Christ Has Set Us Free

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I want to invite you to open your Bibles, and you're actually going to open your Bibles to two places today.
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You're going to open your Bibles to Genesis 16, put your finger there, and then open your Bibles to Galatians chapter 4 and hold your place there.
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It's not every year that Sunday falls on the 4th of July, but this is the year that it did.
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And today is a day where many people around the United States are going to be celebrating the blessing of liberty.
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And liberty is a blessing worth celebrating.
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It is a wonderful thing that we can be here in this place without the fear of someone coming in with the government power and stopping us, as has been happening in other nations and will continue, sadly, in many places.
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So it is a blessing that we get to celebrate liberty.
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And the Bible promotes the concept of liberty.
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Liberty comes from the Latin word, liber, or libertas, which means freedom.
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And this concept is at the heart of the Gospel.
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Freedom is at the heart of the Gospel.
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And today we are going to examine the freedom that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, the liberty that we have in Christ.
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Over the past several weeks, we have been looking at the situation with Hagar and Sarai.
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And we're going to continue that today, but we're going to do so from a little bit of a different light.
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We are going to look at the words of Genesis 16 from the vantage point of Galatians chapter 4, because Paul is going to use Genesis 16 as an allegory for slavery and liberty.
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He's going to use Galatians 4 and Hagar and Sarai's situation as an allegory for those who are in bondage to the law and those who have been set free in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And he's going to essentially say this, you either are enslaved and your mother is Hagar, or you are free and your mother is Sarai.
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And understanding where you are in Christ determines where you are in that analogy.
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So my desire today is to show that the most precious freedom that we have is not national freedom, it's not political freedom, it's not even personal freedom, but the most precious freedom we have is the spiritual freedom we have, which is found only in Christ, freedom to live for Him in this world.
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So let's stand and we're going to read Genesis 16, 1 to 6, and then we're going to turn our Bibles to Galatians chapter 4.
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Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children.
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She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar.
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And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.
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Go into my servant, it may be that I shall obtain children by her.
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And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
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So after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.
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And he went into Hagar, and she conceived.
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And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.
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And Sarai said to Abram, May the wrong done to me be on you.
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I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt.
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May the Lord judge between you and me.
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But Abram said to Sarai, Behold, your servant is in your power.
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Do to her as you please.
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Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.
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Let us now turn to Galatians chapter 4 and verse 21.
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We're going to read past the end of the chapter, because the chapter break here actually breaks the chain of thought.
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I want to read verse 1 of chapter 5, so we're going to read 421 to chapter 5, verse 1.
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Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman.
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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.
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These women are two covenants.
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One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery.
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She is Hagar.
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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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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.
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But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so also it is now.
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But what does the scripture say? Cast out the slave woman and her son.
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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.
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For freedom, Christ has set us free.
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Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
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Amen.
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Father in heaven, thank you for your word.
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May you use it now to change hearts, both the believing and unbelieving.
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In Christ's name, amen.
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I mentioned earlier this is going to be our last study in Genesis for at least five weeks because we're going to be taking a break.
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And so instead of going into chapter 17, I thought it was important to spend one more one more week in chapter 16, especially since we can look at chapter 16 from the vantage point of the Apostle Paul's allegory that he uses regarding Sarai and Hagar.
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And what we're going to do today really is spend some time understanding Paul's argument in Galatians.
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Now, I have not preached Galatians here verse by verse.
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I did preach it at set free, but I've never preached it here.
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One day I hope to, because understanding Galatians really is essential to understanding the New Covenant and understanding the relationship that we have to the Jewish ceremonial law, the laws that were trying to be imposed by the Jewish Christians in Paul's day.
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Not all of them, but what we would call the Judaizers, those who were trying to enforce upon the Gentile Christians, Jewish ceremonial customs, such as circumcision, food laws, dietary restrictions and holy days.
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So to understand the connection between Genesis and Galatians, it's important that we understand Galatians.
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We understand the problem that Paul is addressing in Galatians.
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Understand this, the book of Galatians is not written to one church.
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The book of Galatians is written to the churches of Galatia.
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That would be a group of churches that are in what we would call today Southern Turkey.
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And if you remember reading through the book of Acts, when you're reading through the book of Acts, it talks about Paul's first missionary journey.
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When Paul set out from Antioch and he went through Asia Minor and into that area, which we now call Southern Turkey, he went through some areas that were titled Lystra and Derbe.
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Remember those churches that he was going through in Acts 13 and 14? Those are the churches of the Southern Galatian region.
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Paul goes into those churches in his first missionary journey and he proclaims to them the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And many of those people who were in those churches, or rather, excuse me, let me back up, this is not even going to make sense, I'm just saying many of the churches believed.
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Many people believed and churches were formed.
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That's how it happened.
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It wasn't that they were in the churches, because there was no churches.
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Paul goes in, he preaches the gospel, people believe, and thus churches are formed.
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This is how churches are planted.
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You've heard of planting churches? Well, if you read the book of Acts, that's Paul's church planting ministry.
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He's a missionary planting churches as he goes.
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But here's the thing.
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No church exists in a vacuum.
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Every church has influences from within and from without.
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In fact, dare I say, this church has had many influences from within and from without over the years.
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We're not the same as we were 10 years ago.
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We're not the same as we were 20 years ago.
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We didn't even have the same name 20 years ago.
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This church has been around since 1958.
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It started as Forest Christian Church in a bakery.
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They were meeting in the back of a bakery and then they got their building over on Trout River Boulevard.
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Forest Christian Church was there until 1993 or 4, I think, I don't remember, but we sold the building and we purchased this land and we built this land.
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Several years later, we began to move in a more reformed direction.
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You all know the story.
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We'll talk a little bit more about it next week, some talk about reformed theology and who we are as a church.
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We began to move in that direction and then in 2010, we decided that we needed to change our name to better identify who we are as a church.
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I would say we moved in an upward and positive trajectory.
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Not everybody agrees, but I believe we went in a positive direction.
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What was happening in Galatia was once the church was formed and Paul has formed the church and elders have been established, a lot of these guys are relatively new believers because Paul has just proclaimed the gospel, but he's raised up men, he's trained them, he's given them the task of leading the people, and now he goes away.
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And the door is now open for false teaching to creep in.
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And what happens is a cohort from Jerusalem go to the churches of Galatia to try to encourage them to understand that Paul has misinterpreted to you the gospel.
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Now imagine if that was your, imagine being that person.
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Paul didn't understand the gospel.
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Paul didn't explain the gospel clear enough to you because Paul told you that you need to believe in Jesus, but he didn't tell you everything.
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You see, there were some parts that Paul left out, and the parts that Paul left out were the fact that if you're a Gentile and you believe in Jesus, that's not enough.
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You see, if you're a Gentile and you believe in Jesus, you are still outside of the covenant because to be a part of the covenant, you have to receive the covenant sign.
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What's the covenant sign? The old covenant sign was circumcision, right? So if you're not receiving the sign of circumcision as a sign of being a member of the Abrahamic covenant, being a part of this covenant, you are not really saved.
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You're not really part of the covenant community.
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Think about that just for a moment.
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That is the heart of the church of Galatia, and I believe that it can be argued throughout the book of Galatians that not only were they pushing circumcision.
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Circumcision was the first thing, but they were also pushing dietary restrictions.
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Why do I say that? Well, when Peter comes, because Peter does come, and he's there with them, and he's eating with them, and I can't prove it, but I imagine Peter probably ate what they ate.
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I know he at least ate at the same table they ate at, and by them, I mean the Gentiles, and guess what? Gentiles didn't have any qualms about eating unclean food.
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They didn't have any qualms about having a pork sandwich with shrimp sauce and a side of ham and eggs, have any problem with that, bacon cheeseburgers all around, and Peter's eating with them until the Judaizers come.
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Until this cohort comes and sees him, and what does he do according to Galatians? He separates himself from them, and now he won't eat with them anymore.
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So what does Paul do? My favorite thing, gets in his face.
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Not that it makes me sound bad.
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What I mean is Paul's not afraid to say what needs to be said to Peter.
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Now think about who Peter is.
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Peter is the guy who was with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.
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He is the guy who, after Jesus rose from the dead, he said, feed my lambs, right? Peter's the man, but he made a mistake.
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Paul calls him out on this mistake.
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In fact, let me let you look at this part.
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This part's important.
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Turn to Galatians 2.
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Just turn two chapters over, because I want you to see what the mistake Peter made was.
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It wasn't just the eating.
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It was the separating of the uncircumcised and the circumcised.
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It was the separating of those who were Jewish and those who weren't.
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Look at verse 11, chapter 2, verse 11.
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It says, But when Cephas came to Antioch, Cephas, of course, another name for Peter, When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.
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For before certain men came from James, by the way, James is the pastor of the Church of Jerusalem.
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That's why we know these guys are from Jerusalem, right? And I'm not saying James taught these things.
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I'm saying these guys came from James' church.
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And again, James is preaching to a church filled with Jews.
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This is not an issue for him.
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This is an issue for all of these Gentile nations that are now receiving the gospel.
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So as they go, they're going with this message.
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I don't think it came from James.
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I just want to be clear about that.
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I don't think James is teaching this, but they did come from his church, okay? For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles, that is Peter.
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But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.
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By the way, that's the way Galatians calls the Judaizers, calls them the circumcision party.
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Why? Because that's what they were about.
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They were about applying the Jewish law of circumcision to Gentile believers.
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And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
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Barnabas got a heart as big as anybody in the Bible.
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Barnabas is expressed to be this loving and gracious, godly man.
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And yet even he, Paul says, even he was turned away by this hypocrisy.
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But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, if you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews? We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners.
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By the way, he's not saying he's not a sinner.
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What he's saying is we're not Gentiles.
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The sinners were known as Gentiles by birth, or sinners by birth.
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Gentile equals sinner.
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He's not saying we're not sinners.
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He said we're not like them.
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We're not like the dogs.
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We're not like the rabble, right? We are Jews and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
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So we also have believed in Jesus Christ in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified.
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Listen to what he's saying.
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He's saying, Peter, you come in, you eat with these people.
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The Jewish people come, the circumcision party comes, you separate from them.
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Why? Because you're afraid, right? And you're going to act the hypocrite.
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You're going to step away from the table.
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And in doing so, you're separating yourself from the picture of unity that the gospel brings, because the gospel does one thing really well.
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It tears down the wall between Jew and Gentile.
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By the way, if you don't believe that, go to Ephesians chapter 2.
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We all love Ephesians chapter 2, because up to chapter 2, verse 8, for by grace you save through faith, that not of yourselves, gift of God, not of works.
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Listen, until we get to chapter 2, verse 10, and then we stop reading, right? But there's a whole, the whole rest of the chapter, and the whole rest of the chapter is that the wall, the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile is broken down in Christ.
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And it's not broken down by taking the Gentiles and circumcising them.
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See that's the key.
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The wall of separation is not by adding circumcisions to the Gentiles.
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It is about applying Christ to the whole.
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We see this again in chapter 3.
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Look with me just quickly over to chapter 3.
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Chapter 3 and verse 10.
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For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.
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Now understand this.
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I got to say this, because it's so important.
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The law is good.
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Paul even says that at one point.
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He says the law is good for those who use it lawfully, right? Paul is not saying the law itself is a curse.
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What is he saying? Those who rely on the works of the law are under a curse.
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That's the difference.
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The law has value.
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The law is good.
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The law is a blessing.
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Psalm 150 over and over and over talks about the goodness, or Psalm 119 rather, over and over and over, the goodness of the law of God.
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But what can the law not do, church? It can't save.
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And those who rely on the works of the law are under a curse.
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Because all the law can do in regard to your salvation is make it necessary.
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The law cannot save you.
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The law cannot make you righteous.
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All the law can do is demonstrate your unrighteousness.
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All it can do is leave you desperate.
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All it can do is leave you broken.
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It cannot make you whole, and it cannot save.
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So all who are seeking to be saved by the works of the law are actually under a curse.
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And he goes on.
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He says, curse be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.
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Let me ask you a question.
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If I walked around the room today and said, have you kept all of the things in the book of the law? You would have to say no.
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So what does that mean? You're under a curse.
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Because it says, curse should be, what does it say? Curse should be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law.
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All things.
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You heard people who would say, well, and I hear this all the time, say, are you saved? And they'll say, well, I'm doing pretty good.
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What does that even mean? You've heard people say it, right? I'm doing pretty good.
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What do you mean? Well, I know what the commandments are, and let's just boil it down.
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Let's say it was just 10 commandments, because it could be boiled down to two, love the Lord your God, love your neighbor as yourself, and all the commandments are built on that.
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So we could boil it down to, have you ever done that? Boil it down to two commandments.
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Have you ever loved the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself without error, without sinful or selfish pride? Have you ever loved the Lord the way he deserves to be loved? Do this.
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If you're wondering, the answer is no, you haven't.
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Look at verse 11.
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Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith.
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And notice he's quoting the Old Testament.
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The righteous have always been righteous by faith and not by works of the law.
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This is the consistent testimony of Scripture.
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You are saved by grace through faith and not of yourselves.
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I don't care if you're Adam, I don't care if you're Abraham, I don't care if you're David, I don't care if you're Isaiah, I don't care if you're Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
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You are saved by grace through faith, no matter which side of the cross you are on.
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But you see, the Judaizers believed, yes, you can be saved by Jesus, but it's Jesus plus the keeping of the law.
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It's Jesus plus circumcision.
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It's Jesus plus dietary restrictions.
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Jesus plus holy days.
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And I tell you what, wherever you are in life today, if your answer to the question is, how are you saved? Is Jesus plus anything? I tell you what, you are lost.
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It is Christ alone who saves.
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This is why it goes on to say, verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.
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For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.
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Christ became the curse so that in Christ, Jesus, the blessing of Abraham, might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised Holy Spirit through works of the law.
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No, through faith.
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We receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.
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Understand this, at the beginning of the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul says this.
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He says, if anyone comes preaching a different gospel than the one that I have proclaimed, let him be accursed.
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I say it before I'll say it again.
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If anyone comes preaching another gospel, even if an angel from heaven preaches another gospel, let him be damned.
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That's what the word means, anathema.
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It means let him be cut off.
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Let him be condemned.
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Let him be damned if he would preach a gospel other than the gospel that has been proclaimed.
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And that's what the Judaizers were doing.
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You don't believe that, you go to chapter 5.
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And in chapter 5, he says, I wish those who have been teaching you these things would be emasculated.
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That's the ESV.
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I don't like it.
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Because what it is, it's a play on words.
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The word circumcision is used throughout the book of Galatians.
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Circumcised means to cut around.
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The word he uses is to cut off.
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And it's a play on words.
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Let him be kicked out.
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Let them be removed.
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Let them be cut off.
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All that leads us to the sermon today.
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That was all introduction.
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Because Paul now uses the analogy of Hagar and Sarai as the analogy of this concept.
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The concept of being enslaved to the law and being free in Christ.
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The concept of being under one mother or under the other mother.
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And he provides a dichotomy for us.
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Justification by works.
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Justification by law.
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I'm sorry, faith.
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Justification by law.
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Justification by faith.
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Justification by works.
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Justification by faith.
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And this is the allegory.
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He says, Abraham had two sons.
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One was by a slave woman.
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That is Hagar.
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And notice what he says.
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Born according to what? The flesh.
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Born according to the flesh.
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If you make notes or write notes, you could write this.
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Human accomplishment.
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Hagar is the picture of human accomplishment.
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Abram had a promise from God.
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Abram and Sarai got impatient.
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So they said, hey, we got a promise coming.
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Let's go ahead and get it.
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And Sarai said, well, here is my handmaiden.
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Abram took the handmaiden.
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No argument, right? And they got together and they produced a child according to the flesh.
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Now, all children are according to the flesh.
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But notice he says something different about Isaac.
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He says, Isaac didn't come according to the flesh.
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Isaac came according to promise.
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Because Isaac came through the womb of a woman who was no longer able to bear children.
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Had never been able to bear children.
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Her whole body, her whole life had been unable to sustain and bear a child.
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And now God gave the promise she's going to have a child.
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You know what she does? We're going to get there in a few months when we get back to Genesis.
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You know what she does when she hears that she's going to have a child at like 90? What does she do? She laughs.
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She laughs because what are you talking about? I'm going to have a child in my old age and all of you ladies say amen.
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Because you know what she says.
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You know, don't you get mad at her.
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No one in here is 90 yet, right? Just imagine.
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So you see the picture.
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You've got child born according to the flesh.
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According to human achievement, human effort.
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What you can do for yourself.
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Then you've got the child born according to promise.
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What you can't do for yourself.
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What you can only receive by faith.
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Do we see the picture? Is it hard to understand? The analogy Paul is making, the allegory is so simple.
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A lot of people make this very hard.
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I've read a lot of commentaries where there's a lot of this kind of stuff going on.
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They come back and shoot from one angle.
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They're trying to find all kinds of stuff.
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It's not that hard.
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Hagar is a slave woman.
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Sarai is a free woman.
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Ishmael is born according to the flesh.
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Isaac is born according to promise.
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Sarai is a picture of the covenant at Sinai.
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Why? That's the one that most people get hung up on, right? Why is she called a picture of that covenant? Because the people who are proclaiming to the Galatians this false teaching about circumcision are proclaiming this to be the truth from Sinai.
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They're proclaiming that this message comes from Moses.
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That this is the message of the Old Testament.
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And here's what Paul is saying.
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If you submit yourself to that.
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If you submit yourself to that teaching.
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Then you become a child of Hagar.
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Not a child of Sarai.
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Understand how offensive that would be to Jewish people.
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Because you're basically saying you're a child of Ishmael.
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Not a child of Isaac.
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That's a pretty offensive thing to say.
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And that's just what Paul is saying.
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If you go back under the law.
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You are going back to a system that puts you as a child of Ishmael.
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Rather than a child of Isaac.
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And then he compares Sarai and Hagar to the present Jerusalem and to the Jerusalem above.
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The present Jerusalem, by the way.
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Notice he uses the word present.
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I will make a little bit about this.
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He says the present Jerusalem.
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Now present for him is not present for us.
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We're in 2021.
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But when is Paul writing the book of Galatians? Somewhere around 48 or 49.
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This is one of his first letters written.
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In fact, I believe it is his first letter written.
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So this is one of Paul's first letters.
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It's written somewhere around 48.
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What is happening in Jerusalem at this time? They are carrying on with their sacrifices.
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Even though the Lamb of God has come.
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They're continuing on offering up these sacrifices daily in the temple.
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They're carrying on with their annual sacrifices of the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.
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All of these things are carrying on with the Passover every year.
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And Paul says they are still under the old system and that can't save.
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Hagar is the slavery of the bondage of that system which they are presently doing.
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By the way, when did that old system finally come to a halt? A.D.
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70.
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God allowed one generation to pass from the death of the Lord Jesus Christ to the end of that sacrificial system.
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In A.D.
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70, Emperor Titus came in and laid to waste the city of Jerusalem.
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And he tore it down to nothing.
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And nothing still stands today save one rock wall which is a partition of a side of a building.
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That they now go and they pray to called the Wailing Wall.
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That's all that's left.
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When they came in and destroyed the temple, all that was over.
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People ask me all the time, do I believe another temple is coming? I don't think it's necessary.
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I don't think it's necessary.
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I think the next thing on God's prophetic calendar is Jesus is going to split that eastern sky.
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And I don't know when that's going to come.
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But I tell you what, you better be ready.
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Because when it comes, you ain't going to have time to do anything at that moment.
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The Bible says he will come like a thief in the night.
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So getting back to the analogy.
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And remember, we can't push allegories too far.
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But understand the analogy.
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Hagar is those who are trying to be saved by their works.
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And Sarai are those who are being saved by promise.
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Hagar is human achievement.
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Sarai is faith in the promises of God.
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Modern Judaism.
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I want to say this.
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This may come off as offensive and I'm not attempting to.
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But listen to me.
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Modern Judaism is a perversion of the Old Testament Scriptures.
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It is not a true living out of the Old Testament Scriptures.
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Because their texts point to Christ.
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I watched a video this week.
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It was a Jew trying to explain why they don't believe in Jesus.
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He gave two arguments why they don't believe in Jesus.
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One, he says when Jesus came, we quit being part of the kosher laws.
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And those laws are eternal.
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And therefore, we can't follow Jesus.
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And he's talking about circumcision and all that.
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All the laws.
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And the other thing, he says Jesus is considered divine and that would be idolatry.
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So we can't accept Jesus for those two reasons.
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And while it is not within my time today to answer both of those questions, let me help you understand something.
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The whole Old Covenant has one purpose and that's to point to Jesus Christ.
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The whole Old Testament had one purpose and that was to point to Jesus Christ.
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And Jesus said when he came, it was to do this.
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It was to fulfill the law.
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And when he came and fulfilled the law, all of those Old Covenant ceremonies, all of those Old Covenant sacrifices, every single thing that that Old Covenant had pointed to was fulfilled and done.
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It is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
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And now we cannot be saved by accomplishing those things because number one, we can't accomplish them.
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But number two, that's not the way anymore.
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It's not the way.
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It was never the way.
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The way was always trusting in God by faith, not by trying to achieve something through ceremony.
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The ceremonies had a purpose when they pointed forward.
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And now the purpose is over because Christ has come and we are either in him or not.
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And here's the thing, Paul goes on in this chapter to say, he quotes from Genesis 21, he says, cast out the bond woman.
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Again, time doesn't allow me to break down everything that that means from the Genesis perspective, but understand what he's saying.
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He's saying basically this, if anyone comes in teaching this, they need to be put out.
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If anybody comes in teaching that we have to keep the law to be saved, don't negotiate with them.
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Kick them out.
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Cast out the bond woman.
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And cut them off.
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Remember I talked about that earlier from chapter five.
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This is why we don't negotiate the gospel.
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We don't negotiate how much of the law we have to keep to be saved.
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It's not a negotiation.
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We've lost people to at least one lady I know of in the last 15 years, we lost at least one person to a group that demands that you keep the law.
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And over one thing at a time, one thing at a time, she would come in.
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Well, Jesus kept the Sabbath, so we should keep the Sabbath.
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Well, Jesus didn't eat pork, so we shouldn't eat pork.
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Well, Jesus did this ceremony, so we should do this ceremony.
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And one thing at a time, and I kept saying to her, you're misunderstanding Galatians.
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You're misunderstanding Hebrews.
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You're misunderstanding the new covenant.
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You're missing it.
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But slowly and slowly and slowly she was carried away by that demand to keep the law.
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And let me tell you what has happened.
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Unfortunately, it's almost like a cult because once you're in it, it holds on to you.
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And now everything is about trying to keep those laws.
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Now everything is about keeping that Sabbath, keeping those dietary restrictions, making sure that your life is kosher.
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And you don't live in the freedom of Christ anymore.
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You live under the bondage of that law forever.
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And it cannot save.
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Understand this.
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There is no agree to disagree on this.
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It is the gospel and not for compromise.
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Somebody said, we'll just agree.
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I had a guy at Set Free do that to me one time.
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I was preaching at Set Free.
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He caught me on the way out.
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He goes, well, can I talk to you for a minute? Yep.
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I always kind of brace myself because I never quite know what's going to happen.
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And he said, well, I just want to know what you think about our requirement to keep the law, the Torah, what they call Torah observant, if you ever heard that phrase, Torah observant, sometimes called Hebrew roots is another name of the movement.
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It hasn't gone anywhere.
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The Judaizers just have a different name.
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He said, I want to know what you think about being Torah observant.
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And I said, well, I said, I can.
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I said, what do you kind of push it back? What do you think? And, well, I think we have to do this and we have to do that.
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We have to keep this law.
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We have to keep that law.
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And I said, well, what I think is you really don't understand Galatians or Hebrews, and you really don't understand the whole old covenant or the new covenant.
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I said, because you are willing to go back under the old covenant and try to find your salvation through there rather than resting in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Your mother is Hagar, not Sarai.
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I didn't say that.
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I really wish I had.
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But I wasn't in this text.
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I wasn't on my mind.
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But that's really the answer.
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You know, who's your mother, right? Because if you're in Christ, you are a son of promise through Sarai.
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If you are trying to find salvation through the law, you are in slavery and bondage with Hagar.
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That's the picture that we're given here.
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Salvation is either all in Christ or it's not in Christ.
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It's either completely in Him or it's not in Him.
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Notice, I want you to see one last verse in Galatians.
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Turn to chapter 5 and look at verse 4.
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Verse 4 says it all.
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You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law.
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You have fallen away from grace.
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Now, a lot of people try to use that verse to prove that you can lose your salvation.
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That's not what it's saying.
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What it is saying is this.
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The doctrine of salvation by grace through faith was preached to you.
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If you accept the doctrine of justification by law, you are abandoning the doctrine of justification by grace through faith.
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And you are severed from the Lord Jesus Christ.
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This is serious business, folks.
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This is why theology matters.
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This is why I don't care where you came from this morning.
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I don't care who you are.
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I don't care what your background is.
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If you are trying to find salvation in something other than the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are still lost.
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Paul says in verse 1, for freedom Christ has set us free.
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Free from what? Free from the bondage of the law.
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Free from trying to accomplish what we can't.
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Christ did what we couldn't do.
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The law condemns, but Christ kept it for us.
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And now we stand before God in Christ as if we have kept the law because Christ kept the law perfectly in our place.
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And therefore we are free in Him.
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Not free to indulge the lusts and depravity of our heart, but free from condemnation.
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Free from legalistic ceremonial demands.
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Free from the do's and free to live in the done.
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You understand there are only two religions in the world.
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The do and the done.
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Every other religion, I don't care whether it's Baha'i, Shintoism, Taoism, I don't care what religion it is.
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Every other religion in the world is a do, do, do.
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Do this, do that, do this, do that.
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And maybe you will find peace, joy, satisfaction and salvation.
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The Bible says only in the finished work of Christ is there salvation.
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Not what you do, but what has been done.
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In a minute we're going to sing Rock of Ages.
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And the third verse of Rock of Ages says this.
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Nothing in my hands I bring.
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Simply to the cross I cling.
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Naked come to thee for dress.
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Helpless look to thee for grace.
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Foul I to the fountain fly.
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Wash me Savior or I, that's it.
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I either am washed in the blood of the Lamb or I die.
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Last question and I'll close.
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Last question.
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Maybe write this down.
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Maybe put this in your mind.
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Maybe ask your spouse this.
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Maybe ask your children this.
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But always be sure to ask yourself first.
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How many of you are still trusting in your Hagar's? Instead of resting in the promise of God, how many of you are still looking for what you can accomplish? Stop trusting in what you can do.
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And trust only in what he can do.
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John Gerstner was the mentor of the late R.C.
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Sproul.
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And John Gerstner said one of my favorite lines.
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He said, It is not our sins that separate us from God as much as it is our damnable good works.
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Hear that again.
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It's not our sins that separate us as much as it is our damnable good works.
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Because we trust in them.
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Rather than trusting in Christ.
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Trust not in yourselves.
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Cast out the bond woman.
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And trust only in him.
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That's the message of Paul to us today.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for your truth.
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And I thank you that your word tells us that there is salvation in no one else.
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For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
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In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And Lord, I pray if there's anyone today who's trusting in anything other than Jesus, Lord, that they would repent of their sin.
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That they would repent of the works that they're trusting in.
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And that they would trust only in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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In whose name we pray.
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Amen.