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Hi, I want to welcome you to Day 4 of our Look Through Galatians Chapter 4.
We're walking through these arguments for growth and these principles of growth
that Paul has in Galatians 3 and 4. We're going to sum them up tomorrow.

Today I'd like to begin with argument number 7, his last argument, which is his
allegorical argument. It's the argument from Isaac and Ishmael. He begins in
verse 21 to talk about this when he says, "Listen to me, you who want to live
under the law.

Do you know what the law really says? " This is going to be Paul's gotcha
argument. He says, "You want to be under the law?

Then listen to the law. " And in this argument he's going to say, "You are so
concerned about who your father is. You want Abraham to be your father.

You want Moses to be your father, and because of that you think you need to
follow the law. " Paul in this argument is going to twist everything around and
he's going to say, "The important thing really is who your mother is, not your
father, but who your spiritual mother is. " And he uses allegory.

This is the way, by the way, that many Jews interpreted the Old Testament in
this day. And this is the way that the Judaizers who were teaching the people
the Old Testament were probably interpreting the Scriptures. And he uses their
very method against them.

And he does not necessarily recommend this method to most of us. I'd say that
when I try to make allegorical arguments from the Old Testament, I'm almost
always wrong. Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit here, so he's right in this
case.

Most allegorical arguments from the Old Testament that I've seen are wrong.
They're just human ways of thinking, of getting to where we want to be. But this
is an inspired argument by God's Spirit.

And Paul uses this allegory to emphasize one truth. Several applications grow
out of that truth. The truth we're going to see is you're free.

You are free in Christ. Now with that in mind, let me read for you the allegory,
verses 22 to 27. He begins it by saying, "The Scriptures say that Abraham had
two sons, one from his slave wife and one from his freeborn wife.

The son of the slave wife was born in a human attempt to bring about the
fulfillment of God's promise. But the son of the freeborn wife was born as God's
own fulfillment of his promise. " Now these two women serve as an illustration
of God's two covenants.

Hagar, the slave wife, represents Mount Sinai where people first became enslaved
to the law. And now Jerusalem is just like Mount Sinai in Arabia, because she
and her children live in slavery. But Sarah, the free woman, represents the
heavenly Jerusalem, and she is our mother.

This is what Isaiah meant when he prophesied, "Rejoice, O childless woman, break
forth into loud and joyful song, even though you've never given birth to a
child. For the woman who could bear no children now has more than all other
women. " Wow.

This is quite an argument that Paul has given here. Instead of focusing on who
your father is, focus on who your mother is. Let's just walk through this.

Abraham was the father of both Isaac and Ishmael. But Sarah, Isaac's mother,
represents promise, whereas Hagar, who you remember was a handmaiden, was a
servant of Sarah, and Abraham and Sarah came up with this plan, "Well, let's
have a baby through Hagar. " Abraham, you're going to go have a baby through
Hagar, and we're going to call that baby our son.

That'll be the child of promise. And it wasn't. God had a different plan in
mind.

Later than they ever thought a child could be born, Isaac comes into their life.
So Hagar, Ishmael's mother, represents human effort, their way of doing things.
Sarah, Isaac's mother, represents promise, God's way of doing things.

Paul goes even deeper here. He says Hagar represents Mount Sinai, where you
remember the law was given. And he says also present-day Jerusalem, where the
law is followed.

He's talking about his present day Jerusalem, where the Pharisees and the
scribes and the lawyers and the lawgivers all followed the law as the only way
to get to God. They were depending on the law. So he says Mount Sinai,
Jerusalem, it's the same thing now.

But Sarah, Sarah represents the heavenly Jerusalem, which can only be reached by
the promise of grace. What's Paul saying here? He's saying that trying to be
saved by the law is being a child of Hagar.

Now what do you think the Judaizers thought about that? Not much. He was really
hitting at the heart of their argument.

And recognizing, he says, that we're saved by promise is being a child of Sarah.
That's the meaning of this quote from Isaiah, by the way, the joy of being
Sarah. This woman who could bear no children now has more than all other women.

These children that are being born of this woman are the children of promise.
And that's you and that's me. I'm a child of Abraham by faith, but I'm also a
child of Sarah in one sense, because I am a child of promise.

That's what Paul focuses on in these verses. In fact, let me share with you what
he says in verses 28 to 31. And you, dear brothers and sisters, are children of
promise, just like Isaac.

And we who are born of the Holy Spirit are persecuted by those who want us to
keep the law. Just as Isaac, the child of promise, was persecuted by Ishmael,
the son of the slave wife. What does the scripture say about that?

Get rid of the slave and her son, for the son of the slave woman will not share
the family inheritance with the free woman's son. It's a quote from the Old
Testament. Then verse 31.

So, dear brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman obligated
to the law. We are children of the free woman, acceptable to God because of our
faith. Paul here takes centuries of thinking and he just turns it all upside
down.

He not only upsets the apple cart, he tears it apart and builds it into a
soapbox racer. He just makes it into something entirely different. Now, I want
you to understand he is not talking nationally here.

He's not talking about Arab states and Jewish states. You don't apply this
nationally today to what's going on in the Middle East. He's talking
spiritually.

You apply this personally today to what's going on in my heart and your heart,
in the heart of every person that you meet. He's talking about what are your
spiritual roots. And he's saying the spiritual roots of Abraham and Sarah are
not law.

They are promise. And because we're children of promise, because we're children
of promise, Paul says there are three things that you and I experience in our
lives. One of the things that we experience is persecution.

Children of promise experience persecution. Now why should that be? Why should
you be persecuted just for wanting to follow the grace of God, for being a child
of promise?

Because there are people who want to do it their way. And if you're living a
different way, you've got to be persecuted. You've got to be put down.

You've got to be silenced. And that's what was happening to the Galatians. They
are being persecuted just for living a life of grace because there were people
in the community who wanted to live by law.

And people living a life of grace, they are a slap in the face to people who
wanted to do it their way, to live by law and get to God by their own effort.
And so because of that, they could not live in the same household. Same as with
Isaac and Ishmael.

They couldn't live in the same household because one was man's plan and one was
God's plan. And they tried to make it work, but it couldn't work. And Paul is
saying it's not going to work for you either.

As long as someone's trying to follow the law, their way of getting to God,
they're going to persecute you because they don't want to hear the story of
grace. One of the applications of this allegory is persecution. Another
application is the application of inheritance.

Because we are children of God, as we talked about yesterday so much, we are
heirs of God. We do not share this inheritance. It's not like everybody gets the
inheritance of God.

No, it's the inheritance that comes through promise. God's inheritance does not
come through my work, through your work. It comes through God's promise.

That's the only way it will ever come. I can't earn his inheritance. I can't get
any right to his inheritance on my own.

It comes through his promise. And so I enjoy his inheritance. I live out his
inheritance.

Paul's very clear about that. And then the third application he gives to this
life that has come because of this allegory is the application of living a life
of obligation versus living a life of acceptance. Did you see what he said in
verses 30 and 31?

He talks about, in verse 31 particularly, we're not children of the slave woman
obligated to the law. You're children of the free woman acceptable to God
because of your faith. Two different ways of living.

You can live a life of obligation or you can live a life of acceptance. Someone
on our research team asked about these verses, how do we continually maintain
doing what is right for the love of God without fear or guilt? And the answer is
right here.

You choose. I choose every day. Am I going to live a life of obligation or a
life of acceptance?

Am I going to live a life where I feel obligated to do the things that God has
called me to do? Am I going to live a life where I know that I'm accepted by
God? And out of that acceptance, out of that love, I do the things that God has
called me to do.

The life of acceptance is a life of freedom. It's a life where I live out God's
gift and God's promise. And Paul in essence is asking here, why would anybody
ever want to give up on this life of gift or this life of promise?

And really there are two reasons. You see it in the life of the Galatians. Why
would I go back to the law?

There are two reasons. One is no one likes being persecuted. And when I'm
persecuted for living a life of faith and someone says, hey, why don't you live
this way?

You'll be more acceptable to me if you live this life of obligation. Sometimes
we go that way because we don't like being persecuted. But then we live under
the burden of the law, a greater burden.

That's one reason people go back to the law. A second reason people go back to
the law is let's be honest. Law can sometimes be more comfortable than promise.

Slavery can sometimes be more comfortable than freedom. I'm talking about
spiritual slavery, being enslaved to my own pride. And it's the picture of what
I'd rather be in a jail cell where it's safe or out in a hang glider where it's
very dangerous.

I've never been before and I fear for my life. Some people would choose the jail
cell because it feels safe there. And the law confines our relationship with God
to a me-sized set of rules.

And that feels very comfortable for some people. The promise opens up my
relationship with God for him to do whatever he directs. But if I'm going to
grow, if I'm going to grow in Christ, I've got to realize the seventh principle
of growth.

The seventh principle of growth is what Galatians chapter 5 is going to be all
about. It is the principle that growth occurs in the right climate, the climate
of freedom. Growth cannot be confined to a set of rules.

Rules do not produce growth. Relationship with God. Freedom in that
relationship, that's what produces growth.

Let's talk to him together. Lord, there's so much in these verses. Help him to
sink into our hearts in the weeks and months and years to come, that it's not
about me, it's about you.

It's not about rules, it's about relationship. It's not about slavery to what I
want to do, it's about freedom to what you want to do. It's not about a life of
obligation, it's about a life of acceptance.

Accepted by you, loved by you. And then I live out the things that you've given
me to do. It's not about my works, it's about me being a workmanship created in
Christ Jesus to do what you call me to do.

Jesus today helped me to live that life. Not the life of obligation, the life of
acceptance. I ask this in your name, amen.

And I invite you to join us tomorrow and we're going to look back at this
amazing study of growth in these chapters that we've had the last couple of
weeks.