I'm trying to go live at Pax House.
It's just across the street. Well, what a great, great space,
great place. I'm looking forward to seeing
how the community develops there.
Wanda, we, we've been cruising through Galatians.
So if you've got your Bible, you can go ahead and open it to
Galatians 4. But I wonder if you've had some
occasion where someone said to you, I wish we didn't have the
Old Testament. Did you ever have somebody say
that I wish we didn't have the Old Testament?
Or maybe they they just said, I, I don't like the God of the Old
Testament. I like the God of the New
Testament. I don't like the God of the Old
Testament. And so they want to be able to
divide it up. In fact, I, I sort of have this
feeling that this is a little trend that runs through our
lives at different times for, for a while before you version,
it was very popular to just carry around your New Testament.
And I was like, you know, that's an, that's an old heresy.
We don't actually think of it that way, but it's an old heresy
to just have the New Testament. There was a guy named Marcion
who in 85 was gathering up the letters of the church and he, he
rejected the Old Testament completely and said no way.
But the rest of the bishops around the Mediterranean and
from North Africa all the way up into Rome said no way.
That's heresy, that that's not something we want, we actually
want to maintain and keep connected the Old Testament and
New Testament to have coherence about the expression of who God
is. This might not be the burning
issue in your life right now, but I imagine that as you share
your life and faith with others, you will have friends who say
Leviticus is boring or like Joshua, why is it so violent?
Or why did I read all these other things where it seems like
God was just mad at people? And that's really those are fair
questions that really do need to be worked out.
But the apostle Paul was also having to work out this issue
not just for getting people who wanted to get rid of the Old
Testament. He was having to deal with the
other extreme, saying anyone who comes to Christ needs to come
under the Old Testament law. And so these are two sides of
the same problem in question of what do we do with the full
testimony of the Scripture? How are we going to respond?
And Paul has a really curious move.
You know, last week we talked about how he's been building up
in the book of Ephesians to a big ask.
He wasn't going to ask somebody to marry him, but he was going
to ask the church in Galatia to do something extraordinary, to
do something that was going to in some ways, press for a
resolution of the conflict they were experiencing.
Now, you know Stephen Covey, some of you know the seven
habits. He, he had a really interesting
phrase about beginning with the end in mind and he said you need
to begin with the end in mind so that you will have a clear
understanding of your destination.
And in knowing your destination, you can determine the steps, the
small steps that you take are going in the right direction.
That's good advice, isn't it? I think the Apostle Paul was
really clear, and we can, as some of you have been reading
Galatians all the way through now a couple times.
You're starting to see that the Apostle Paul seems to have some
sort of vision, some end goal. But the text we're about to
read, you're going to feel like what in the world is Paul doing?
We're going to try to geek out here in the Scripture a little
bit, but bear with me. It's it's a little tedious just
moving through this, but we're going to try to simplify it and
get to 3 really keen observations for application in
our own life. So if you would let's follow as
we read in Galatians chapter 4. Tell me you who want to be under
the law. Are you not aware of what the
law says? So he's pushing back their
question to say, hey, watch this.
You want to be under the law? Watch this, 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 word figuratively is, is the Greek word allegorical.
So he's creating an allegory here, a little different from
the Greek tradition about allegory, but nonetheless he's
creating an allegory here not with a moral picture, but a
picture of the community that God intends to create.
And so let's follow his argument.
He says the woman, the women represent 2 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.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by
a yoke of slavery. Now for most of you hearing and
reading this text, no fireworks went off, but I guarantee you
that for the Galatian Church churches when they heard this
part of the letter read, some would would have probably gone
what and there would have been a rumble and Mumbles through the
congregation because this is the climax of the letter.
This is the big ask where he lets Sarah, Abraham's wife
preach to them and they would have been shocked it it went
like water off a duck's back for us.
You didn't feel the emotional impact of it at all.
Let me just remind you what Paul's envisioning.
Paul's envisioning that the church in Galatia would know God
in fullness. Last week we saw that he shows
this as the highest form of spirituality, knowing God and
being known by God. Knowing God in the fullness of
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, experiencing deliverance from
sin and from the powers of darkness.
Paul's starting with the end in mind.
He's remembering and always reminding them that they were
meant to really know God. And in knowing God, they're free
because they're forgiven of sin and they're freed from the
powers of darkness. Second thing is that he's
reminding them that they're to be one family, that the church
is meant to be one family together, an extraordinary new
family where it doesn't matter if you're Jewish or Gentile,
whether you're a slave or free, whether you're male or female.
What matters is that you're all following Jesus, the crucified
Messiah. That's his vision of the church
is that we are all following Jesus, the crucified Messiah.
And so the way we relate to each other isn't on these ideas of
status, legacy, heritage, race. Instead, we relate to one
another because of the power of the Spirit in our lives.
And then third, he's imagining and keeping in mind that his
vision of the church is that the church will reveal Jesus and the
freeing, delivering power of his gospel by transforming
relationships everywhere through the power of God's love.
He gets to this a little bit later in Galatians.
Some of you have been reading it.
And so you're like, Oh yeah, he starts to talk about love a lot.
Now let's let's look a little closer at what Paul is doing.
Paul is trying to organize how they read the Old Testament.
He believed that if you started following Jesus, everything in
your life would be organized around Jesus the Messiah because
he's the One, and that all of your life, even the way you read
scripture, would be organized around Jesus the Messiah.
Now he's trying to move them from having the center of
gravity in the way they read Scripture, being all about the
law, and instead he wants them to anchor it in the promise that
God made to Abraham. What was the promise God made to
Abraham? Many children, many nations.
You're going to have a family. Abraham.
And God kept telling him this. And Abraham, I'm sure, was
wondering because he was getting older.
He was 99. Where's my children?
Sarah's getting older. Where's my children?
But Paul's wanting the church to reorganize the way they read the
Scripture, that they read Scripture through the lens of
Jesus crucified. So they look back and he says,
look back to Abraham, what God promised him to make a family of
all nations, and then look forward into the future through
the cross of Jesus, seeing that family involved in the new
creation. We'll get to that.
But he's saying look through the cross of Jesus and look back to
Abraham, what God promised. Notice what he says.
He's creating an allegory. He says, I'm going to create
this story, this little narrative so that you begin to
see. He reminds them again of
Abraham, who had two sons. His first son actually came
about because Sarah said, look it, I'm getting older.
I'm not having a baby. God's made you a promise.
Let's get on with it. You take Hagar, my handmaiden,
my servant, and you make a baby with her.
And it says Abraham did, and Ishmael was born.
Talk about complicating family life right away in our reading
and narrative about this, we're like, wow, you didn't just can't
complicate family life. You complicated the life of
nations in this hostility that was generated between Ishmael
and Isaac, who was born later. For God told Abraham, no, look,
you will have a son with Sarah, and this child will be the child
of promise. And so Paul says I'm going to
create an allegory with two women, two families, 2 covenants
and two mountains. He lays it out.
Here's Hagler, here's Sarah. One's a slave and the other is
free. 1 is going to have a child according to the flesh, but one
is going to have a child according to the promise.
And he's saying now these two families have their roots in
this story. What's surprising is which
family he believes you're a part of.
He, Paul, believes you're a part of the family of Sarah.
Now, his opponents might have already said, you Gentiles,
you're actually part of the family of Ishmael.
But Paul's insisting, no, you Gentiles are actually part of
the family of Sarah and Isaac. And here's how he did it.
He says, look, Hagar and her people are from Arabia.
That's where Mount Sinai is. We would say, oh, they're Arabs,
but he says, look, Mount Sinai is there in Arabia.
Why is Mount Sinai important? It's because that's where God
showed up with Moses and gave the law and he's, look, the law
is actually in the land of slavery.
Wow, Paul's really messing with them.
And he said then these this line of the law is now in Jerusalem,
in the present day Jerusalem and from Jerusalem.
Are people worried about the flesh?
Are you circumcised or not? Are you Jewish enough or not?
Are you under the law so you can be completely accepted by God?
And they've shown up in Galatia to persecute you because of your
freedom in Christ. And so they are the persecutors
like Ishmael. So in the story of Abraham and
Sarah, Ishmael tormented Isaac and one day Sarah saw this
happening, that Ishmael was making Isaac's life difficult
and she came to Abraham and she said send them away, they will
have no inheritance. Isaac is the child of the
promise. Now for us, we were like, this
sounds really harsh. This is terrible.
And in a whole nother line of preaching and work, I would
preach that what's the deal with Abraham and Sarah knowing God?
And they're so harsh with Hagar and Ishmael, but that's a whole
different sermon. It's not Paul's sermon.
Paul is creating an allegory to arrive at a very startling
conclusion where he let Sarah preach at them and 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.
Now Paul's flipped it around. He's saying, I need you as the
church to align your theology and your actions so that you
know you don't have to be in slavery again.
You all are actually the children of the promise.
And there you go of Isaac. But I'm not Jewish.
He's like, no, anyone who is in Christ is now the children of
the promise. Would you turn to your neighbor
and say, are you a child of the promise?
See, he's training them to rethink not just the reading of
the Scripture, but the reading of themselves.
He's trying to get them to now identify themselves as, wow, we
are humbly included in the family of God.
This is amazing. Now, for those who also didn't
really want to accept this, that maybe Paul is just doing some
strange juju with the scripture, right?
He said this is a weird way of reading the scripture.
In this passage, he alludes to an extraordinary Psalm.
We read this Psalm at the beginning of our service today,
Psalm 87. And he's wanting to connect the
promise, the Messiah and the nations all together.
And so he alludes to this Psalm 87.
Let's read it together again. Next slide.
Well, I'll show you the illusion.
Here it is. Now you don't have to go
anywhere. It's in the slide.
So here's this illusion, he says, but the Jerusalem that is
above, where is the Jerusalem above?
They only knew the Jerusalem that was down here.
He says there's a Jerusalem above, It's free, and she is our
mother. Oh my goodness, Paul, what are
you doing? He's saying there's a heavenly
city, a heavenly Jerusalem, and it's free and she is our mother.
When in the Scripture is Jerusalem the mother?
That's in Psalm 87. Here we go.
That's next slide. Next slide.
Don't worry. It's by the sons of Korra.
It's a Psalm, a song, and it says this.
He has founded his city on the holy mountain.
The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the other
dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are said of you,
city of God. I will record Rahab and Babylon
among those who acknowledge me. Now Rahab is reference to Egypt.
He's saying I will record Egypt and I will record Babylon as
those who acknowledge me. Philistia.
Wow, the home of the Philistines.
And Tyre, along with Cush, they will say, say it with me.
This one was born in Zion, indeed of Zion it will be said,
this one and that one were born in her, and the Most High
himself will establish her. The Lord will write in the
register of the peoples. This one was born in Zion.
And they will make music, They will sing.
All my fountains are in you all my life, you know, if you've
ever been in the desert and thirsty, you know, this is your
life. You got to have water.
And they're saying all my life giving source is there in that
city that Jerusalem. Why would people from Egypt and
Babylon and Cush and Philistia and Tyre all say I was born in
Zion? That's unheard of.
Lauryn Hill sang it. This one was born in Zion.
Lauryn Hill was teaching how to read the scripture, she says,
you know, in this, you all don't know this, do you?
Does anybody know who Lauryn Hill is?
All right, there's a few of you are really cultured.
She's a artist and and she has this great CD called The MIS
Education of Lauryn Hill. I recommend it to you, a whole
new generation. But in it, she's recognizing
something about this phrase, this one was born in Zion, about
her own child and their own, her own history and how she wanted
to be able to say you were not a mistake.
You were born in Zion in the very heart, and I have God, you
matter. This one was born in Zion.
And so Paul is trying to say, hey, look, there's some people
who've shown up there in Galatia and they're trying to miss
educate you. They're trying to miss educate
you and I'm trying to help you see that it's always been in the
heart of God that the nations would be joined together and
organized around the Messiah and that they would say of Jesus,
He's changed my life, He's changed my birthplace.
I've been born in Zion. I've been born in the very heart
and city of God. I have citizenship in the very
heart and city of God. Now, what a powerful, powerful,
powerful gift Paul is giving to this church.
And so the question becomes, were you born in Zion?
Turn to your neighbor and ask them, were you born in Zion?
Were you born in the very city and heart of God?
Is your name written in the Registry of the Peoples?
In fact, this is what Jesus said when the disciples came back and
said, Oh Jesus, we've got so much power, the demons even
submit to us. He says, oh, don't rejoice in
that. Rejoice that your name is
written in the Lamb's Book of Life in the Registry of the
Peoples, that you have a new inheritance.
This one was born in Zion. See, Paul views the church as
God's great rehearsal reversal of Sarah's barrenness.
Sarah was barren. Sarah is a stand in for Israel.
Paul is seeing the church as the great reversal of Israel's
barrenness, that now they're truly producing what the Messiah
intends, that the nations would be blessed.
Barrenness is a scary thing for some who find that, oh, I'm not
having children, but how can God give children to those who don't
even have a husband? But notice what Paul connects it
to. Keep going here.
He he quotes from Isaiah 54 and he says, 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 for those who knew, he was quoting Isaiah 54.
So now he's he's really trying to also speak to not just the
Gentiles, but the Jewish believers, even those whose were
persecuting the church in Galatia.
He's trying to speak to them and remind them of this incredible
moment where Israel is declared to have lots of children.
And how is it possible? It was possible because of
Isaiah 53, the suffering servant.
So I encourage you go and read it.
The suffering servant is the Messiah who actually makes it
possible for what was barren to be fruitful, to actually become
a blessing to the nations. All right, did anybody get
excited? You're born in Zion.
How is that possible? Here's three things I think are
really important for us as application today.
We're going to move through them really quickly.
The 1st is that where we see and fear barrenness, God sees an
opportunity to create new life. Where you think, hey, this is
the most unfruitful, desolate, dark period of my life.
God is able to reach in and do something that brings new life.
It requires waiting, It requires patience, It requires trusting
in the dark. Sarah and Abraham had their
moments where they didn't, but God was still faithful.
The second thing is this, the church must protect itself from
all kinds of destructive ideologies by pursuing and
celebrating the multi ethnic familiness of Jesus's new
family. Here's a Babylonian in Jerusalem
saying all my fountains are in you.
See, when the church starts to get away from celebrating the
multi ethnic nature of God's family, we can start being drawn
into all kinds of isms that are destructive.
Nationalism actually has almost no room in the life of a Kingdom
follower of Jesus. Besides the the closeness of
loving your neighbor and you're saying, well, I'm in Ghana and
all my neighbors are Ghanaians. OK, So I guess I better love my
Ghanaian neighbors, you know, But after that, your nationalism
has to bow to Christ whether you're in Canada or you're in
the USA, kind of ethnic nationalism actually has to be
set aside. Paul is begging them and says
become like me, he said in the passage last week.
Because he had submitted his nationalism to Jesus at the foot
of the cross and was willing to embrace the nations.
anti-Semitism has no place in the life of the church and where
the church has actually not celebrated the multi ethnic
dimensions of the gospel had not celebrated their connection to
Abraham in his family. They actually fell prey to the
work of Hitler and Nazism. But this move that Paul's making
here in this passage is actually a corrective where we who are
new to the family and adopted in have no place for arrogance
against Jewish people. 3rd observation.
We must carefully read and reread the Scripture through the
lens of the cross of Jesus so we can maintain and enjoy our
freedom in Him no matter the trends of our times.
Do you know what book only 1% of university graduates have read?
It's a top 10 bestseller all the time globally.
It's the Bible. Only 1% of university graduates
have actually read one of the most influential books in the
world from cover to cover and gotten to know it.
I hope you're in the 1%. Do you know I, I'm, I'm actually
want to press in a little bit here to say that though You have
the Bible on your phone, there is no substitute for holding the
Bible in your hand. The studies are coming, folks,
That you actually read better when you read off the page.
That you've not trained your minds to read deeply and make
connections when you read on a screen.
And so you read Psalm, you read Isaiah 54 with no connection to
whatever came ahead of it, Isaiah 53, unless you're
actually holding it in your hand and marking it.
And so I, I just want to encourage you, do you all own a
physical copy of the Bible? Great, 10 points.
Are you reading it or is it collecting dust?
I really want to press in here to say that reading as a skill
is disappearing. Reading deeply and making
connections is disappearing. It is the trend of our times.
And in order to actually maintain your liberty, your
freedom in Christ, you are going to have to read the scripture.
And this is going to be a big challenge in the next 20 years
that you will hold the Bible. You will know the God of the
Bible and that you'll develop the habits and the skills of
that kind of reading so that you know God and you're known by
him. Paul goes on to say, look, it is
for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Stand firm. Then he's like, put your feet
down and brace yourself. Stand firm then and do not let
yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
For the Galatian church, the yoke with slavery was coming
because someone's like you got to get circumcised in order to
really know God. And there's going to be all
kinds of trends that come at you in life that says in order to be
completely blessed, in order to be a completely successful
person, you have to have this in your life.
I think the greatest thing is that you know God and are known
by him. Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, as we come to your table today, we pray that
you would speak to our hearts now, for we see in Jesus the
suffering servant who who came to the altar of the cross and
gave himself freely. You were despised and rejected
by mankind. O Lord, You are a man of
suffering and familiar with pain.
People hid their faces from you. You are despised and we held you
in low esteem, but surely you took up our pain and you bore
our suffering. You were pierced for our
transgressions, you were crushed for our iniquities, and the
punishment that brought us peace was on you.
And so by your wounds we are healed.
Lord, we all, like sheep, have gone astray, and each of us has
turned to our own way. But Yahweh laid on you the
iniquity of us all. You were assigned a grave with
the wicked, though you had done no violence and there was no
deceit in your mouth. You bore the sin of many and
made transgression or intercession for all of our
transgressions. And it's because of you, Lord
Jesus, that we can sing. We can sing because our life in
sin was fruitless and destructive.
But now our life in your grace is one of freedom and of joy and
of love and life transformation. We're so grateful.
And so we come and celebrate you today.