Galatians 4:21-31
You may be seated. Please turn
in your copy of God’s Word to Galatians 4. You can find the
fourth chapter of Galatians on page 974 in the pew edition in
front of you. Galatians 4, 21 to 31 is our
passage for the day. We’re ending, getting close to
the end of Paul’s long argument to the Galatians of why they
should not rely on the works of the law, but simply trust
in Jesus and him alone for salvation. And so we want to pick up in
that argument with the words of the apostle Paul from Galatians
4, beginning at 21. Paul says to these Christians,
tell me you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen
to the law? For it is written that Abraham
had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was
born according to the flesh while the son of the free woman was
born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically. These women are two covenants.
One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery. She is
Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. She corresponds to the present
Jerusalem for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem
above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written, rejoice,
O barren one who does not bear. Break forth and cry aloud, you
who are not in labor. For the children of the desolate
one will be more than those of the one who has a husband. Now
you brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just
as at that time, he who was born according to the flesh persecuted
him who was born according to the spirit. So also it is now. But what does the scripture say?
Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave
woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman. So
brothers, we are not children of the slave, but of the free
woman. Pray with me. Lord, give us eyes
to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand the things that
are written in your scriptures so that we can love and serve
and worship you so that our faith can be strengthened. And we do
pray that if there be one here today who knows you not, that
they may see your free grace offered in Jesus, your dear and
precious son, and receive him and rest in him alone for salvation. Hear us, help us, and bless us
now, we pray in Jesus’ holy and mighty name, amen. I imagine
many of you have seen the great classic movie, The Christmas
Story. Remember the kid that wants a
BB gun, the Red Ryder BB gun, and everybody’s against him.
You’ll shoot your eye out, right? Well, there’s a wonderful scene
in that movie that’s worth watching every Christmas, and it’s the
great philosophical discussion at the local elementary school.
If you lick a frozen flagpole, Will your tongue stick? And that
great scene of those boys going back and forth. Oh, your tongue
won’t stick. My old man says it, Will. Your
old man’s full of it, right? And there’s the dare. There’s
the double dare. There’s the double dog dare.
And then there’s the triple dog dare. And you know how that scene
ends. Poor old Flick licks the flagpole. And the fire department comes
after everyone is scattered. They rescue the poor boy, and
I imagine he doesn’t eat or drink much for a week or two until
his tongue heals. And we all remember, don’t we,
the triple dog dare, where the earth stops spinning in rotation,
the sun stands still, and everyone in heaven and earth waits to
see if the person will take the dare. And I think that’s in a
sense what the apostle Paul is now doing is he’s ramped up his
argument to the Galatian church over and over and over and over
again. He’s dared them to trust in the law and dared them to
earn righteousness by the works of their own hands. He’s dared
them to continue on on that perilous journey. and see that it ends
in damnation and hell for by no works of the law will any
human be saved, he has said to the Galatian church. And so Paul
is triple dog daring them to go back to the law. He’s double
daring them, double dog daring, triple, the whole, the whole
thing to, abandon all they possess in Jesus
and to go back to the law. Now notice how he speaks to them
in this passage. He speaks in general at first,
you who want to live under the law. Have you thought about it?
He’s kind of general. You live under the law. And then
as he makes his way through this argument and you get to verse
28, he says, now you brothers, he’s speaking to the church as
a whole. You want to live under the law? Daria, go for it. But then he figures some have
listened to his whole line of argumentation that we’ve seen
in the last couple of chapters of Galatians. And he says, now
you brothers like Isaac are children of the promise. I want us to
think for a moment about verse 21, where he says, tell me you
who desire to be under the law. Have you read it? Have you, have
you thought about it? Remember, In the ancient days,
people did not have their copies of God’s word. No printing press
yet. I could hold up my phone. People don’t have copies of God’s
law. They had to go to synagogue and
hear it. They had to go to church where there was a scroll and
hear it read and explained by a rabbi or now in the days of
the early church, the apostles and those entrusted with the
gospel of the Lord Jesus. And so just as this letter circulated
to the Galatian churches would have been, so the Old Testament
was read aloud in the hearing of God’s people. They had to
listen. They had to ingest it, digest it, meditate on it. They
had to remember it and recall it week in by weekend as they
would go and hear the word publicly read. Do you not listen to the
law, he says to them? Do you not hear what it says?
Have you not felt its weight? Have you not heard the rumblings
and the shaking of Mount Sinai when God’s law is read? Do you
not remember the imprisonment you were under? when you were
held under and held captive to the law of God. Do you not remember
its weight, its heaviness, how God demands exact obedience? God demands perfect obedience.
God demands perpetual and entire obedience. And if you don’t,
There’s a damning effect. There is life everlasting apart
from God. He’s already explained to them
the law was preparatory. It was that tutor. It was that
childcare facilitator that kept the minors Israel under the thumb
of God until Jesus came and fulfilled all righteousness and granted
us grace through faith. Galatians, you who want to be
under the law, have you read the fine print? It’s an impossible
task. It’s an impossible burden to
bear. Read the law aloud again, let
it sink in and you would choose differently. There’s a news show
I enjoy watching where the reporter hits the streets. And he goes
with the news of the day and he asks people on the street,
sticks the microphone in their face. What do you think about
the job the president’s doing? What do you think about this
law that has been enacted in Congress? What do you think about
this certain social issue or custom that’s widespread these
days? And you probably have seen these
same interviews. The people are just plain ignorant.
They don’t know what communism is. They don’t know what socialism
is. They don’t know what racism is. They don’t know what the
issues of the day are. They’re just regurgitating what they’ve
read on X or Twitter. They’re just saying again and
mimicking what they’ve heard elsewhere. And this reporter
sticking the microphone in the face, what do you think about
it? Well, have you thought about it? Have you really thought about
it? Are you sure you want to stick
with that position? And I think that’s what Paul
is doing with the Galatian church. Galatians, have you read the
law? Galatians, can you justify yourself
by living perfectly righteous lives before the Lord? Scrutiny of the judge of the
earth. Can you bear the weight of the
law? Can you justify yourself by the
works of your hands? Is your obedient perfect? Perfect. Is your law keeping just? Paul said to the Galatians earlier,
if we are justified by the law, then Christ died for no purpose. You cannot keep the law. You
won’t keep the law. And if you wanted to, which you
wouldn’t want to, you couldn’t. And so it’s a futile effort.
Well, Paul is giving, I don’t know what number argument this
is in this whole string of arguments he’s made in Galatians, but he’s
given them biblical arguments. He’s given them theological arguments.
He’s given them personal arguments. He’s given them pastoral arguments. And now he’s taking an Old Testament
passage of scripture, Genesis 21, And he’s giving, as the apostle
had the authority to do under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
he’s giving meaning or application to the story of Abraham, Isaac,
and Sarah, and to the story of Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael.
He’s giving New Testament meaning, if you will. He’s giving now
that Christ has come, meaning to this passage. And so in Genesis
21, we get the tail end of a long lengthy story of Abraham, just
the CliffsNotes version here. Remember, Abraham was called
out of Ur of the Chaldeans. He was living in pagan Babylon,
worshiping idols. And God said, Abram, up from
the land, you and your people and your possessions, and go
to the land I will show you. Well, God brought him to the
promised land. And he brought his wife, Sarah, all his possessions,
all his people, and he brought nephew Lot with him. And he went
into the promised land and he built an altar and there called
on the name of the Lord. Now life wasn’t always so rosy
for Abraham. Abraham, when there was a famine,
went down to Egypt and lied about his wife. She’s my sister. And
God dealt with Pharaoh because he took Abram’s wife, Sarah,
to be his wife. And the same happened later with
Abimelech. A couple of times he loses his
faith and he cries out to God, Hey, I’m getting old here. You
promised me a child. You promised that there would
be a child from me and from my wife, Sarah, and that child hasn’t
come yet. And God says, hold up here. I’m
the God who does it all. And one day you’ll wake up and
there will be a child, I promise you. My steadfast love will accomplish
this. My power will make it so. And
a little time goes by and you know how we can get, God, where
are you? God, what are you up to? God,
are you asleep in the heavens? And so we began to concoct our
own plans. And so Sarah concocted a real doozy. Hey, Abe, I can’t
seem to have a baby. So why don’t you take Hagar and
well, make the child of promise. Now, Abraham being a good husband
said, now, honey, uh, remember when Satan tempted Eve in the
garden and, and, and, and Adam just stepped in and said, no,
honey, we’re not doing this and saved all mankind from unrighteousness.
No, that’s not what happened. And that’s not what happened
with Abe. He said, wow, honey, what a great idea. And so he
went to Hagar and they produced a child and Ishmael is the child. And so what Paul is saying in
this passage is Abraham failed to trust God. Sarah failed to
trust God. And so they made a child of promise,
so to speak, by works. And it doesn’t work that way.
God supernaturally later would produce Isaac in the womb of
Sarah. I love how the Bible speaks so
euphemistically about Abraham and Sarah. You can read it in
Genesis and you can read it also in Hebrews 11. Abraham was old. Abraham was 99 years old when
the angels were coming to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And they
said, Hey, next year, by the way, we’ll be back. And we’re
going to be bringing baby presents. There’s going to be a baby shower
in a year for you and Sarah and Isaac. And Abraham laughed. And
Sarah was in the tent making provisions to feed these three
angels that were going to Sodom and Gomorrah. And she’s chuckling
too. And it was a laugh of unbelief.
It was a laugh of God, you can’t be serious. And the language
of the Bible says Abraham was old, he was as good as dead.
And it said of Sarah, the ways of women had ceased. She was
past the years of childbearing. And so how is this old guy and
this old gal gonna produce a baby? Well, God promised it would be
so. And so you see the circumstances, the differences between the two
mothers and the two sons, the two births and the covenant. And all these things. And so
Paul is explaining to them in Genesis 21 how these two women
represent the two ways they’re struggling with either live by
faith in the son who died and gave himself up for us or live
by the works of your own hands, the righteousness. that you think
you can achieve. Well, after all these arguments,
biblical and theological and pastoral and personal, and his
explanation of Genesis chapter 21, he also makes a quote from
Isaiah 54. And Isaiah 54 is not about Sarah,
but in the providence of God, under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, Paul, in addition to explaining Genesis 21, takes
Isaiah 54 and says, it is about Sarah. It is about Sarah. And so he writes in Galatians,
which is now scripture, and it’s a proper interpretation of Isaiah
54, the barren woman will rejoice. And you remember so well, don’t
you? When that 90 year old woman had a baby boy and a hundred
year old man had a baby boy, they laughed. And I don’t know
what it was like, but you know what it’s like to hold a child,
to hold a baby, to look in their eyes and wiggle their fingers
and all those sorts of things. And can you imagine these old
folks being parents? I mean, they should be great
grandparents, shouldn’t they? I mean, maybe even great greats at that
age, but they’re holding a little baby that is their own and they
laugh because of the joy of a baby, but they laugh because God in
his wisdom and providence and in his timing and in his perfect
Everything has given them Isaac. And so he’s saying to the Galatians,
you who want to be under the law, let’s think about it one
more time. He’s given them chance after chance to get their thinking
right. And there’s a contrast, isn’t there, of twos. That’s
the number twos. There’s two mothers in this passage.
There are two sons in this passage. There are two covenants in this
passage, two cities. and two mountains, but also two
spiritual conditions. The two mothers are obviously
Sarah and Hagar. And Paul has already said to
the children of God at Galatia, you’re children by faith of father
Abraham. And now he’s saying to them,
you’re children of faith by mother Sarah. But there’s two mothers,
Sarah and Hagar. There’s two sons. There’s Isaac,
the son of the covenant, who was supernaturally born to aging
parents. And then there’s Ishmael, not
the son of the covenant. Yet don’t we see in God’s wisdom
and in his blessings, he blesses Ishmael to some degree because
he’s Abraham’s son. Whatever Abraham touches gets
blessed, maybe not in a saving way, maybe Ishmael never sees
really the steadfast love of God again as he goes off to Egypt,
but God nevertheless blesses him in some temporal earthly
way because he’s a son of Abraham. Then there’s two covenants. There’s
the covenant God made with Abraham. I will be your God. You’ll have
offspring that outnumber the sand on the seashore. You’ll
have offspring that if you can count the dust of the earth,
your offspring will be more than that. And then you’re going to
inherit this land and it’ll be your land forever. It’ll be your
land into eternity. But then there’s the Mosaic covenant.
Obey God and live, disobey God and die. There’s two cities.
There’s a Jerusalem above. It’s full of free people. It’s
full of people by faith who are children of Abraham and Sarah,
who are born again from above by the power of the spirit into
the family of almighty God. And then there’s the Jerusalem
below. And let’s land for a second on
Jerusalem below. This is the city. This is the mothership of the
Galatian Judaizers, isn’t it? This is where they’re getting
the rules from. They got a satellite connection. to Jerusalem. You got to obey
the law. You got to be circumcised. You
can’t just trust in Jesus. That’s not good enough. If you
trust in Jesus plus circumcision, you’ll be good to go. If you
trust in Jesus plus law keeping and ceremonies and days and months
and feast and festivals, you’ll be good to go. But if you want
to rest in Jesus alone, that’s not going to cut it. The Judaizers
are teaching. And so Paul is saying that system
of doctrine, That way of living is no way of salvation at all. You’ve got to simply receive
and rest in Christ alone for your salvation. And remembering
that Christ has obeyed the law of God perfectly. Christ has
fulfilled all righteousness. Christ has died the death you
deserved and paid for your sins that you committed. And so we
remember that in our justification, when we come to faith in Jesus,
God sees us two ways, just as if we’ve never sinned because
of the atoning work of Jesus. But also just as if we’ve always
obeyed, God gives us Jesus’ perfect righteousness. Sins paid for,
obedience credited to our account. And so those are the two conditions,
aren’t they? You can be dead in sin and trespasses,
never being able to earn your way up to heaven. That’s the
Jerusalem below. Or you can rest and receive. what Jesus has accomplished for
you in the cross. That’s the Jerusalem from above.
And that city is populated, isn’t it? With blood bought people.
I love reading the book of Revelation and seeing the images of heaven
and the people in their white robes, the people worshiping
night and day saying worthy is the lamb who is slain. and seeing
and reading and envisioning the experience of being in the throne
room of God, where people night and day say, I can’t believe
I’m saved. I can’t believe I’m here. I can’t believe what God
has done for me in Jesus. And they bow and worship him
in eternity. That’s where our loved ones in
Christ are. What a happy thought, isn’t it?
As we worship today, we remember what Hebrews 12 says. We’ve not
come to Mount Sinai, which shook and was covered in thunder and
lightning and scared the wits out of the people of Israel so
that they said to Moses, you go to the mountain and talk to
God and you come back over here away from the shaking and rumbling
and you tell us what he said. We can’t stand his holiness.
We can’t stand his presence. We can’t stand the terror of
the awesomeness of almighty God. And Hebrews 12 goes on to say,
no, you’ve come to a better mountain. You’ve come to Mount Zion in
heaven with the innumerable angels. And you’ve come to the festal
gathering where the saints who’ve been made perfect as they’ve
risen up into their glorification. Worship night and day. That’s
where we are in worship now. We are united with all those
who on this earth call on the name of Jesus today. But we are
united with those in heaven who are worshiping God 24-7, even
our loved ones who have gone before us. And so which city
do you want to belong to? Which mother do you want to claim?
Which son do you want to be? Which covenant do you want to
live under? He’s also spoken of two mountains, Mount Zion.
and Mount Sinai. Brothers and sisters, if you
are in Jesus, if you are in the covenant of grace, you are free,
you are an heir, you have experienced the new birth. But if you want
to live under the bondage of the law, if you want to attempt
to fulfill all righteousness for yourself and by yourself
and self justify your life before God, if you want to be a law
keeper, Our God through the apostle Paul in the book of Galatians,
reading Genesis 21 and Isaiah 54 says, you are to be cast off. You are from a city that is barren,
that cannot give spiritual birth by law-keeping. Only supernatural
birth comes by the power and the voice of almighty God. And
so dear Christians at Galatia, Paul is saying, and to you brothers
and sisters, In 2020, well, it’s almost 2024, isn’t it? You’re
children of the promise. If you’ve rested in Jesus, you
are sons of father Abraham by faith in Christ. You are children
of Sarah, the free woman. You’ve been brought out of Egypt
and you don’t want to be like the Israelites who a week or
so out of Egypt said, you know, we had leeks and onions and we
had garlic and we had really good food there. The work stunk.
The taskmasters were pretty rough on us. We still have the stripes
on our back and the calluses on our hands. And yes, we’ve
just gotten the redemption that we called out for, but we’d rather
go back to Egypt because at least we had good grub. That’s what
he’s saying to the Galatians, be children of Sarah, not Hagar. And what about this persecution
business that comes? You read in chapter 21 of Genesis
that when the little child Isaac was weaned, probably about three
years old, He was a big boy now. And you can get the picture.
They’re basically throwing a birthday party for him. They’re throwing
a birthday party, and all of us poor boys, we’ve been dressed
up in the bobby socks and the saddle shoes and the fluffy shirt
and the goofy little dress outfit, because our parents thought that
made us look good. And can’t you imagine little
Isaac is all dolled up like that? And Ishmael, who’s about 16,
says, ha ha. And he’s not just laughing. He’s
holding contempt. The son of the slave woman is
showing contempt for the son of the free woman. And Sarah,
I don’t know if she knows what she’s saying when she says to
Abraham, get rid of her, cast her out, throw her out of the
tent and the camp of Abraham, send her out into the wilderness,
send her out into Egypt. And as I say, all these words,
aren’t you getting the picture of the bigger picture of God’s
people? You can be sent to Egypt, that’s exile. You can be sent
to Egypt, that’s slavery. You can be sent out in the wilderness,
that’s wandering. Or you can stay in the fold and
in the family of Abraham. Remember that sweet story, the
rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had everything in
this life, but did not have faith. And Lazarus was the poor man
out in front of his house. And even the dogs would lick
his wounds. But roles reversed, didn’t they?
It says Lazarus went from the poor street life to Abraham’s
bosom. Isn’t that a sweet picture of
what being in God’s family is like? We are held and we are
embraced by God himself. We are in Abraham’s bosom. We are children, not according
to the flesh, but we are children according to the promise. And
Paul says very boldly here, and I know we live in a, Oh, politically
correct world today. We’re supposed to be nice. Everybody’s
supposed to get a trophy. And just as Sarah said to Abraham,
you kick this slave boy out of my house. He will not persecute
the son of righteousness. God is saying to the Galatians,
don’t you see this powerful argument? It’s the triple dog dare. You
love Abraham people. Well, I’m gonna tell you what
Abraham did. And I’m gonna tell you what you better do at the
church at Galatia. You better cast out from the Galatian churches,
the slave child. You better cast out from among
you the persecutors of Abraham’s offspring. You better cast out
from among you into the desert, outside the camp, outside the
church, outside the covenant community, those who persecute
the ones of us born to be set free in Jesus Christ by the power
of the Holy Spirit. I hope, brothers and sisters,
this picture is very vivid to you today. There’s two mothers. There’s two covenants. There’s
two mountains. There’s two cities. There’s two ways of life, but
ultimately there are two destinies. The Jerusalem below, which will
kill you. It’ll put you in your grave.
You’ll work your fingers to the nubbins and have nothing to show
for it in eternity. Or do you want to be a citizen
of the heavenly city? receiving and resting in Jesus
alone, where you will for the rest of your lives, the rest
of eternity, worship him who saved you, him who obeyed for
you, him who bled for you in order that you might be the offspring
of Abraham and be returned into his family, into his bosom like
sweet Lazarus. May it be so, pray with me. Lord,
give us faith. to see our condition, our sinful
condition, our woeful condition, we’re lost and without hope in
this world except for Jesus Christ. Lord, help us to receive and
to trust in him alone. Build up our faith today if we
haven’t already. Help us to cast aside the things
of slavery and to live out of the grace that is ours in Jesus. Thank you that you brought us
out of the desert and brought us into your celestial city.
And we do long to be there. So come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.
Make all things new and bring us home. We pray in the mighty
name of Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the
world. Amen.