Two Houses

Two Houses

Subject: Whose child are you — the slave woman’s or the free woman’s?

Complement: You are the free woman’s child — born by promise, not by effort — so you can put the old slavery out and live as a free-born heir.

Dominant Thought: Those God births by promise belong to the free woman and must live free.

Aim: That every believer worn out from striving to earn what promise already gave would stop, put the old bondage out of the house, and live free.

Propositional Statement: Because God has made us children of the free woman by promise, we cast out the old slavery and live free.

Big Idea: Two houses — one makes slaves, one makes free children. You were born in the free woman’s house, so live like it.

Sermon Thesis: Following Paul’s picture of two mothers and two houses, this sermon shows we are born of the free woman by promise, not effort, and calls the striving heart to put the old bondage out and live as a free-born heir.

Galatians 4:21–31 ESV

21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27 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.” 28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 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. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

INTRODUCTION

Last week we left Paul in labor. Galatians four, verse nineteen — the apostle groaning like a mother in childbirth, hurting to see Christ formed in a people who kept slipping back. Verse twenty, he says he is perplexed — ἀποροῦμαι (aporoumai), like a man walking a road that just ran out on him.

And then watch what he does. A man who just put himself in the place of a mother turns around, verse twenty-one, and preaches you a sermon about two mothers. He is still in the delivery room, still asking the only question a mother’s heart asks over a child: whose are you?

Now Paul is about to say a lot in these ten verses. Two women. Two sons. Two mountains. Two cities. So let me hand you one thing to hold, and if you hold nothing else, you will have the sermon. There are two houses. One belongs to the slave woman, and everything born in that house comes out a slave. One belongs to the free woman, and everything born in that house comes out free. Two houses. There is no third address.

So I have to ask you, Grace, before we go one verse further: whose child are you? Were you born in the slave woman’s house… or were you born of the free?

I.  Two Ways to Be Born

Galatians 4:21–23 ESV

21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.

Verse twenty-one: “Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?” You want the law so bad — have you actually listened to what it says?

Now let me tell you the story Paul is preaching from, because if you do not know the story, none of this will land. God comes to an old man named Abraham and makes him a promise: you are going to have a son. One problem. Abraham is old. Sarah is old. Her womb is dead, and everybody in the camp knows it. And the promise takes its time. Ten years. Then more. And somewhere in there Sarah does the math and comes up with a shortcut. She has a servant girl named Hagar — young, healthy, and in no position to say no. Sarah tells Abraham: go in to her, we will get the baby that way. Abraham says yes. And Hagar has a son named Ishmael.

A real baby. A real son. But a son produced by human arithmetic. And God comes back and says — that is not the one. Then when Abraham is a hundred and Sarah is ninety, that dead womb comes to life and Isaac is born. His name means laughter, because the promise finally showed up, and it showed up funny.

Two sons. Verse twenty-three: the slave’s son was born κατὰ σάρκα (kata sarka) — according to the flesh, the muscle you flex trying to make God’s promise happen on your own strength. But the free woman’s son was born δι’ ἐπαγγελίας (di’ epangelias) — through promise, a word God spoke over a dead womb before anybody lifted a finger. Two houses. Two ways to be born. You can strive it, or you can receive it.

Illustration.  My grandmother made a pound cake you would leave church early for. The one thing she would not let you do was rush it. Low and slow. If the process was rushed — you know exactly what comes out. Burnt around the edges, raw in the middle, fallen right in the center. Some things you cannot force. You rush what was made to rise on its own, and you ruin it. That is Ishmael. That is flesh — a blessing you cranked the oven on. It has got Abraham’s name on it, but it fell in the middle.

Application.  Can I stop right here and tell the truth on some of us? We have learned how to say “I’m waiting on the Lord” with our mouth while our hands are busy building Ishmael. You put it on the prayer list Sunday morning — and Sunday night at eleven-forty you were texting somebody you already know good and well is not the promise, because you got tired of waiting. You told the church you were believing God for the money, then went and signed something you cannot cover and called that faith. You asked God to open a door, then went and talked about the person standing in it, just to help God along a little. Some of us have prayed about a thing and posted about the same thing in the same hour — asked the Lord to fight for you, then got online to make sure everybody picked a side. Now here is how you can tell flesh from promise every single time: Ishmael has to be managed. He has to be watched, propped up, explained, defended. Anything you have to keep alive by yourself, you are going to have to keep alive by yourself — forever. But Isaac came to a dead womb and a hundred-year-old man, and nobody had to prop him up. So if you are worn out this morning trying to birth something God already promised, put your hands down. You were not built to do God’s job. Stop cranking the oven.

Transition: “Alright, Pastor — so if I wasn’t born by my own scheming but by God’s promise, then which house is that? Whose child does that make me?”

II.  The House That Grace Built

Galatians 4:24–27 ESV

24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27 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.”

Illustration.  I think most of us have grown up around a woman like Miss Mattie Pearl. Never had children of her own — folks counted her out years ago, said she would never be anybody’s mama. But you go down her street on a Sunday and there are fifteen plates on the table. Half the neighborhood calls her Mama. She raised children the state gave up on, fed babies that were not hers, and carried more of other people’s grief than any woman with a house full of her own. The one everybody said was barren ended up mother to the whole block. Hold that picture. Paul is about to tell you it is a gospel picture.

Verse twenty-four. Paul says God hid a picture inside that old story, and here it is: these two women are two covenants — two houses. Hagar is Mount Sinai. Sinai is where the rules came down, and Paul says that mountain has been raising slaves ever since. Because a covenant that says do this and live can only produce people working off a debt. Verse twenty-five: that is still the religion of most folks — earn your keep with God. Good house rules. Slave children.

But verse twenty-six. Oh, I love verse twenty-six. “The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.” There is another house — ἄνω (anō), above — a city whose foundations were dropped down from heaven, not built up out of your sweat. And she is free — ἐλευθέρα (eleuthera) — a woman who does not owe anybody her freedom papers. And Paul says she is ours.

Then he reaches back and grabs Isaiah, verse twenty-seven: “Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear.” The woman who could not produce ends up with more children than the woman who could. Grace out-mothers the flesh every time. The Mother everybody counted out fills the house.

Application.  Let me take you somewhere. One day you are going to walk into that city — the free woman’s house — and what is going to shock you is not the gold. It is the guest list. Because there are folks sitting in this room who have spent their whole lives being the outside child. You know what an outside child is. Family will feed you, family will speak to you, but when they line up to take the picture, somehow you end up standing off to the side holding somebody’s purse. Nobody ever says it out loud. You just learn where you stand. And some of you have been doing that with God for thirty years — here every Sunday, giving out of an empty account, serving where nobody thanks you — and still standing off to the side, half expecting somebody to come tell you that you do not really belong in this family.

So let me tell you who I am going to see in that city. The sister who could not have children and got tired of everybody asking her when. The man who raised three that were not his and never once got his name on a single one of them. The brother two years clean who still walks in feeling like company.

And every one of them is in the picture. Front row. And here is the reversal Isaiah promised: the house is full of their children — because the mother who could not produce out-produced the one who could. So hear me, whoever needs it: you are not the outside child. She is our mother, this is our family, and there is no such thing as an outside child in the house grace built. Get out from behind that purse and get in the picture.

Transition: “But Pastor — if I really live in the free woman’s house, why does that old slave-driver still walk around in here like he pays rent? What am I supposed to do about him?”

III.  Put Him Out

Galatians 4:28–31 ESV

28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 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. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

Paul answers you straight. Verse twenty-eight: “Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.” That is your name. But verse twenty-nine says it will not be quiet — back then the son born of the flesh mocked the son born of the Spirit, and so it is now. So if you are catching heat for standing on grace, do not panic. That is not proof you are wrong. That is the family resemblance. Isaac got picked on too.

Now verse thirty, the hinge of the whole thing. “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.” That word cast out — ἔκβαλε (ekbale) — is not “kindly show her the door.” It is put her out. Why so strong? Because two houses cannot split one inheritance. You cannot be saved by grace and keep a back room reserved for earning it.

Pastoral Word.  Now let me stop and take care of something, because some of you flinched when I read verse thirty — and you should have. A woman put out of the house with a baby on her hip and sent into the wilderness. If that struck something in you, if that sounded like every time somebody with power put a woman and her child out and called it the will of God, I am not going to rush past it.

So hear two things. First, Paul is not putting a woman out; Paul is putting a covenant out. In this passage Hagar stands for a system — that do-more, earn-your-keep religion that keeps people in bondage. It is the slavery that gets evicted, not the woman.

And second — don’t miss this — go read what God Himself did with Hagar. Genesis sixteen. Hagar is out in that wilderness, used up, thrown away, nobody’s priority, and the God of heaven comes and finds her. He was not out there looking for Abraham. He went looking for her. And Hagar turns around and gives God a name — El Roi, the God who sees me. She is the first person in all of Scripture to name God. And when she is out there again with her boy dying of thirst, God opens her eyes and shows her a well. So do not ever let anybody tell you the God of this book throws women and babies away. Sarah put her out. God went and found her.

And hear me clean, so nobody twists this. Paul is not telling you to cast out holiness. He is telling you to put out slavery as your way of getting in — the idea that you still have to earn what Christ already bought. The free woman’s children obey too. They just obey from the inheritance, not for it.

Application.  So here is the one thing I want to put in your hand this morning. There is a slave-driver living in your house, and today you evict him. And you know his name. For some of you he is called Not Enough — he has had you believing that after everything Christ did, you still do not quite measure up. For somebody else he is the old record, whispering that God could not really love a person who did what you did. For somebody else he is that scorecard you keep on yourself, the ledger you will never balance. He has been running a house that has got your name on the deed. And today the word of God backs a truck up to your front door and says: put him out. Not manage him. Not negotiate with him. Out. And when he grabs the doorframe on the way — and he will, because that kind never leaves easy — you keep pushing, because God said it: the slave’s son does not split your inheritance. Now I know some of you are scared to let him go, because he has been with you so long you do not know who you would be without the striving. Hear your pastor: you will be more yourself free than you ever were in chains. Put him out.

Illustration.  You ever watch somebody finally put a squatter out? A fellow moved into the back room, never paid a dime, but started acting like he ran the place — telling you where you could sit in your own house. And for years you let him, because it felt like too much trouble. Till one day you got the deed in your hand, walked back there, took him by the collar, and walked him to the curb. And you did not apologize. Because a man does not need permission to be free in a house that is legally his. That old slave-driver has been squatting in you long enough. But there is a deed. It has got your name on it. And it was signed in blood.

CELEBRATION

Because let me tell you how you got that deed. How does a slave’s child ever change houses? Not by effort — we buried that already. By promise. And the promise cost God everything.

Jesus — the true Son, the free-born heir, the one with clear title to the whole inheritance — walked out of His Father’s house and took the slave’s room. Hebrews says He suffered outside the gate. Do you hear it? They cast Him out. Put Him outside the camp, up a hill, on a cross, treated Him like the slave, hung Him like He had no name — so that we who had no name could be adopted and given one. He took the eviction. He got walked to the curb of Calvary so you could keep the house.

And they buried Him. Laid the promise in a borrowed tomb, sealed the stone, and for three days it looked like the free woman was barren after all. Looked like grace had died and the flesh had won.

But somebody remember what Isaiah said — “Rejoice, O barren one!” Because early that Sunday morning, that barren tomb went into labor. The place of death brought forth life. The grave that could not hold Him gave birth to a resurrection, and the empty place became the fullest place in human history. He got up! And when He got up, He tore the slave papers in two and signed His name and your name on the same deed.

So do not you dare live like a slave anymore. There were two houses — and Calvary settled which one you live in. You are not Hagar’s child. You were not born of the scheme, not born of the sweat, not born of the striving. You were born free. Free born — by promise, by blood, by an empty grave. Now put him out and go home.

Soli Deo Gloria.