A Story with a Lesson

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Sermon by Bart Hodgson from Galatians 4:21-31.

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Well, as Josh said in the announcements, I am leaving right after this service to drive to Lubbock and then tomorrow
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I hope to get to Yuma where my parents are and then then on Tuesday morning arrive in California where I'm calling this my rescue mission for my daughter we've been praying for six years for her to be able to move home and It is
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It's almost unbelievable. We've been praying so long and And the day is finally here and I get to leave today to do that So I don't think there's any coincidence that God would allow me to preach this sermon on that day understanding the heart of a father and I think you have to look at this text with that with that heart and that understanding and if you're not a father here
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It's it's hard to to describe but this is what Paul is talking about today Now this is a difficult text
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And I I confess as I've read this in the past. I have it's kind of been like this in my head
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Until I get to Galatians 5 1 and I go oh it's for freedom that Christ has set us free. Oh, yeah I know this.
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Yeah, I get this I don't really know what that thing was it Hagar and Sarah and that whole deal, but I do understand this, right?
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But I think this morning my goal is that we would go through it and that it would stop being kind of just You know gobbledygook, but it would have meaning we would say oh now
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I know why he's saying it's for freedom that Christ has set you free because he said this and because I do understand that Even if we can get a basic understanding of that this morning, that's my hope
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But today as we look into the scriptures Galatians chapter 4 Verse 21 he begins with a question
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Paul begins with a question to the Galatians and that question Is as I turn there?
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Tell me You who desire to be under the law do you listen to the law?
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Tell me He continues a tone of perplexion that was in last week
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If you remember it actually goes all the way back to the beginning of chapter 4 as he begins in chapter 4 verse 7 and says
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So you're no longer a slave but a son and if a son and heir through God But now that you have come to know
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God or rather be known by God How can you turn back? Again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world whose slaves you want to be once more
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How can you do that? or last week As I referred to he says
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I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone because I'm perplexed about you
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It's like reading as we were reading and finished Exodus reading about the children of Israel Coming out of the land of their slavery and they not too long into their journey and they go.
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Uh -huh This isn't what we thought it was gonna be we should go back And you're like how?
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500 years of slavery Finally you get to leave and you're so ready to go back into slavery and for me
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I'm perplexed by that Maybe you are as well, but that's where Paul is. Tell me you who desire to be under the law.
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I can't fathom Do you not listen to the law? I can't even fathom why you would do this in the
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Greek It is literally do you not hear the law and of course during this time?
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They had an oral tradition. They did hear it All right Do you not hear the law and what he's implying in this first question?
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Is that that they themselves are contradicting? Or they're contradicting themselves
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Because their desire is not Consistent with their pedagogue. Remember we talked about the law being a pedagogue a teacher to us
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He says don't you realize we've talked about this The law was given to teach us that we were in slavery to sin that we were hopeless to attain anything close to God's promise of freedom
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Remember Remember Galatians you you heard the gospel you heard it which was that in the fullness of time
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God sent his son so that Everyone who believes in him can be born again as a free son of God And if you want to boil this whole sermon down, that's what he is still trying to communicate.
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He's Communicating this is the gospel. You heard it in the fullness of time.
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God sent his son He also sent the Spirit To dwell within us a spirit that cries a spirit of adoption that cries out
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Abba father, right? He's he's done all of this so that if we believe in him we can be born again as free sons of God So at this point in his perplexion
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Paul must be be thinking how do I communicate this to him? How do I get it across to them?
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How do I break them out of the spell that they're in? remember he said what who has bewitched you and I've tried reasoning
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I've spoken harshly to them. I've appealed to friendship. What's left? What's hmm?
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What what how else could I? Describe this to them that they would get it now
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I'm speculating a little bit kind of trying to enter into Paul's mind here but what we do see his approach today is that he uses a
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Method frequently used by rabbis to challenge their opponents and that method is allegorical
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Interpretation it's a way of interpreting the scriptures where you look for symbolism, right?
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And it was very common among Jewish rabbis. They still do it today still So Paul sets forth a story from the
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Old Testament and his desire is to illuminate a spiritual truth and show them their own
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Contradiction. He says let me tell you a story. Let me tell you a story from the Old Testament from the law
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And he begins in 22. He says for it is written It's written in Genesis 16 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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And like I said, this is written in Genesis 16. So if you'll take your Bibles We're gonna go there right because we can't we can't understand the story
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Unless we know the story. So let's go to Genesis 16 and see what what what
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Paul is referring to I'm turning there as you're turning there Reminds me of sword drills
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And here I am Genesis 16 Let's read this together. Now Sarah Abraham's wife had born him.
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No children She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar and Sarah.
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I said to Abram Behold now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children Go into my servant.
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It may be that I should shall obtain children by her and Abram listened to the voice of Sarah So after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan Sarah Abram's wife took
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Hagar the Egyptian her servant and gave her to Abram to be her husband as a wife and He went into Hagar and she conceived and when she saw that she can see conceived she looked with contempt on her mistress and Sarah said to Abram May the wrong done to me by may the wrong done to me be on you
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Wait a second. That's confusing. I Gave my servant to you your embrace and when she saw that she conceived she looked on me with contempt
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May the Lord judge between you and me But Abram said said to Sarah I behold your servant is in your power to do to her as you please
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Because she's a slave Then Sarah I dealt harshly with her and she fled from her verse 7 the angel of the
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Lord found her by a spring of water and speaking of Hagar in the wilderness the Spring on the way to shore and he said
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Hagar servant of Sarah. I why have you come from? Where have you come from?
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And where are you going? And she said I am fleeing from my mistress Sarah I and the angel of the
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Lord said to her return to your mistress and submit to her and the angel of the Lord Also said to her
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I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be Numbered for multitude and the angel of the
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Lord said to her behold you are pregnant. You shall bear a son You shall call his name Ishmael because the
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Lord has listened to your affliction He shall be a wild donkey of a man. I love that Maybe some of you relate to that his hand shall be against everyone and everyone's hand shall be against him and he shall dwell
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Over and against all of his kin men So she called the name of the Lord So she called the name of the
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Lord who spoke to her you are a god of seeing For she said truly here. I have seen him who looks after me
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Therefore the well was called beer Lahore Laharoi, it lies between Kadesh and Bered and Hagar bore
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Sarah a son no and Hagar bore Abram a son and Abram called the name of his son whom
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Hagar bore Ishmael Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore
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Ishmael to Abram Notice in this chapter as we've read it who's the focus on it's on Hagar here
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She gets most of the the story We're also going to read chapter 21 later and notice there's a change and the focus is on Sarah now
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Paul says in Verse 24. He says now this may be interpreted
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Allegorically, this is the only passage in the Bible where Paul uses an allegory
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Okay The Greek word for allegory here is only used once in the
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New Testament. It's used right here Now an allegory what's an allegory? I actually had to look it up.
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All right Just because I wanted to make sure I was Explaining it correctly an allegory is a story in which the character or characters or events are symbolic representing other events ideas or people allegories have been used in the past as tools to to critique politics
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It's kind of a an out loud way of saying the quiet part Without saying it, right?
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And you can make your point Kind of subtly through an allegory some examples of this or George Orwell's animal farm
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If you've read that kind of in high school, maybe or Jonathan Swift's Gulliver Gulliver's travels They were speaking about political events that were happening
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But it's also can be a tool that can communicate or teach abstract ideas or spiritual truths
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Its purpose again is to is to help the hearer arrive at that deeper meaning through the means of a story that contains
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Concrete things things that they know about things that they can easily grasp examples of spiritual
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The way that this is used as a spiritual tool tool or John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress If you've ever read that story about Christian on his way to the celestial kingdom if you haven't read it to your kids
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It's great Because it tells a story right and it's pretty obvious because the characters that are named
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Christian Evangelists, you know, some of them are have more kind of nefarious names but Another another great example is
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Jesus himself using parables right to communicate a deeper truth. He he does this with the
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Kingdom stories about the kingdom of God like the parable of the sower or the parable of the prodigal son, which again
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This is a day that I'm thinking about that story Paul says very clearly.
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This is an allegory This is a story that has a symbolic meaning
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He's using the story of Hagar and Sarah to symbolically represent the old and new covenants
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So that the Galatians might understand the difference now, there's a warning that goes along with allegories
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Allegories can be tough to understand and allegories can be taken too far
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There's a basic meaning within an allegory that we need to find Okay, we need to And eat sometimes those allegories are obvious like this one where he plainly says this is an allegory.
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Sometimes it's hidden, right? But we in either case we need to find the true intent of the teller.
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Why is he telling us this story? What is he trying to teach? We we can't allow our imaginations to run wild as if the true meaning is going to be found within us
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Okay now What we need then is a good hermeneutic and that's a that's a spirit
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That's a theological word hermeneutic. That means the interpretation of Scripture how we interpret
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Scripture We need a good method of interpreting Scripture and thus we lean heavily on the context
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When you get to something that's symbolic in the in the text of Scripture you need to go. What is he talking about here?
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This isn't just open for us to assign any kind of meaning to it. And why do we do this?
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Well beginning in the Middle Ages with origin this this Method of using allegory became really popular especially in the city of Alexandria and and Martin Luther hated it okay, he hated it and The reason why was because their their search for symbolism resulted in a lot of weird interpretations right which then garnered this negative connotation to allegory and as as a method of Scripture interpretation, however
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When we look at this and when we look at what Paul is doing today What he's going back to is these roots that are found in the tradition of Jewish rabbis
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Who loved to use allegory if you read the Mishnah? It's it's weird because they use so much symbolism, right and you're kind of going
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I don't know where they're getting this in the Bible. Well, they're they're using allegory Okay, so that's a that's maybe way too much.
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You need to know about allegory Get back to the story get back to the text here
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Paul is using these actual historical people Abraham Hagar Sarah Ishmael and Isaac and He's wanting us to understand something.
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So let's let the basics that we do know They're easy to reach are that these two women are representing two covenants
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Sarah and Hagar represent the new covenant of grace and the old covenant of works
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Hara Hagar represents Slavery which relate relates to the law that was given to Moses the old covenant
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There is no covenant of Hagar. Okay, just want you to know that What he's saying here is that this woman represents the law it represents
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That it says she is from Mount Sinai Bearing children for slavery. She is
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Hagar now Hagar is the is Mount Sinai in Arabia She corresponds to the present
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Jerusalem for she is in slavery with her children So if Hagar represents this the old covenant this way that man relates to God Present Jerusalem represents
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God's people under that covenant of works So I've been thinking how do
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I how do I describe that relationship? and yesterday I have to confess
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I was pulled over by a policeman and as as I pulled over in Siloam Springs and Saw him get out of his car and start walking towards me
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You know you get that feeling when you're when you ever you get stopped, you know You it's like this sinking feeling and I'm reaching for my wallet pulling out my driver's license
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I'm like, what did I do wrong? Because I know I've I've done something wrong, right?
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He wouldn't be pulling me over otherwise, right and our relationship is based on the law
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So there is fear there. All right, even though he came up to my window and he said hey Do you know you have a brake light out and I was like actually
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I did not know that and I'm about to Drive to California some you know, thank you for for letting me know that I have that I just got my oil change
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They didn't tell me it's usually they tell me when something's out like that. I can't believe it. He goes well, you know
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I'm not gonna give you a ticket just gonna give you a warning But that was the basis of my relationship with that policeman was the law
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I am in submission to the law and Whenever he pulls me over. I'm not jumping out of my car to go run and give him a big hug
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All right, that's not our relationship My relationship is based in fear. What have
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I done? I have done something wrong Right and I am bound to that those laws so So when he this is this is the relationship that that Paul is trying to paint here with with this slave
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Hagar She is in slavery and she bears children of slavery and the present
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Jerusalem They've been living under that slavery. That has been their relationship with God if we look
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If we look at Hebrews 12 verses 18 through 21 and I Hebrews is a wonderful text to kind of bounce back and forth on It the writer of Hebrews says for you have not come to what may be touched
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Okay, something that's natural or physical It's not it's not like a blazing fire and a darkness and a gloom and a tempest and the sound of trumpet and a voice
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Whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages bespoke to them. What is he talking about there?
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He's talking about given the law We just read Exodus, right? Moses went up to the mountain everybody's like Okay Tell us what he says, but we ain't going there.
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Okay, they were terrified even Moses So it says for they could not endure the order that was given even if a beast touches the mountain
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It shall be stoned Indeed, it was so terrifying. That was the sight that Moses said
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I tremble with fear Okay, it was the law was given
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Inspiring fear and terror it had teeth and it was punitive you obey this
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Completely or you or you die? Therefore the law
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Created children of slavery children who had to earn their own way They were fearful of judgment not knowing the love and mercy of God They were servile they they had to serve
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God as someone who related to them in a very judicious way now
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He continues in 26, but Jerusalem so but the big contrast here, but Jerusalem above is free.
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She is our mother Now, why doesn't he say Sarah? That was my question. I was like, wait a second.
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You were saying Hagar Old Covenant law Sarah, you know, you don't say
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Sarah, but the Jerusalem above is free. She is our mother Okay, this is why it sounds like gobbledygook
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Sarah represents the freedom of Christ in the new covenant But it doesn't say
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Sarah instead it call she is called Jerusalem above and I believe that Paul is doing this to try and get To that deeper meaning right here.
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He's saying Sarah is obvious You're anticipating Sarah, but I'm hoping that you can take this even deeper by comparing her
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To God's people and the land even the land both were given a promise and both had to endure barrenness
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Israel could not produce sons of righteousness under the law. They just couldn't do it So both
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Israel and Sarah were waiting upon the promise given to Abram Jerusalem above represents the covenant of grace and the symbolism here represents man's relationship with God based solely on the promise of God for an
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Inheritance and for freedom and it looks very different right as I described my relationship with the police officer
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I'm gonna see my dad in a couple of days and that's gonna be very different, right? I'm gonna go and I'm gonna hug his neck
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Right, and we're gonna we're gonna enjoy every minute together because he's my father Now interesting that you don't know is that he's my adopted father
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Right, so I've been adopted by him. I've been given his name. I had another father who was terrible awful human being
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He's now passed away But when I think about my dad, I don't think about him. I think about My adopted father he is in every way a father to me right and when
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I see him that that's the difference and That's now what
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God has this Jerusalem above that they have that kind of relationship with God So So from from the story what we know is that this divine promise was given to Sarah and that though she was barren
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Only she Not Hagar could produce a promised child Only she could produce
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Isaac because that was the promise and the greater result of this is the promise of the church
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The firstborn of God and we again we go back to Hebrews 12 22 and 23 but you have come not to Mount Sinai, but to Mount Zion and The city of the
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Living God the heavenly Jerusalem to an enumerable to enumerable angels and festal gathering to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God the judge of all and to The spirits of the righteous made perfect.
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That's us Freed from the law no more fear. No more terror She is our mother
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That is our dwelling From Sarah this heavenly city this
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Jerusalem above will be will be populated by children born because of God's promise and It will be a vast and enumerable lineage now
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Why why he then now goes in verse 27 and he quotes the
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Old Testament It's very interesting because he's trying still trying to make this point about Sarah representing this this future
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Promised people of God and So he says for it is written again
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Telling us that this is somewhere else in the Bible and it's in it's in Isaiah 54 54
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He says rejoice O barren one who does not bear break forth and cry aloud you who are not in labor
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Okay, who is he talking about here? I believe he's speaking of Sarah and Jerusalem both here both are barren
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Right barren one who does not bear break forth cry aloud those who are not in labor
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Okay, still waiting on the promise then he says for the children of the desolate one Will be more than those of the one who has a husband and that really confused me it's like Who's the desolate one?
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Well, is that Sarah but she has a husband So it can't be
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Sarah the the the children of the desolate one is Jerusalem Because God has separated from her through the exile in Babylon and he's saying
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The the children of Jerusalem will be more than those of the one who has a husband which is
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Sarah now Let's how do I know that? Okay If we go to the context in Isaiah 54
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Remember that Isaiah 53 is famous. You guys know Isaiah 53, right? Let me remind you
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This is about the suffering servant one of my just most beautiful passages in all of Isaiah It says he was despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows acquainted with grief and as one
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From whom they men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not this is talking about Jesus Surely he has borne our griefs
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He's carried our sorrows and we esteemed him as stricken smitten by God and afflicted but he was wounded for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and With his stripes we are healed.
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Remember that passage Okay, so 54 follows it and says rejoice.
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Oh Barren one who does not bear break forth cry aloud you who are not in labor
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For the children of the desolate one will be more than those who of the one who has a husband
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This is a sharp contrast From from this suffering servant to now this this call for rejoicing
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God the work of God Through Christ is being applied to his symbolic wife here
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Lady Jerusalem or Lady Zion Isaiah is saying say actually in Isaiah 54 5 through 8 later in this.
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He says I am your husband I'm a husband to you But he's calling to her in her desolation in her barrenness in her this this time of separation during the time of captivity and he says all of that is over and You are no longer disgraced
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You're no longer fallen you're called to rejoice and The next verse right after this one that we have here
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Isaiah says to this woman. He says enlarge your tents enlarge your tents
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Because you're gonna bear children against all hope Paul is showing that God through the prophet
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Isaiah was pointing not only to the physical return from exile of Israel in exile but also to this spiritual offer offspring this nation that was promised to Sarah through Isaac and therefore
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Sarah is the mother of the heavenly Jerusalem the heavenly Zion I think it's also interesting if you continue to read in Isaiah 54 because I just love context, you know
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It's like I don't want to just pick that verse out and go. What is that bit bit later? He's in in verse 13.
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He says all of your children will be taught by the Lord Remember two weeks ago. I talked I had a sermon that talked about that the blessing of the
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New Covenant is that we have a knowledge of God that we can know God and here it's in in Isaiah 54 all your children will be taught by the
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Lord and great will be their peace right peace in Righteousness, you will be established
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Then it says tyranny or slavery will be far from you and will and you will have nothing to fear
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Terror Represented by Mount Sinai and the law will be far removed.
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It will not come near to you He is describing over and over again to these people.
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This is what it means to be a son of God to be a daughter of God He's trying to get them to understand that now
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Those are kind of the the basics as we kind of go through I think there's three other things that that kind of go beyond that that Paul is teaching the first one
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Hagar From the story was given to Abraham by Sarah this arrangement was dreamed up by Man not by God This is man's ideas not a result of faith faith in the promise of God and I think it's important for us to think about that that faith
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Requires action, but not all of our actions are based on faith Okay, let me say that again faith requires action for us to do something but not of our all of our actions are based on faith and it and it it
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Tells me and it helps me to understand that I need to be really careful to examine my heart and why I'm doing something
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Am I believing in God's promise or am I trying to fix the problem for God? Am I getting my standing in his place and going?
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You know what? I know you promised this but and I know the law tells me that I can't fulfill it
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But I'm gonna try really hard You don't know what I can do
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I can do this and it's foolishness those are sons of disobedience why
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Not because they're disobeying the law. We all disobey the law sons of disobedience are
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Disobedient to their teacher which is the law that says you can't do this I'm gonna know we can't
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I Know you're God of the universe and you create everything and you know the hearts of men You just are wrong
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I Can do this? I got this. Let me show you the second thing
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Hagar was a slave. Okay, and she served Sarah Slavery is based on Earning your keep you're a slave boy
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You better perform right because the moment that you are not useful anymore
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You get sold why? Because then you're just an extra mouth to feed right you're not you're not useful and we need to think about that the
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Covenant of Works provides life as long as you keep it as long as you keep it all and Failure to do so means judgment.
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It means death. You don't get a second chance You don't get a second chance
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It's a covenant of slavery because it's all about earning and proving your worth The law was given.
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Yes to serve the gospel for a time It was the law was given to teach us about our sin in our own corruption
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And we should learn from it. It served until the promise was fulfilled and then it became obsolete
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It's no longer needed Okay, now we're you might go. Wait a second Bart.
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We'll get to that. We'll get to that Let's just stay with what he's talking about Which is which is our relationship how we relate to God as sons of God now
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However, here's here's the problem though, okay We cling to the law and We try to be covenantally bound to it instead of Christ.
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We want to marry it. We want it to be our wife Till death do us part
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Instead of Christ and that is craziness the Galatians are proving this truth
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That's why he said you who desire to be under the law. Do you listen to the law? Is it teaching you?
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It should be teaching you that it can never be a permanent vehicle for a relationship with God It never was intended to be that Never permanent only temporary because it is weak and it is weak not because it's not good
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It's weak because of us We fail we can't keep it We break it over and over so it can never restore creation
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Nor can it be the restorer of freedom that that we as humanity enjoyed in the
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Garden of Eden Hagar could never give Abram a child of promise
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Let me say that again Abraham could or Hagar could never give
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Abraham a child of promise All she could ever do was produce slave children. And so it is with the law
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It's hopeless It'll never happen The third thing it says the covenant of grace was from above.
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All right What does this mean? Is that? Was the covenant
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I thought the covenant of grace was made to Abraham. I Think he's referring to something else
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Where does this covenant from above originate that's my question It was a covenant
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It's pointing to a covenant made between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit before the world began
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Okay. Now you can't find this in the Bible Directly there's no passage that talks about this covenant that they were made but but we can see through different passages that That there was an agreement that was made
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Let me give you some examples Acts chapter 2 the nation's rage against Against God and his anointed one and God says to his anointing one in this passage
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Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage the ends of the earth your possession Okay, ask of me.
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God is saying that to Jesus ask of me. I'll make the nations your heritage
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Okay, and then in Jesus referring to this agreement in John 17 says I have manifested your name to the people who you've given me out of the world.
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So this exchange has happened there's been a Request for the nation's as a heritage and it's been granted
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You have given me yours they were and you gave them to me and I have kept your word now
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They know that everything that you have given me is from you Jesus covenanted with God or God covenanted to give
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Jesus an inheritance and Then Matthew 26 39 as he is in the garden
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He he says to the father referring back to the agreement my father if it's possible.
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Let this cup pass from me nevertheless, not my will but yours
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Jesus covenanted to be the perfect sacrifice to accomplish the father's will the cup of wrath that he's talking about was the
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Judgment that you and I deserved It is the cup that Jesus drank to the dregs for us with joy
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This is the agreement that was made now You can't find a more trustworthy group of people to be in covenant together than the father the son and the
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Holy Spirit They're gonna keep the covenant now the application for the Galatians as we move forward in this passage and I'm gonna start trucking here because this is
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Complicated that the application for the Galatians he says in verse 28 now you now you brothers
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Like Isaac or children of the promise So here's the conclusion and I've proven to you it to you that you are sons that your heirs according to the promise
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So you are Isaac in the story? You're children of promise 29 he says but just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted
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Him who was born according to the Spirit so also it is now It's still happening even today
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What is what is he referring to? Well one he's referring to Genesis 21.
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Okay, we're gonna we're gonna look at that passage in the second Oh, but what he is doing is he's calling out the troublers of the
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Galatians He's not He's not saying it out loud, but it's pretty direct here
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He says those who are teaching you teaching bondage and slavery to the law Paul is identifying them.
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He is saying they are Ishmael You are Isaac. They are
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Ishmael born according to the flesh and they persecute you as I as Ishmael did
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Isaac now what how are the these troublers of Israel these Jews are Troublers of the
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Galatians the Judaizers persecuting them and this is the point To this point
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Paul has said in Galatians 1 7 not that there's there's another gospel
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But there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ That's how they're persecuting you or Galatians 2 4 yet because of false brothers secretly brought in who slipped in to spy out your freedom
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That we have in Christ so that they might bring us under slavery Make imprison us make us captive or Galatians 3 1 they've they've
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Oh foolish Galatians who has bewitched you Galatians 4 17 they make much of you for no good person or no good purpose
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They want to shut you out that you may make much of them. They want something out of you
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Now, what is this that I'm referring to in Genesis 21 if we look at Genesis the story
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Genesis 21 is where Isaac is born so 16 so when they come come up with their plan to have have a child through Hagar 21 is where God's promise is fulfilled and in verse 8 verse 8 and The child grew and was weaned speaking of Isaac and Abraham made a great feast on that day
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That Isaac on the day that Isaac was weaned But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the
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Egyptian whom she had born to Abraham laughing or mocking Okay This this is going back to the story and he's saying that mocking that Persecution is still happening today and it's happening to you.
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Okay, they are Ishmael verse 30 But what does the scripture say?
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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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Go back to Genesis 21 verse 10 So she said to Abraham Cast out this slave woman with her son for the son of the slave woman shall not be heir with my son
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Isaac All right So what is he saying?
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He's saying you're Isaac Galatians These troublers are Ishmael Kick him out kick him out
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Cast them away. It seems kind of harsh.
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I can see why he chose an allegory to say this harsh thing a Son can never be cast out but a slave can be
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The slave will never share the inheritance Promised to the true son.
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In fact, that's why this slave is cast out in the story Sarah says he will not share in the inheritance of Isaac There's a huge difference between these two
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All right now People of slavery will say oh no, we're pretty we're pretty close.
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We believe the same thing. It's like no we don't We are not the same thing. He is asking the
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Galatians. What does the scripture say for you to do? Cast out the Judaizers. They have no part in your inheritance.
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They're not part of your family Stop listening to them cast them out of your gathering Now I think about us doing that in here.
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All right, and that would have to be done with great Care. I think our tendency though is to fall into a trap of legalism and to have a spirit of slavery
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Or maybe a mindset of slavery. We want to cast out our fellow sons of God especially
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When they sin against us We want or maybe that they simply don't agree with our theological position we want to cast them out
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Or maybe it's not even about someone else. Maybe it's about us. We feel like we should be cast out as a son
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So the wonderful promise of this text that we love to cling to We often deny to our brothers
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We need to remember a son can never be cast out Legalistic slavery says
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I know that God will never leave me. But if it were up to me You're out of here.
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A son can never be cast out Wait, just wait until we get to chapter 6 when
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Paul tells them that a brother caught in sin Don't he doesn't say cast him out.
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He says restore him gently This slavery mindset seeks to tear
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God's family apart. We saw that last week Paul is coming to them going. Okay, we were so close
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How how am I now your enemy? But that's exactly what that slavery mindset does in the family of God last verse so Meaning here's the point and I hope you get what
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I'm saying I'm gonna apply this to you guys to you all Galatians brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman
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There are only two ways to live. I said this before you can live as a son or you can live as a slave a son of disobedience or a son of grace
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The he's saying to the Galatians these law lovers these promoters of circumcision these deniers of the gospel of grace
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They're not the same as you no matter what they say No matter how they desire they all they do is they desire to make you like them
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To be slaves like them, but you are free. Your salvation is from above you're born out of a promise and you are secure
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This is all about salvation and how we are saved Starting next week chapter 5 we're gonna learn how we are to live as sons of God Okay, but here are two applications for application one
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We need to learn how to understand allegory in the Bible The Bible is a piece of literature and it contains allegory it contains
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Symbolism right it is not to be taken literally all the way through Okay, I think about the one if you're if you're right out causes you to send gouge it out
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Please don't get it out your eye. Talk to me. We'll discuss that. Okay Paul using the inspiration of the
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Holy Spirit is using allegory to explain the symbolic Significance of this historic event and to teach the
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Galatians their position in Christ Okay now in Galatians 4 he points out that this allegory
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That this is allegory. He's saying clearly it's allegory. It's obvious other places.
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Not so much I said that before the Bible is filled with symbolism Okay, not but not everything is allegory either, okay, so you can't just go to it thinking it's some symbolic truth and if we just kind of Move the words around or do something with the numbers in Hebrew It'll like tell us when the end is gonna come it's not that's not what it's for but what we see that is
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Paul using the Old Testament is That God is revealing himself as the sovereign orchestrator.
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This is so good He is the sovereign orchestrator. He's the divine storyteller he is create he has created a history to foreshadow and Accomplish his plan.
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Does that make sense? Can you even fathom that? he's he Paul is pointing to the story of Abraham and to the
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Prophet Isaiah and say God did this So that later you would understand
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I heard someone say recently They were talking about well, I I'd see cycles and I see in history
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I see things repeated and and there's they point to truth and I'm just like no No, it's this is that's too impersonal for me
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This is God if there's if there's if there's anything that that's that's has its
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It's pushing history. It's God himself That's why the Old Testament is relevant
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Bb Warfield says the Old Testament may be likened to a chamber richly furnished but but dimly lit and The introduction of light brings into it nothing which was not there before But it only brings into clear view much of what is in it, but was only dimly or not at all perceived
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Thus the Old Testament revelation of God is not corrected by a fuller revelation of the
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New Testament But it's only perfected it's only extended it's only enlarged
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So when we when we look at the Old Testament, we have the New Testament to help us understand the types and the shadows that God was was stringing through history
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To point us to Christ. I love that that quote second application at some level all of us get this wrong
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We Long for slavery. I long for slavery you long for slavery. You just do right?
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we are adopted sons of the king and we're trying to learn this whole new concept of our of our family is completely different than it was before and Sometimes it's really easy for us to go back and think the way
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Things were under our old parents the law
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I Think about I think about the the prodigal son he does this right on his way back.
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He thinks in his head He says I'm not worthy to be called your son. Make me a servant He acknowledges the truth.
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My sin has separated us, right? And that is completely true, but his answer to the problem is one of his own creation
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He says I can only see myself as a slave in your house I need to prove I need to earn my worth
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Have you ever thought like that? Have you ever thought like I have thought like this?
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I Need to prove my own worth to God I've done something so terrible
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And you know what the story tells us He runs to us now
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The Covenant of Grace is is a covenant that is opposed with the statement
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God helps those who help themselves I got that from Jared Longshore. I thought that was really good He says we say that all the time
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God helps those who help themselves false wrong No, no one has ever received sonship through trusting in their own goodness their own righteousness
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Every son of God has obtained his standing with God through Christ alone
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God helps those who can't help themselves You must be born again, we were naturally born into this world as slaves to sin we were not innocent
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We were enslaved and we were imprisoned and Jesus comes and he proclaims it He says the
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Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to proclaim good news. And here's the good news He sent me to proclaim liberty freedom to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind
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To all those who are under Mount Sinai To all those who are children of Hagar to be set at Liberty those who are oppressed.
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That's Luke 418 Sons of God cannot boast in anything but Christ Okay, and this is what
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I need you to hear today because this is the application Sons of God can only give God praise
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They can only give God glory because we've been given a freedom a freedom from common
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Condemnation that we didn't do anything to desert Nothing, it was all graced
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We as sons of God can never be cast out like the slaves Our our names are written on the palm of his hands right beside the marks of our forgiveness
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That means he's never gonna forget you never Instead we're deeply loved sons of the
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Living God Yes, I know
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Do you when I say that you're a son of God? Does that does there's something inside of you that that wants to qualify that that wants to put a stipulation on that?
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Do you see yourself as a son or daughter of God? I? Think even at that core question.
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I mean we have to think I have to think am I getting this wrong? Sons of God no longer relate to God on the basis of works because he has made us his own
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That we are adopted sons of God cry out to him Abba father. The father saw us like I said, and he ran
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Where we have been doesn't change his heart that says my son that was lost
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Has now returned So what about obedience? Well, that's gonna come in the next chapter
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But if you're not a son of God you can be I Don't know if you're here and that makes sense to you, but maybe in something that I've been describing today of going man
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Maybe I could have that real kind of relationship with God where I don't fear him Where it's not based on me earning his favor
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Where it's based on me being his If that's your desire today,
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I encourage you to talk to me or talk to Josh afterwards This has been a difficult passage for us to go through and so I appreciate your patience as I kind of worked through it
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But I hope that that is I said in the beginning that this Kind of brings some light to this so that next week as we look at a very familiar passage
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We can go. Oh, I can see I can see how he got here. I can see now It was for freedom that Christ has set us free no longer to be under a yoke of slavery.
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Let's pray together father Thank you for your word Thank you for this passage even as though it's one that's perplexed me for a long time
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You bring clarity and for father. I pray that you spoke today and that and people understand you're talking about salvation here
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We're talking about being a son of God and I pray Lord that we would rest in those promises