My Way or God's Way

Intro

- Illustration- impatient- making something happen

- This is sometimes how we approach God

o In his word, God has given us many promises- the greatest of which is his promise of forgiveness and eternal life

o And he tells us that we receive this by his grace, not because we deserve it- it’s a gift

o Why is grace so hard for us to accept?

o We want to earn it!

§ We want to have a part in what’s going on- it’s not always easy to wait on someone else, to rely on someone else- we want to make things happen!

o In our passage this morning, we see Paul addressing this very issue with the Galatian Christians

- Paul moves into an illustration to further explain the truths he is trying to get across

o Purpose is twofold- to help the Galatians understand their freedom in Christ and to rebuke the Judaizers for their false teaching

- Read passage Galatians 4:21-31

o “In all of the New Testament, there is perhaps not a more difficult passage to interpret.”

§ This will be fun

§ My Goal this morning is not get us lost in the weeds of this passage, but to understand why Paul tells this story to the Galatian Christians and how it applies to us- there are some great truths that we need to learn from this passage

o This is an allegory- vs. 24 “Now this may be interpreted allegorically”- Paul tells us

§ A truth illustrated by a story- in this instance it is a spiritual truth illustrated by a historical story

§ MacArthur- Allegory is a pandora's box that ignores the literal, historical meaning of scripture and opens biblical interpretation to every extreme."

§ This happens all the time- we can’t do it!

§ David and Goliath- what are the giants in your life that you need to slay- you need to take the stone of faith and throw it with the sling of righteousness and slay that giant!

o This has caused much debate and confusion over how to interpret scripture

o Paul was not giving us a model of how to interpret the rest of scripture

§ He would not take a break here to give a hermeneutics lesson

- Interpreting the Bible

o Why is Biblical interpretation so important?

§ This is God’s word, his truth- in it is life and salvation

o An essential principle of interpretation

§ Our goal must always be to figure out what the author intended

· It is not up to however we want to take it

· “You take the Bible literally, but I take it figuratively”

- Thankfully Paul tells us exactly how he wants us to take this- allegorically- he is simply using a familiar historical event to illustrate a divine truth

- Recap of Abraham’s story

o Promise from God- no son- had a slave, but God said no-

o Sarah thought she was too old- “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.”- God isn’t keeping his promise

o She tells Abraham to have a child with her servant Hagar- Ishmael is born

o God says, no, I will give you a son through Sarah. Abraham says, "O, that Ishmael might live in thy sight!"- like here God, but what about what I did?

o God fulfills his promise and Isaac is born- the true heir

- There are two main truths that we see in this allegory- As Christians, we are free, not slaves- and we are Children of the promise

We are free, not slaves

1. V. 22- For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman.

2. This theme continues throughout the passage

a. 24 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.

b. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

c. 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

3. Hagar and Ishmael represent the slavery of law- trying through our performance to make things happen

a. This is what the Judaizers were teaching- yes, faith in Jesus, but also works

B. There's a heaviness, a weight to living under the law

1. we know in our hearts that we all fall short of what the law requires

2. if this is the category that we are going to place ourselves under, if this is the path we are going to choose, we know where it ends

3. always trying to be good enough, but we never can be

4. Ishmael was the son of a slave- he would never be the true heir to God’s promise, no matter how great he was, no matter how hard he tried the only outcome was bondage and slavery- this is us

C. We are sinners and if we pursue works, the law, to try to make that right, we will continually be faced with how inadequate we are

1. We will always be striving but never actually getting it right.

2. We will live in perpetual disappointment and shame.

a. There is an appeal to legalism, performance based religion- we have a measure, a checklist- but it always ends the same- the more we pursue righteousness on our own the more we expose our inadequacy and the greater shame we feel

3. This is the slavery of the law

D. But through Christ, we are free!

1. This is what Paul said last week- become like me- live in the freedom that God offers

2. This is represented by Sarah and Isaac- Isaacs birth was a complete act of God- it was a miracle

3. When we trust in what God has done- the way he has made- there is freedom and salvation

- First we see that we are free if we are trusting in what God has done, not our own works- live in that freedom- don’t go back into the slavery of the law

We are children of the promise

A. The two covenants (24)

1. Law and works- you keep your end of the deal and I’ll keep my end

a. Hagar- Mount Sinai-

b. Israelites received the law- said in Ex. 24:3 Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.”

c. Current Jerusalem- the city that perpetuated the adherence to the law

2. Grace and faith- God alone is the one who upholds it and guarantees us

a. Sarah- Jerusalem above

b. Col. 3:1-3 “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

c. Everything flows from him- this is his promise

B. Ishmael was born of the flesh- he was a product of self-reliance, human effort apart from God

1. “this is the philosophy of “God helps those who help themselves”

2. So where are you? Relying on your own effort and work, your own flesh, or relying on God, his promises and work in your life

a. It's not just for our salvation, but in every aspect of our lives

b. When pursue God on our own terms, it is usually a refusal to live in complete dependence on him- we want to control some aspect of our spirituality

c. No matter our level of spiritual maturity, no matter our knowledge of God's truth and his promises, we never outgrow that childlike dependence

(1) Illustration- I'm too old for this- I need to start taking some responsibility in this

3. God always keeps his promises! This is grace towards us

- I know we have waded through a lot- I hope we are not too confused by all of this, but essentially we have seen two categories

o On the one hand we have the law, works, self effort that leads to bondage and slavery

o And on the other hand we have God’s promise, his grace that leads to freedom and salvation

What we can expect

A. Restoration- God will restore those who turn to him!

1. Perhaps you say I don’t have a relationship with God

2. Or maybe you are a Christians- but have been pulled into this thinking just like the Galatians

a. I’ve gotta make this happen instead of waiting on God and trusting his promises

3. There is hope! V. 27

a. This is what happened with Israel. this is what Paul want the Galatians to know

b. It’s not too late

B. Persecution

o 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.

1. We must resist those who try to pull us back into slavery

a. Initially descendants of Ishmael- Arab/Israeli conflict

b. But now the Judaizers, Jews themselves, have become the ones trying to pull God's true children into slavery

c. James Boice said “the greatest enemies to the church are half-brothers. Unbelieving but religious people in the nominal church.”

d. Paul had spent much time fighting against this as we saw in his autobiography in previous chapters

(1) Jesus’s greatest opponents where the religious leaders who would not accept his message of grace and freedom

e. Paul is clear what we must do to those wanting us to live under the law- "drive them out"

f. Doctrine is important- the battle for doctrine is not over, we must be aware

g. But just like Paul we must use doctrine to counsel and lead others in love, not as a weapon to hit people over the head

C. An inheritance

1. Judaizers would have thought that they were the legitimate descendants of Abraham through Isaac and that the Galatians were represented by Ishmael, the illegitimate heirs

2. With this thinking the Judaizers could have claimed that in order to be true descendants, the Galatians had to become like them. Paul says no

3. 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.”

4. Those who are trusting in the promise of God can be assured of the inheritance- the Spirit of God living in us and the hope of eternal life

Conclusion

- So we have two mothers, one free one a slave - we have two sons, one a legitimate heir one cast out - we have two covenants, one through the law and works one through grace and faith

- Paul wants these Galatians Christians to stop pursuing a gospel of works, the flesh, and slavery and to return the freedom that the Gospel of Christ offers- we are children of promise, the promise of God- his work- his grace

- It is my prayer that we will live in that same way