Be A Disciple 4:12-31

Opening

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Matthew 7:13–14 ““Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

Heaven is this ever-increasing, further up, further into joy, into God, into life.

Hell is the opposite of that. It’s an everlasting movement away from God. C.S. Lewis

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,...Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

A fork in the road. We have all been there. A moment to make decision on which way we shall tread. It may have been a new job opportunity or staying in the one you have, a relationship to fight for or to end, an addiction to satiate or to starve, be a man or women of character or bend to become more agreeable with those around you.

Our lives really are made up of this or that type of moments. Some of these decisions are small cinnamon toast crunch or fruit loops, Decaf or Regular. Some of them are huge this or that’s made out of desperation, out of a back in the corner type of moment.

We see that in the Bible more than once. However, one of the most pivotal of these happens in Gen 16. we have talked about Abraham and Sarah, and odds are you have heard some of these stories before, but let me encourage you to get a sense of the atmosphere around their relationship.

In gen 12 God visits Abraham and he tells Abraham that he is to be made into a great nation, which means he is going to have kids at the unnatural age of 75 years old. This isn’t in the text, but a conversation that had to happen was Abraham telling his 75 year old wife, who hadn’t bore him a child, who had likely come to terms with that, who would’ve had long dead dreams of being a mother hears her husband tell her to dig up that dream and carry it again.

But then 10 years pass, and no child. 10 years of waiting. 120 months of an emotional rollercoaster. I don’t know how many of you have ever tried to have children to no avail, but that is one of the hardest things to endure. The held out hope of the possibility of a child, dashed month after month. Allison and I tried for around 2 years to have Peter. Many tears were shed, and hope would flicker that this miracle would ever take place again. Heart wrenching pain.

Now that has gone on between Abraham and Sarah for 10 years 120 times. Is it any wonder then that when Abraham comes home after gen 15 and he tells his wife again that God has assured him again that they would have a child. I can see a fork in the road in front of Sarah. What if I’m not the one who is to bring this promise to bear for my husband? What if I’m the problem.

So we get this:

Genesis 16:1–2 NIV

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

This fork in the road leads to Abrahams first son, Ishmael, being born out of wedlock. It also leads to anger, mistreatment, jealousy, abandonment. another 14 years pass before Sarah has Isaac.

It was this story that Paul harkens back to in Galatians 4. Paul looks at this story that is well know to his people, but is likely one that was being used by the Judaizesers to convince the gentiles to be circumcized. Paul looks at this story to bring together and end his comparative arguments his this or that kind of arguments (law or faith, law or promise, slaves or sons, them or me, and finally slave or free.)

Galatians 4:21–31 NIV

Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise. These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written: “Be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child; shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.” Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

The fork in the road that Sarah took Paul looks back over it and analyzes this story in a way many of us aren’t used to reading the Bible, but would’ve been part of the school of study Paul was raised in. Paul here is taking this story and using it almost as a map to make sense of the current situation that he finds himself in. This makes it a rather odd and technical section of Paul.

Paul sees two paths one is a path taken according to the flesh and of slavery, the other path taken of freedom and by divine promise. he expounds them talking about 2 covenants. These are the two covenants that Paul has been arguing about for the past 4 weeks. He is bringing those all to a head here. Hagar the slave represents a covenant bound by human performance, whereas Sarah the free woman stands for the children of promise and therefore a covenant secured by promise and by God and is thus able to live within the identity that Isaac had, a child of Abraham.

Paul is reinforcing his claim back in Galatians 3.

Galatians 3:29 “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

The question that Paul is trying to answer and get through to the new believers is ultimately showing them that this current conflict within the church isn’t a new one. The thing that Paul teases out of the Hagar and Sarah story is how this story “ends” in Genesis. It ends with Hagar’s son causing conflict and bothering the son of promise. Paul is saying, when In was with you I told you the whole Gospel, and I told you about the freedom that comes with it, and that it was the fulfillment of God’s promise within the old covenant. Now the people, slaves to the law, are trying to bother the growth that was in them due to Paul’s work among them.

So Paul looks back at the story of Hagar and Sarah, and he shows the Galatians: this division, this tension, this fork in the road — it’s not new.

The slave child persecuted the child of promise — and the same thing is happening now. These teachers are trying to draw you away from your inheritance and back into slavery.

And what does Paul say to do? The same thing the story tells us: “Send them away.”

But listen — this isn’t just cold theology. This isn’t about ideas. It’s about people.

Paul has laid out the arguments, but he doesn’t do that without laying bare his heart.

Before Paul illustrated all of this allegory about Sarah and Hagar… before he asked them to see the two covenants and to send the slave woman away…

He pleaded with them.

What we just read in verses 21–31 is Paul making a theological argument. But earlier — in verses 12–20 — we find why he’s making it.

So let’s step back now — not to undo what Paul just said, but to see what’s beneath it.

Because Paul’s not just trying to win a debate. He’s trying to win back the hearts of people he loves.

His bold words about slavery and freedom, about law and promise — all of that flows from a heart that’s breaking.

These aren’t cold ideas. This is a pastor pleading with his people to be careful about the wolves in sheep's clothing

So let’s go back and hear that part — where Paul shows his heart and calls them back to who they really are.

Galatians 4:12–20 NIV

I plead with you, brothers and sisters, become like me, for I became like you. You did me no wrong. As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you, and even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. Where, then, is your blessing of me now? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may have zeal for them. It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always, not just when I am with you. My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!

Paul reveals here why he’s been so urgently defending gospel freedom. It’s not just about being right — it’s about protecting his spiritual children from choosing the wrong path.

There was an old Jewish saying: “If one teaches the son of his neighbor the law, the Scripture reckons it as though he had begotten him.” Paul had spiritually birthed these believers. He had labored over them in love, and now he sees wolves coming in to pull them away from the promise. He sees the danger they’re in — the danger of forgetting the purpose of their salvation altogether.

The Judaizers would say that the point of Jesus’ death was to finally empower people to keep the law. That salvation was just a better chance to try harder.

But that’s not the goal.

Paul makes it painfully clear in verse 19:

“My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.”

The aim of the gospel isn’t better behavior — it’s inner transformation. It’s not to produce law-abiding shells of religion, but to bring to life Spirit-filled, Christ-formed people who are fully alive and fully free.

That’s the heartbeat of every true pastor, elder, or spiritual leader — not to form followers in their own image, but to see Christ formed in those they love.

As John Calvin once wrote: “If ministers wish to do any good, let them labour to form Christ, not themselves, in their hearers.”

So let me ask you:

Is that the passion that drives your own discipleship? Are you longing to see Christ formed in you, do you even believe that that can take place?— not just to be a better version of yourself, but a new creation?

Or has your walk become more about behavior than transformation? Have you settled for religious effort when you were meant for Spirit-empowered freedom?

The world does not need more legalism and religiosity, we need more Christ. Which means the world needs you in the world needs me to be filled with the Spirit of God, walking in freedom that only Christ can provide not downtrodden guilt ridden, shame filled dull bland, and blah. It needs free grace, chasing mercy living hope giving true little Christs. After all, that’s what Christian means you know that right the word Christian really means little Christ’s. That’s what our purpose is.

If you’re tired of striving... If you’ve forgotten who you are... If you’ve never yet said yes to the grace that adopts you into the family of God...

Then come home. Come to the One who bore the cross to form His life in you.

Choose the fork in the road of the path less traveled because wide is the path and many take it the road that leads to destruction, but narrow and few is the road that leads to life

Come to Jesus, who isn’t asking for more effort — He’s offering more of Himself.

Let this be the moment you respond to Him.

We're going to sing a song of response. But more than singing, I want to invite you to move — maybe that means praying with someone, maybe it means coming forward, maybe it means laying something down that’s been holding you back.

Christ is ready to meet you here. Let Him be formed in you.