WWUTT 1782 Children of Promise, Part 2 (Galatians 4:21-31)

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There is an allegory that Paul gives in Galatians chapter 4 so that you may know whether you are enslaved unto the law or if you are set free in Christ and therefore a child of the promise when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of Galatians chapter 4, picking up where we left off yesterday.

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Let me start off here by reading verses 21 through 31 out of the English Standard Version.

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This is the word of God through the Apostle Paul writing to the churches in Galatia. Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?

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

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

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Now this may be interpreted allegorically. These women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery.

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She is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. She corresponds to the present

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Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

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For it is written, Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear! Break forth and cry aloud,

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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.

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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

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Spirit, so also it is 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.

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So brothers, we are not children of the slave, but of the free woman. Picking up now with part two of the message that was started yesterday, entitled

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Children of Promise, we start at verse 24. Now this may be interpreted allegorically,

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Paul says. And he's been doing that all the while. An allegory would be like a metaphor.

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An allegory would be a type or a shadow that points to something greater and bigger.

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We have multiple examples of allegory throughout the Scriptures. In fact, Becky, as she had been going through Psalm 23 with the kids our last several

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Sundays, that's an allegory. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.

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I need nothing else, but I am fully satisfied in my Savior. He makes me lie down in green pastures.

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He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

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What do we got going on here? The picture of God as our shepherd and the picture of us as dumb sheep.

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That's why we get called sheep, because we're dumb. And we are helpless without our shepherd.

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But God, by His grace and goodness, leads us in paths of righteousness, leads us to still waters, makes me lie down in green pastures.

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This is all allegory. God is not literally a shepherd, but figuratively in this sense.

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A shepherd who leads and guides and cares for His sheep. Jesus uses this allegory again in John 10, and in fact, we have multiple ways in which this allegory gets used in that particular chapter.

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The sheep know my voice, and they follow me. I know them and call them by name.

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They won't follow a stranger, but they follow the good shepherd. I give them eternal life, and no one is able to snatch them out of my hand.

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My Father who gives them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my

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Father's hand. I and the Father are one. Jesus even includes the enemy in this metaphor.

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The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, but I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.

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This is allegory. We also have allegory used throughout the book of Hebrews, talking about how

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Jesus is the greater Melchizedek. Jesus is the greater Moses, and so in this way, even

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Moses is referred to in an allegorical sense. Moses came as a prophet to the people to speak the

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Word of God to them. But Moses said, Deuteronomy 18, 18, There is another prophet who is coming that is even greater than I, and you will listen to him.

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And that was a precursor to our Lord Christ. So Moses was even an allegory of the coming

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Christ. We talk about allegory in other ways, like David being a type of Christ.

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He who was the only one who could slay the giant, representing sin and death and the devil's schemes,

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David to whom the covenant promise was made, and that on his throne God would establish his kingdom forever.

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And it's through the line of David would come the Savior. So David is even a type or a shadow of the coming

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Christ. And we have multiple references like this all throughout the scriptures of using allegory.

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Think we need to be very, very careful whenever we make allegory that we don't apply allegory where allegory is not intended.

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But in this particular case, you can't argue with the apostle who's speaking the very word of Christ. And Paul says that this is an allegory.

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The slave woman and the free woman, for we are either children of slavery or we are children of freedom.

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This may be interpreted allegorically, says in verse 24, these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery.

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What's the reference to Mount Sinai? That's where the law was given. That's where the law was first proclaimed to the children of Israel when after being led out of slavery in Egypt, they come to Mount Sinai.

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God descends upon that mountain and over one million Israelites gathered around the base of the mountain hear the word of God proclaimed.

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You shall love the Lord your God and you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not raise up a graven image.

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You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. You shall honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.

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You shall honor your father and your mother so it may go well with you in the land to which

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I am giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery.

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You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not covet. These ten commandments the entire children of Israel heard.

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Oftentimes we have a picture of the ten commandments being given in the sense that Moses goes up on the mountain and he sees the finger of God kind of etch it in stone tablets and pulls them out and hands them to Moses.

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So Moses heard it and then the Israelites had to read the stone tablets. All of Israel was there at the base of the mountain and heard

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God's voice proclaim these commandments. The law that was given to reveal

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God's perfect character and how each one of us fall far short of that righteousness.

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That's the use of the law that Paul had given to us earlier in Galatians chapter 3. Use of the law in the sense that it reveals to us our unrighteousness.

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It was a tutor for a time, kept us in training, kept us in check, kept us from falling into worse sin than we could have fallen into.

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But when it comes down to our salvation, the law was powerless to save and it is only

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Christ who does so. So anyone who tries to live by the law will be judged by the law and they fall far short of the law.

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So the children of covenant of Mount Sinai are children of slavery. She is

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Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia.

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

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Now what does that mean? Remember the present Jerusalem at that particular time was full of Jews who still thought that by their sacrifices and by their keeping of the law and by their checklist and their legalism that they were earning salvation before God.

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That was Jerusalem at that time. And by the way folks, nothing's changed in Jerusalem since then. It's still the same lost group of people today that it was 2 ,000 years ago.

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They need the gospel as much as anyone else. Just because a person would be born in the line of Abraham, still carrying the

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DNA of Abraham all these thousands of years later, that does not make them free.

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If they are not following in faith in Jesus Christ, they're still enslaved to their sin and unrighteousness.

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They need the gospel of Christ. Everyone does. Jew or Gentile. Paul laid down that argument in Romans 1 through 3.

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All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And we are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus to be received by faith.

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So Hagar corresponds to the present Jerusalem, the earthly Jerusalem. That Jerusalem which has no hope or no promise for us in this world.

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She is in slavery with her children. Everyone who tries to abide by the law is enslaved to it.

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Now as Paul had illustrated earlier in Galatians, and we had talked about as we've been going through this study, whoever is not following in Jesus Christ is enslaved to the law.

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Not just people who say they believe in the Ten Commandments. But everybody tries to be a law unto themselves.

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You know, like I said earlier, with the moral judgments that we make and try to keep, and we think we can earn our righteousness that way.

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That in itself is legalism whether or not they have brought the Ten Commandments into it.

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They're still trying to earn righteousness by their own merit. Everyone apart from Christ is enslaved to the law.

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And everyone apart from Christ will be judged by the law. Whether or not they had the law.

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This woman corresponds with the present Jerusalem, and she is in slavery with her children who are enslaved to the law and cannot keep it.

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And then Paul talks about a spiritual Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem that we see talked about at the end of the book of Revelation, coming down from heaven, clothed and adorned in white as a bride for her husband.

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The Jerusalem above is free, spiritual Jerusalem, and she is our mother.

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For it is written, Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear, speaking of Sarah, who had been given a child, break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor.

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

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You see that? The children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.

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The one who has no children will be given much. But even the children of slavery will be more numerous on earth than the children of freedom.

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Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7, enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the way that leads to destruction.

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And many find that road because that's the easy way. But narrow is the gate and long is the road that leads to life and few will find it.

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This is Jesus saying that our path in Christ Jesus is the difficult road.

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But the broad way, the easy way on this earth, that leads to destruction.

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The narrow way leads to eternal life. My friends, it is easy to walk in sin.

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It's easy to do that. It's easy to give in to the passions of your flesh. I know that full well.

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I don't speak to you as anybody who is self -righteous and claiming that I've got this mastered. It is easy to fall into the temptations of your flesh if not kept in check, if not keeping your mind and your heart committed and following after Christ and focused upon him.

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This is why we read in Hebrews chapter 12 that we need to put off sin and anything that easily entangles and focus ourselves on Christ, looking unto

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Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.

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We won't ever have to endure that because Christ endured it for us, taking the wrath of God upon himself so that we may stand before the

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Father justified. Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, interceding for us so that we have good standing with our

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Father in heaven because of the love of our Lord and Savior Christ. It is easy for us to fall into sin and temptation, and it's even easier for us to never confront anyone else in their sin or temptation.

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You know somebody who is still attached to the bottle and getting drunk every night.

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It's easy enough to just hand him a bottle and tell him to continue to take a drink. It is easy to tell the pregnant young woman who has no husband, who got pregnant out of wedlock, it's easy to tell her, just go get an abortion and that'll take care of the problem.

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It's easy to tell the young man who is struggling with sexual temptation, just give in as long as you do it safely.

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It's easy to tell the person who has hatred in their heart that they're justified because that person did them wrong.

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So it seems fair that you'd be angry over this. All of these things are easy.

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It's difficult for us to, in love, stand in the way of sin and not let that person go to their destruction and say to them lovingly, kindly, pleading on behalf of their eternal soul, repent, turn from your sin and follow

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Christ. The world will hate us for that message because they love their sin and their flesh and they hate

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God. But we must, in love, stand in patient opposition because we care for their souls.

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That's a difficult thing to do. The easy thing would be to just let them give in.

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The easy thing for you would be to give in to your own temptations. It is a difficult road to follow

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Christ, but it is the road that leads to life. And I tell you, if you're not on it, the way you're walking right now might seem easy to you for a time, but eternity will be really, really hard in ways that I would not even dare to try to imagine or interpret for you.

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Though the Bible has some pretty descriptive words. Turn from your sin and walk in the righteousness of Christ that we may not lead in the way of our destruction, enslaved to our sin and the passions of our flesh.

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Instead, be set free in Christ. The Jerusalem above is free.

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The Jerusalem on earth remains in slavery. Setting our sights on the kingdom of God above is freedom.

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But continuing to long for the things of this world and the passions of our flesh is slavery.

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None of it will ultimately satisfy and all of it will lead to destruction.

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Paul says in verse 28, Now you brothers, now this is such a comforting section that Paul has come to in this particular part of Galatians.

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He said it earlier in verse 12. He said, Brothers, I entreat you. Strongest rebuke was in the first three chapters, though he's still not done.

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He's got some strong comments yet to make. But so that these Christians in the churches in Galatia do not fall into despair.

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He calls them brothers. He would not be approaching them in this way if he didn't care for them as brothers and sisters in the

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Lord. You brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.

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So stop following after the slave woman. Verse 29. But just as that time, he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so also it is now.

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Allegorically, what is Paul referring to here? Well, when Isaac got old enough to be weaned from his mother, we have this story in Genesis as well,

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Ishmael made fun of Isaac. Ishmael, who was years older than Isaac now, made fun of him when he was being weaned from his mother.

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And it was at that point that the Lord had said to Abraham, it was time for Hagar and Ishmael to go.

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They could no longer reside under that home. And Abraham was reluctant to let him go, but he was obedient to the

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Lord. So Ishmael, in making fun of Isaac, became a persecutor of Isaac.

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And so what Paul is saying here is that, here's what's happened. You guys were following well in the true gospel, justification by faith, but then these

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Judaizers came in and made fun of you for the true gospel, and you guys caved. You were like, oh yeah, well,

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Jesus was a Jew, and in order to be a good Christian, apparently I have to keep all these Jewish laws.

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So, hey, you're right, and I don't want to get made fun of by these Judaizers. I mean, they're Jews, right? They're descendants from Abraham.

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So they're so much holier than I am. I got to listen to what it is that they're saying. And so they caved on the true gospel that had once been delivered to them, and they started adding works into the mix.

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The persecution did you in. And so just as this had happened between Ishmael and Isaac, so it's happened to you.

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So also it is now. Verse 30, 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.

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Here is what Paul is saying. If you have people in your midst who are believing a different gospel, get them out, because they are affecting the entire body.

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As Paul put it with Timothy, in 2 Timothy, they're becoming like gangrene.

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Their lies are spreading like gangrene, causing parts of the body to rot and fall off.

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Quite the picture that is. But if we have false doctrine in our midst, that's what it does to the body of Christ.

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It causes people to go after the false doctrine, abandoning the gospel, and their souls rot away and die.

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Now, we have welcomed people in our church before who were unbelievers. Unbelievers are certainly welcome to come in and sit and listen to the sermon, but after hearing the gospel proclaim,

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I hope that they would make a decision to follow Christ. Can't be a member of our church without it. A lot of the problems that are going on in the

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Southern Baptist Convention right now, and some of you are aware of those things, those problems are happening because people who have not been tested, who are not known or understood to actually believe the gospel and be able to repeat it, are being given membership, though there was no evidence of their faith to begin with.

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And that has created massive problems and various scandals that are happening in the SBC because these churches are so seeker -driven.

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We just want people here and we want them to stay here at any cost. And we're not following proper membership requirements.

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Sit down and have a conversation with somebody and just even make sure they understand what the gospel is. We don't do that because we're trying to make sure we got a nice little club going on here.

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We do this because we care about you and we care about everybody else whom you would be in fellowship with in this body.

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It's out of love that we do those things, not out of legalism. Paul is saying you got somebody in your midst believing a different gospel.

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Get them out. Because they are causing you to be enslaved to the things that you were once set free from.

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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.

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So brothers, we are not children of the slave. We are children of the free. So live in freedom and not in slavery.

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Do not be enslaved to the passions of your flesh, the sins, the desires of your body and your mind.

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Don't follow after those things anymore. But as Paul says in Romans chapter 6, be slaves of righteousness.

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If you've been clothed with righteousness, do the righteousness. And that is not legalism.

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That's an expression of your heart who rejoices to do what pleases a

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Savior who died for you, who forgives your sin.

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And as he's promised in Revelation 3, he who endures to the end, I'll give you a place to sit with me on my throne.

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Imagine that you were once an enemy of this throne, treason against the throne of the God of all creation.

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And instead of destroying you as the enemy that you are, he has instead made you his friend.

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And he has seated you on his throne with him to reign forever in glory.

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What better gospel could there ever be? So repent of your sin, your legalism, the lawlessness that you persist and continue in, that this whole world is in until the day of Christ comes.

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And let us walk in righteousness to please our master and our Savior who has saved us.