“Children of Promise”
(Galatians 4:21-31)
Series: Set Free To Be Free (Galatians)
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson
Thank you, Chris. It’s a great day to be together outside here at the park. I love worshiping with my church family and this is a little bittersweet as I’m going to miss worshiping with you for a few weeks.
As most of you know, I’ll be starting my sabbatical Thursday, June 1, taking the months of June and July. Thank you for graciously giving me this sabbatical in recognition of 15 years of ministry here.
I wanted to share briefly how I hope to spend the sabbatical. That word may be new to some folks. I thought I’d give a textbook definition of sabbatical so I Googled it and the first result defined sabbatical this way: “a period of paid leave granted to a university teacher or other worker for study or travel, traditionally one year for every seven years worked.”
One year for every seven years worked! So I’m thinking, “That’s 2 years, right?!” But more generally the word “sabbatical” comes from the word “sabbath,” and is related to the biblical idea of a sabbath rest. A time to unplug from what we normally do and allow the body & spirit to “reboot.”
So I hope to spend time in rest and renewal as well as reading and writing. I’ll be turning my phone off and unplugging from my usual electronic means of communication and turning off social media and I’m grateful for a great staff to make that possible.
Not sure where all I will be during these 2 months, different places, next weekend worshiping with my older son Matthew in Louisville where he lives and works. So that will be nice.
And I have a number of books to read and ideas for writing. I’d like to take some of my written sermons and edit them into free booklets that we self-publish and give away to folks, the Book of James for example, is a practical book that is helpful to growing Christians. And other ideas for a devotional from articles I published in the past through Courier Press, a gospel tract, web resources for the church like questions I am asked about, why you can trust the Bible, etc., and booklets on things like baptism, marriage, stuff like that.
So thank you for this gift. And thank you so much for all the kind words, and the cards many of you gave me. I took them home and did not open them until Friday. Got them in the living room and read them to Michele. So kind of you. Thank you very much and thank you for your prayers during these two months.
After this morning we’ll hit the pause button on our study of Galatians, rounding out chapter 4 today, and pick up the last two chapters when I return in August. Rich and Matt will be doing some great min-series preaching from Jonah and Ruth during the Summer months and there’ll be others preaching, too.
So this morning we finish chapter 4 and I’m going to read these verses and just spend a few minutes talking about them. This is toward the end of chapter 4, verses 21 to the end, 21 through 31.
Before I read those verses let’s recall Paul’s major concern up to this point. The letter to the Galatians is Paul’s earliest letter, first one he wrote in the New Testament. He wrote it in the year 48; that’s AD 48; just 15 years or so after the death of Christ.
He is writing this letter to teach the gospel, to stress that men and women are justified; put right with God not on the basis of human effort or good works, but on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ alone.
Paul was a Jew and he started these churches among the non-Jewish people there in South Galatia. Non-Jewish people are called what? Gentiles. Paul started the churches among the Gentiles and, after he left, some false teachers went into them and began adding to Paul’s teachings, adding to the gospel. These false teachers who crept in; they were Jews and they had a name—remember? What were these false teachers called? Judaizers. What were the Judaizers teaching? They were teaching that if a person really wanted to be accepted by God they had to do more than just believe in Jesus. What did they have to do? They had to add to their faith works of the law—ceremonial things like eating only certain foods and performing certain rituals like circumcision. In essence, the Judaizers taught that a person had to become Jewish and keep the law in order to earn God’s favor, in order to be accepted by God.
Okay, so Paul has been writing for four chapters now saying that this is wrong. This is not the gospel. This is heresy. God saves us by His grace through our faith in Jesus Christ, not by our human effort at law-keeping. The Judaizers were trying to put people under the law and what Paul is teaching is that to be put under the law is to be put in slavery, to be held captive by the rigorous demands of the law and to be in bondage.
He seeks to illustrate this now in a really cool way. And before I read this illustration of Paul’s, let me set it up briefly. Paul is drawing upon the Old Testament history of Abraham and his sons. You’ll remember in recent weeks we’ve been talking about this promise that goes all the way back to the first book of the Bible, to Genesis. And we read for the first time in Genesis 12 how God makes promises to Abraham to bless him and his posterity. All who come from Abraham’s line will be blessed. And God has in mind spiritual blessing (like eternal life) more so than physical blessing (like property and land) and God has in mind spiritual descendants more so than physical descendants. This is why Paul says in Galatians 3:29—the last verse of chapter 3—“And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s descendants, and heirs (those who inherit) the promise of life. You may not be able to trace your physical lineage to Abraham, but if you are born again, you are in Christ and you are spiritually a son of Abraham.
But remember that Abraham had two sons, didn’t he? He had Isaac whose mother was Sarah. But, before Isaac was born, there was another son. Remember? His name was what? Ishmael. And he was born not of Sarah, but of whom? Hagar. Ishmael’s mother was Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian maidservant, a slave woman.
Remember what preceded all of this. God promises Abraham back in Genesis 12 and again in Genesis 15 that Abraham is going to have a son and a bunch of other sons will come through that son, many descendants, more numerous than the stars in the sky and more numerous than grains of sand on the seashore.
But there’s a problem! It doesn’t happen. Well, it doesn’t happen as soon as Abraham and Sarah wanted it to happen. Side note: ever get impatient with God? He says, “Trust Me and I’ll direct your steps.” And we’re like, “Yeah, but I want it now!” This was Abraham and Sarah’s problem. They wanted it now.
But God is never in a hurry. So years go by and Sarah’s like, “I guess the Lord has changed his mind or something.” Abraham is now in his 80s. His hair is falling out and he’s pulling his pants up higher these days, well over his bellybutton now, and Sarah looks at him and reasons, “Since God has apparently closed up my womb we’ll have to see God’s promise fulfilled in some other way.” And what does she do, do you remember? She attempts to do God’s work for Him. She goes to Abraham and says, “Take my maidservant, the bondwoman, the slave woman, Hagar, who was likely much younger, too, and have a child with her.” And Abraham does so and, at the age of 86, Abraham has a son named Ishmael. Ishmael is born—born through mere human effort, born not according to the promise of God.
Then 14 years later, what happens? Genesis 21 later if you want to read it. Abraham is now 100 years old. And now Sarah—long past the years of childbearing—miraculously conceives and who is born? Isaac. One son is born the son of a slave woman, born through human attempts to get God’s work done for Him. The other son is born a child of promise, spiritually, miraculously.
Okay! Now we are ready to read the passage. Hear the word of God as I read verses 21 through 31.
Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman (or slave woman), the other by a free woman.
23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh (or human effort), and he of the free woman through promise,
24 which things are symbolic (or an illustration). For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar—
25 for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children—
26 but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.
27 For it is written:
“Rejoice, O barren (Sarah),
You who do not bear!
Break forth and shout,
You who are not in labor!
For the desolate (Sarah) has many more children
Than she who has a husband.” (Isaiah 54:1)
28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise.
29 But, as he who was born according to the flesh (human effort) then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now.
30 Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.” (Genesis 21:10)
31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.
Pray.
Isn’t this a great illustration?! I mean, verse 21 Paul says, “Okay, you Judaizers, you want to earn God’s approval by law keeping? You want to be under the law, do you? When was the last time you actually read the law?!” That’s verse 21.
Then Paul just takes out a big brush and canvass and paints this striking picture, an allegorical painting, an illustration of two ways of getting in right relationship with God. And what Paul teaches 2,000 years ago in Galatia is just as true 2,000 years later in Henderson: People are trying to gain acceptance with God in one of two ways—either through trusting in their own performance or through trusting in God’s performance. That’s what Paul is illustrating through these two sons, two mothers, two covenants, two Jerusalems. Two ways of getting in right relationship with the one true and living God.
Those who try to earn God’s approval through their works or through rigorous keeping of moral laws are like Ishmael, the son of a slave woman. They are under the heavy burdensome weight of the law. It’s like they are living on Mount Sinai where Moses handed down the 10 Commandments—laws that are good, but not given as a way to be saved or put right with God. If we hope to be saved by keeping the commandments as a way to be put right with God we will be miserable because we will not be able to do it. We are inconsistent law keepers. We break the commandments time and again. Our conscience condemns us every time we break a law and we feel the sting of remorse, guilt and shame. What a horrible state! And Paul says this is the state of the Judaizers; they are the “Jerusalem that now is (verse 25).”
So let’s do as Paul does and get these two ways in our minds. Visually we have Hagar on one side and Sarah on the other. So here the way of Abraham and Hagar. Here is man’s attempt to get right with God. Here is man’s attempt to do God’s work for Him, human effort. Ishmael born of a slave woman. The Jerusalem that now is. Seeking God’s approval by human performance. Contrast that state of existence with this state over here.
Here is the way of Abraham and Sarah. Here is God’s work on behalf of man. Here is God’s way of getting man right with Himself. Isaac is born—not as a child of a slave woman—but as a child of a free woman, born as a child of promise, born not according to the flesh, not according to mere human effort or human power, but born miraculously by God’s power as God’s fulfillment of His promise. This is not the Jerusalem that now is (the Jerusalem so important to the physical descendants of Abraham, like the Judaizers), but this is the “Jerusalem above (verse 26),” here is Sarah, the mother of every believer, including every Christian today. Remember Galatians 3:29: “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s sons, and are included among those who inherit the promise of life.”
And Paul concludes chapter 4 by saying just as Ishmael persecuted Isaac back in the Book of Genesis, so sons of Ishmael continues to persecute sons of Isaac in Paul’s day. The Judaizers, the false teachers, were persecuting the Galatians by insisting that they add human effort and works of the law to their faith in Christ. Yet, just as Ishmael and the slave woman were not heirs of God’s promise in Genesis, so are they not inheritors of God’s promise in Paul’s day—or any day. Man is saved only by believing in Christ and not by human effort, not by works of the law, not by his or her performance.
So there’s a right way to be related to Abraham and a wrong way to be related to Abraham, thus a right way to be related to God and a wrong way to be related to God.
The religion of Ishmael is a religion of what man does; the religion of Isaac is a religion of what God has done.
Now, the easiest application here is to understand that everyone is either over here with Hagar or over here with Sarah. You’re either a child of flesh or a child of promise. Everyone trying to get into heaven based on rule-keeping and commands are like Hagar’s children over here, like Ishmael, a child of bondage, enslaved to the law, never getting in right relationship with God.
But if you want to be in right relationship with God, then, you must be born as a child of promise. You are put in right relationship not by law-keeping, not by human effort or performance, but by faith in the promise of God. Then you will be be born as Isaac, supernaturally, born of the power of God, as followers of Christ, born again, born from above, children of the promise.
After all, it would be through Abraham and Sarah’s family line that another Son would come, another Son born of another woman—a woman who also wasn’t expecting to conceive not because she was past the age of childbearing, but because she was a virgin. And it would be through this unlikely woman named Mary, that this unique Son named Jesus would be born. Again Galatians 3:29: “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s sons and heirs according to the promise.”
So trust in Christ and become Abraham’s sons and heirs according to the promise. You can’t earn your way into heaven. That’s trying to do God’s work for him like Abraham and Hagar. You do that then you are merely a child according to the flesh. Nothing supernatural about that. Just slavery. Turn to Christ, believe in Him and become a child of promise, a co-heir with Jesus Christ Himself.
But there is more here. Remember an overarching concern of Paul’s in this letter is that the Galatians had, “turned away so soon from Him who called them in the grace of Christ (Galatians 1:6).” Because of the false teachers, the Judaizers, the Galatians had turned back to law-keeping in an attempt to be in right relationship with God. Forgetting that the law, moral commands like the 10 Commandments, was “our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith (Galatians 3:24),” the Galatians had, “turned again to the weak and beggarly elements, worthless rule-keeping, placing themselves back under bondage (Galatians 4:9). The Galatians had turned from trusting in Christ alone as the way to be right with God and added to their faith works of the law, performance-based rule-keeping, in an effort to earn God’s approval.
Many Christians are no different than these Galatians. Having trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, believing Him to be the only way one is in right relationship with God, many Christians—in practice—turn back to a performance-based way of thinking and acting in their walk with God. They leave the Jerusalem that is above and return to Mount Sinai, leaving their family line through Abraham and Sarah, putting chains back on themselves over here with Abraham and Hagar. They are Isaac, but they are living like Ishmael. They really are children of promise, but they are living like children of slavery.
This happens when we fail to understand and appreciate God’s grace. Grace is our getting what we do not deserve. God accepts us and puts us in right relationship with Himself through Jesus Christ. The reason God accepts us and approves of us is not because of our own works of righteousness, our own pitiful performance each week at keeping the moral commands of the law, but God accepts us and approves of us because of the performance of His Son Jesus Christ. God accepts us “in Christ.” Again, it Galatians 3:29, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s sons, and heirs according to the promise.”
We don’t deserve to be an inheritor of the promise of life and we will never deserve to be an heir of the promise. It is all owing to God’s grace. We must rely on the grace of God. If we fail to rely on God’s amazing grace, we will rely on ourselves, our performance, our rule-keeping as a means of acceptance with God or as a means of earning His approval, earning His love.
This is why it is often the most religious people who are the least free. The most religious people are often the least free. They are always trying to “measure up” to some standard of approval with God. They reason, “Well, if I keep these commands and really work at being holy, God will accept me and approve of my performance and He’ll answer my prayers and I’ll be the kind of person others will want to be.”
And underneath that facade is a deep insecurity, a desire to be accepted by others, approved by others, approved by God. Religious people are often the least free because they’re never sure whether they’re performing enough, anxious because they are never sure if they “measure up.” And they are some of the most miserable people, too, because they are also “measuring everyone else!” It’s like they are walking around with scorecards, legalistically scoring themselves and everyone else, too.
And when their legalism doesn’t pay off; they’re prayers go unanswered, or they suffer in some way, they become bitter, resentful, and unpleasant. They are in bondage.
If we are Christ’s we are children of promise, pure and simple. We already measure up because we are “in Christ,” the One who is perfect for us. And because God has given us grace to be over here with Sarah as our mother, let’s stop “measuring everyone else,”—our spouse, our children, our parents, or someone who’s hurt us—and let’s extend that same grace to them God that has shown us. Show them grace. Show them love, kindness, compassion, and concern.
Let’s respond to the truth of God’s word this morning by singing about this grace. If you are trying to earn God’s approval or acceptance in some way other than Jesus Christ, repent this morning. Turn to Jesus Christ and live as a child of promise.
Let’s sing.
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch; like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.
Amen. Please be seated. I will be available if any questions.
(Transition to Patriotic Tribute) – 8 mins total (4 mins remaining)
Having concluded our worship service we transition now to a time of Memorial Day observance; careful not to confuse our worship of the Lord with a national holiday.
Having said that, tomorrow our country observes an important holiday: Memorial Day. Memorial Day began years ago as a way for Americans to express their gratitude for those who had fought and died for their freedom.
God has shed His grace upon our country. Let’s sing, “America the Beautiful.”
As Christians we are especially grateful for those who have fought to preserve our nation’s first amendment right to gather together in worship even as we have done this morning.
I’d like for us to recognize any persons who have either served or are now serving in our American Armed Forces. Would you stand so we can honor you? Thank you.
Now I’d also like to recognize those of you who have family members either now serving or who have served, or have served and have gone on to be with the Lord, would you please stand? Thank you.
“My Country Tis of Thee”
Praise God.
This week be sure to pray for Team Brazil, our missional team leaving Tuesday for work with our partners in Brazil.
Wednesday is our Summer Celebration and Picnic 5-7 PM in the church parking lot. hamburgers, hot dogs, desserts, inflatables, and other fun activities for the kiddos. Summer Family Fun resource pack for parents and grandparents, great ideas of engaging you’re neighbors and spending time with family and friends, disciple-making this Summer.
Alan is going to give us directions for the meal; pray and give thanks for our food.
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