reference to in our in our text.

Right?

So you're thinking, all right, perfect, perfect, right?

Uh you know, God's promise fulfilled.

Abraham has a son, everything is is right in the world, and and and it's all good, right?

Wrong, right?

Not not good.

It's it's not good at all, right?

This is this is this is Sarah and Abraham's plan.

This is not this is not God's God's plan at all.

And that's why it says there that Ishmael in our passage, it says that Ishmael was was born according to the flesh.

Meaning that it was it was their scheme.

It was a plan brought about by their own cunning and their own quote unquote wisdom and and their own planning and ability and all of that.

Okay, so so God, he still plans to fulfill his promise to Abraham, but but listen, it's it's not through Ishmael.

It's not.

In Genesis chapter 17 and 18, and then in chapter 20, we see that that Sarah does in fact uh have uh have a child.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

She has a son, and his name is Isaac, and it's through through Isaac's line that the Hebrew and and Jewish nation uh is established.

Now, Paul, here back in our passage here in Galatians 4, he continues to build his argument.

Take a look there, keep going.

Verse 24.

He says this.

He says, now this may be interpreted allegorically, okay, meaning that he's going to use this very this very literal and this actual event that happened in human history, okay, to illustrate a point that he's trying to make to these Galatians.

And this is what he says here, verse 24.

He says, These women are two covenants, or or or they represent two covenants, if you will.

And he says, one is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery.

She is she is Hagar.

Now, why the mention of Mount Sinai?

Well, Mount Sinai was uh the place where God, of course, gave the law, the Ten Commandments, to uh to Moses, right?

Now it says this.

Now Hagar is Mount Sinai, or refers to, you know, um, it represents, you know, uh Mount Sinai there in Arabia.

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

All right, so what Paul's doing here is he's he's really uh delivering a genius and and devastating blow to uh to these false teachers and to the nation of Israel or or Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem, which was of course to refer to the to the to the Jewish nation, those who had rejected salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, right?

The the Jews, large in part, rejected Jesus as the Messiah.

And so this is really what he's saying.

He's like, so you guys think, okay, you think that you're a true child of Abraham just because you're from his, you know, you're from his bloodline?

Well, listen, I got news for you, okay?

By denying salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, guess what?

You're acting, you're behaving more like Hagar, more like more like Ishmael.

You're your slaves, okay, spiritually speaking.

You're still trapped in in bondage of your sin because of your stubborn insistence.

It says there, your desire to be under the law, which of course cannot save.

It can.

Just like how Sarah and Abraham schemed and devised a uh a plan and you know took matters into their own hands because they lacked faith in God's plan and his promise in that moment.

So you too, by insisting that your works can save you and adding works to it can can take care of your problem, and you're you know, you're lacking in your faith and in faith in God's plan to save you through Christ.

Listen, you're not free.

That's what he's saying to them.

You're you're still in slavery, the word says, to your sin and and to the law.

Listen, as as as Paul here, I mean, he is absolutely torching the false teachers here, right?

This is like mic drop, walking out, you're done, I win.

Like he's not caring, he doesn't care about himself, but that's kind of like what's going on here, right?

He he's dismantling them.

He he again he's ruining their argument and and their whole line of thinking here.

And as he's doing that, listen, we you and I, we need to allow uh allow him and what he's saying here to dismantle our own systems of uh of works based salvation.

Listen, if you're a if you're a Christ follower here who who would claim Very freely, that your salvation is purely an act of miraculous grace, yet functionally and practically speaking, you're coming into 2018 with your own devised schemes, ruling your heart and informing your worth and your identity and what actually gives you real joy and meaning and purpose.

Listen, know this.

Know that they cannot attain what your heart wrongly hopes they can.

I'm gonna shrink this waistline, and it's gonna be that that gives me that peace, that inner joy that I know it will bring me and that my heart longs for, right?

It's about getting in shape, it's about lifting weights, it's about the desire and all of that.

Or maybe for you, it's this it's this new job, and I just you know sign a new contract and I'm with a new company, and you know, finally it's gonna be this job that fulfills me, and and I'm gonna find my hope and my meaning and joy in that and all the other jobs and and the former careers and all of that that I've gone through, those they weren't good enough because I just haven't found the right one yet.

Okay, or or this new wardrobe, right?

I, you know, all the Boxing Week sales, and you know, I've got you know my kid all lined up, and I've got the next, you know, I don't have to wear the same clothes twice for the next like four months, and you know, this is this is gonna give me the ultimate you know security that that I long for.

You know, or or or how about this one?

The awesome Bible reading plan, right?

Is there anything wrong with the Bible reading plan?

No, okay, there's not.

But this awesome Bible reading plan, sometimes our attitude about it is is legalistic, and and you know, so far I'm what, we're like seven days into January, right?

And I'm on top of it, right?

And I haven't read this morning yet, but I'll read after church, right?

But I'm on top of it, and and as I do this and as I'm consistent in this, then I'm gonna feel like a real Christian because of my efforts that I'm putting forward here.

Listen, church, the the schemes your heart devises, the works that you are relying on, they will never, they will never give you the salvation, the the meaning, the the true confidence that you long for.

Your salvation is through Jesus Christ alone.

He has accomplished it for you.

It's it's unattainable any other way.

Right?

So so renew your commitment to the gospel today.

What a way to start off a new year and renew yourself to know these idols that my heart wants to put too much stock in.

It's not wrong to have a diet and have a plan and you know, have a new job.

Nothing are wrong.

But if they rule and govern your hearts and inform what's what's best about you or what gives you all the things that you think you need most, listen, they are idols.

Commit yourself to the gospel and renewing yourself in that and tearing down these idols, your idols aren't no big deal as we sometimes and often treat them.

They rob you of serious joy, joy that is available to you through Christ.

They they keep you trapped in this prison of insecurity and and powerlessness, though they promise what?

They promise the opposite.

Right?

If I just get this thing that my heart longs for, then I'm gonna feel awesome and I'm gonna arrive as a person and you know all of that.

Listen, allow your heart to be to be realigned, realigned by the gospel.

I'm not gonna let my life be governed by these idols anymore.

I'm gonna really attack these things through the grace of Christ that He provides.

I'm going after a heart that is that is stable in the truth, that my salvation is miraculous, it is grace, it is accomplished, it is given, I merely receive it.

All right, that's an amazing resolution for sure.

Okay, next thing here.

My salvation is purely an act of miraculous grace, okay, attained by God, despite how hopeless it seems.

All right, take a look at this now, verse 21 again.

We're gonna go through uh these verses again, but we're gonna stress more uh the angle of Sarah and Isaac now, okay?

This is what it says.

It says, 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, right?

One by a slave woman.

We looked at that, and then one by a free woman.

But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, that was Ishmael.

Well, the son of the free woman was born through promise.

That's Isaac.

Okay, now this may be interpreted allegorically.

These women are two covenants.

One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery.

She is Hagar.

Now, Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia.

She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she's in slavery with her children, again, because they've rejected Christ.

Right?

But then now look at this, verse 26.

But the Jerusalem above is free.

Right?

The Jerusalem above is free.

Now, Jerusalem above is referring to the heavenly citizenship of believers, of Christ's followers.

We're we're free in the sense that we're free from works, right?

And trying to rely on our works for our salvation.

We're free from the bondage of that and that system, we're free from the power of the flesh.

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

He says, for it is written, okay, and then he and then what he does here is he quotes Isaiah 54, and you see that kind of indented section there in your passage.

He's obviously quoting something if you want to jot it down.

Isaiah 54.

Now, originally, understand this.

Okay, originally it was written for uh the Jewish exiles in in Babylon, all right, to give them hope.

But now, of course, what is Paul doing?

He's applying this, okay, to Sarah.

This is all you know, continuing the allegory here, and this is what he says.

He says, Oh, rejoice, or he says, rejoice, oh 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.

Okay, referring to to Hagar.

Okay, and then he says, This, now, now you brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.

He's like, Don't forget that.

Right?

You're your children of the promise.

Hold, hold firm to that.

Stop stop living like slaves to the law when really you're not.

You have been set set free from those changes in that that bondage.

You are released from all of that.

Now, hey, understand, think about Sarah's situation here.

All right, I spent a bit of time just kind of absorbing all this.

Imagine how bleak and and hopeless this this time would have been for her, her, her life.

Right?

It says here that, excuse me, that she was barren.

And then it says that you are you who are not in labor.

It calls her desolate.

I mean, these are not, you know, this doesn't paint a pretty picture.

And of course, we know that that women back in this time, you know, almost their entire worth, it seemed, was was based on their ability uh to provide children for their husbands and continue uh the family line.

And if you were unable to do that, you were you were really marginalized in society and and really looked down upon.

And so imagine this for Sarah, especially in light of the promise that God made Abraham that he would uh bear a son, and that the nation would be would be numerous, and that ultimately the savior would come through that line.

The savior being, of course, Jesus Christ.

And and I don't know, like was the was the promise made to Abraham this big secret of thing?

Perhaps not, probably not.

And you know, people would have known that this promise was was made to Abraham, and yet Sarah's creeping up there uh in age.

I mean, you know, take a look at this, Genesis chapter 17, right?

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

It tells us that Abraham was was a hundred years old, and and Sarah was she was 90.

She was 90 years old.

I love Hebrews chapter 11, verse 12.

Hebrews 11:12

It's like I find it so hilarious, actually, because it says that that Abraham was as good as dead.

Right?

I just find that so funny.

Like it might as well have said he's like as old as dirt, right?

He's as good as dead.

You know, I mean, everyone this week, like in the entertainment world, they were talking about um uh what's her name?

Joanna Gaines, right?

You know who her from that show Fixer Upper.

I can't tell you how little I care about that show, but um, what was the news?

What was the news this week?

It was that she was pregnant with her fifth child, right?

And and she was she was 39, right?

She's she's getting up there in age.

She's she's older, and I mean that doesn't look that doesn't hold a candle to Sarah at 90, right?

It doesn't touch their situation for sure.

I mean, the odds could not have been more against Sarah in her, you know, in her old age.

You know, from from man's perspective, it was impossible to bear children at that at that age.

Even even back in those days, where they all, you know, they all lived lived longer.

Yet, yeah, what did God do?

Okay, what did he do?

He caused her to get pregnant through Abraham, who was again old enough, might as well be dead.

Right?

This is what God did.

He is she conceived and she gave birth to Isaac, the the son of promise.

God made that happen.

But he attained the impossible.

This is what he did.

He he performed the miraculous.

Okay, so why does Paul go into all of this?

Well, well, he's helping us see here that as as hopeless as uh as Sarah conceiving a child in her age was, God did it.

It's a miraculous act of grace.

And listen, as hopeless as it is for you and I to save ourselves, God did it.

A miraculous act of grace.

Listen, remind yourself of this amazing reality in this aspect of the gospel when you consider not just your justification and that moment where God rescues you from sin and death, and your sins are forgiven, and and you are accounted a believer and a follower of Christ.

Don't just don't just think about it for your justification, but also your your sanctification.

Your transformation towards greater Christ-likeness in in this life.

Look, hopefully, you know, you do have some some New Year's resolutions and some goals when it comes to your walk with Christ this year.

I know that I've got some of those for sure, but but as you live in kind of the grind of life, I mean, we all know what it's like, right?

Trying to grow and all of that, and you know, you're feeling the burden of your own sin and the weight of that and and and the heaviness of it.

And it's not, you know, why is this sin not just you know, just kind of going away, you know, on its own and that inner groaning of wanting to be further along in your walk with the Lord than than you really than you really are?

And and you know, and as it will seem hopeless from time to time, and and it will seem impossible, and you know, this is never gonna happen.

And, you know, God, why won't you transform me already?

And you say that you will, and why can't I see it?

And why does this have to be you know such a slow process, and why does it have to take my whole life and all of this?

And it's never gonna, it's never gonna happen, and these these burdens just aren't removed.

Listen, remind yourself.

Remind yourself in those moments, it's as as hopeless as you might feel in some moments this year.

And listen, listen, I I experience it as well.

And I and I get down about all of these things, and and I want to be more like Jesus, and I want to see more of him and and and less of me.

Listen, we need to remind ourselves that you know, as you and I, as we might, you know, as we fight these idols and and they don't go away easily, and they're just kind of relentlessly, you know, kind of dragging us away from the truth of the gospel and and promising that they can fulfill us, even though they can't.

We need to remember, listen, God attained the impossible for you and I with our justification.

So it just makes sense.

He's gonna do it with our with our sanctification as well, and ultimately even in our glorification.

So, what's our move?

It's trust him.

It's trust him this year.

Cling to him, cling to him harder, cry, cry out to him even more desperately and even more passionately.

Wear out the carpet in your house because you are down on your knees crying out to your savior, and rest in the hope that he is there and he is working.

Final thing.

My salvation is purely uh an act of miraculous grace, yet there will always be those who tell me otherwise.

Okay, that's the third thing.

Take a look at verse 29 here.

He says, But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh, okay, he's talking about Ishmael now.

Ishmael persecuted him who was born according to the spirit.

He's talking about Isaac persecuting his half-brother Isaac.

He says, so also it is now.

Okay, Genesis 21, verse 9 tells us that Ishmael, it says actually laughed, right?

Genesis 21:9

But he he mocked and he he persecuted Isaac.

He he hated Isaac, he persecuted the son of promise.

And and what Paul is saying here is that the same exact thing is still happening, right?

Legalists, okay, teaching works instead of grace and and persecuting those who get in the way of their agendas.

And again, it's another scathing indictment of these false teachers.

And then verse 30, what does it say?

It says, but what does the scripture say?

It says, 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.

He's saying there's no room for works, there's no room for it.

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

It's like those in Christ are free.

We're free to enjoy the salvation our God gives us again as a as a as a pure act of this amazing, miraculous grace, yet as has always been the case here, um, well, there, and it is now, there were there will there will always be those who will insist on a works-based approach of some kind or another.

And maybe for you, now you know exactly what I'm talking about, you've been a recipient of this before, and and someone has insisted on something that is legalistic and it's a temptation for you to get your eyes off of Christ, your eyes off of the cross and on to your own works and your own performance and all of that.

Like maybe for you, okay, you grew up in a, you know, you have a uh have a church background that's you know that's steeped in certain legalistic traditions, you know, and you feel it every time you're you know back with that crowd, and maybe it's friends or or or family even, and maybe you experienced it over the holidays, and there's this kind of subtle, or maybe in some ways not so subtle, you know, judgment that you sense is is being lobbed at you because you don't you don't subscribe to those traditions and and those practices anymore.

And and because of that, though, you're made to feel like like less of a Christian because you're not doing it a certain way, or or maybe for you those ways, you're like they're not even in the scriptures.

Right?

The Bible doesn't even command all of those things.

And so, you know, so you you feel that, you feel that legalism and people insisting on works, works, works, and it comes in a way that they would never say it's works, but that at the end of the day, you strip it all away.

That's that's the message coming at you subtly or or heavily.

Or maybe for you it's something like you know, you're you're single, right?

And and for you, it's that that barrage of like real helpful comments, right?

And those those insinuations, you know, uh essentially about how you know impossible it is to feel complete as a person, you know, unless you're unless you've arrived at uh at marriage, right?

Or or you're in a you know you're in this healthy relationship.

And so again, you know, what are you made to, how are you made to feel as as a single person?

You know, you're you're made to feel like a like a second rate citizen, and you know, what's wrong with you?

And and again, it's earn, earn your own your your wholeness through works.

That's what that's what that is, through a meaningful relationship in in that case.

Okay, that's the that's the message maybe conveyed to you uh in some way.

Listen, legalism like like these, just these are just two examples, right?

This can come at us in in all kinds of different forms, and we hear it coming at us from all different angles, but but perhaps the most disturbing part about all of it is that that professing Christ followers and and those in the church, those who should know better, those who should should get it, who have heard the gospel, are what?

They're the worst offenders at this.

The church can be the worst.

Why?

Well, well, it's because we get out of alignment with the gospel.

Salvation is purely 100% by grace.

Our salvation is this awesome and and and miraculous act of God that He just chooses to give to us.

We don't deserve it.

There's nothing, there's no merit that warrants it or anything uh like that whatsoever.

Yet, yeah, what are we?

We're you and I, we're we're such suckers for the for for the for the earn it song and dance, for that, for that whole message, that whole tune.

Our heart loves that and and we love to go for it and and we listen to it.

And listen, we even we even promote that message sometimes.

And sometimes we're the ones insisting that that other Christ followers be a certain way or or be like us or be like some version of uh of a pseudo-Christian because we think that that's the way it should be, but listen, that's not that's not what the scripture lays out as well, and ultimately it's all works.

Okay?

But this text tells us, and and actually next week, even more so, it tells us that we're free.

That we're free.

We are you know we are slaves no longer.

God has released us from this prison that that many of us uh kind of live in inside, spiritually speaking.

The Lord has has set us free.

That's what I want to do right now is I want to pray.

I want to pray that uh the Lord would, again, fine tune our hearts to this in 2018.

There's really nothing more important than we could talk that we could talk about and spend our time discussing and praying about and going after as a church.

And so I want to pray, and then after that, we're gonna stand, we're gonna sing, we're gonna rejoice in the Lord in what he has done.