Sunday Morning Service

Galatians 4:8-31

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“Yes, But Who Is Your Mama!” • 6.30.13 • Calvary Christian Fellowship, Sunday Morning Service

Intro.

- The section before us is enlightening for those who find Paul to be a dispassionate theologian unconcerned with the people that he ministered to.

- The points that he makes are not merely motivated from the desire to glorify and honor the Lord. Rather, he sees a people who had been affected by God's glory, losing sight of God's glory.

- The Galatians are running headlong after a group of people who have given them attention, promised a deeper spirituality, but were using them for their own gain.

- As we conclude the doctrinal section of Galatians, you and I will see Paul's most personal pleas to his children.

Text

• Galatians 4:8-11 : "But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain." : Paul had been explaining the Jewish relationship to the law. Now his thought returns toward them the Galatians who were ignorant of God and His laws when he met them!

- They were serving idols as their slaves! Idols of any kind are icons of the imagination of men's hearts. There was nothing real behind their images.

- Yet ignorantly, the Galatians served them and their perceived interests.

- But now things had been different. They had gone from idolators to worshippers of the True and Living God, who proved that He knew them! This God actually responds to human belief!

- God gifted them after they believed. He forgave them and put His stamp of approval upon them by giving them the full measure of His Spirit. How could they turn back from that?

- The Galatians were trading in one form of slavery to idols for another in law keeping!

- They had gone from the heights of the reality only to turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, ie, the things which do not possess the strength to bring real spiritual change!

- They were going back into bondage, this time, looking at a religious calendar, that like the idols, had no more power to change them than did the regular calendar!

- Paul says, "My fear for you is growing daily!" Had Paul labored, an exhaustive labor in the original, for them in vain or as the NIV says, "wasted his efforts?"

• Galatians 4:12-16 : "Brethren, I urge you to become like me, for I became like you. You have not injured me at all. You know that because of physical infirmity I preached the gospel to you at the first. And my trial which was in my flesh you did not despise or reject, but you received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. What then was the blessing you enjoyed? For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me. Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?" : "Become like me in relationship to the law."

- When Paul came to them he did not insist on them becoming Jews! In fact, the Apostle became like them, enjoying their food and their company, essentially becoming like a Gentile!

- If it was important to return to Jewishness, wouldn't it follow that Paul would lead them in that venture? No, indeed Paul says become like me, divorced from law keeping and married to grace!

- "You haven't injured me!" Paul says. He is not telling them this because they have hurt him personally. He is inviting them back to the beginning of their relationship.  

- It seems that Paul had not intended to come to them but God had allowed Paul's illness to occur, which brought Paul to the Galatians for an extended period of time

- He could not have received better care from them! They took him in as if he were an angel or even the Lord Himself! What did they get out of it? Nothing!

- In fact, they would have given their own eyes for him! But now that he tells them the truth, will they turn on him? There was a time when they would have done anything for him.

- Paul is just telling them the truth about the Judaizers, the law and their relationship, will they treat him like an enemy? What a sad reversal and what courage it takes to tell people the truth!

- Paul was risking his relationship, but the truth was vitally important for their lives.

• Galatians 4:17,18 : "They zealously court you, but for no good; yes, they want to exclude you, that you may be zealous for them. But it is good to be zealous in a good thing always, and not only when I am present with you." : As opposed to the Apostle that God providentiallly brought their way, the Judaizers went out of their way!

- The Judaizers came in with a fervent, bee-line approach to win the Galatians to their theological case for law keeping and circumcision.

- The NLT says that they were "eager to win their favor." Those who are false are always tailoring their approach to please men, courting their affection and approval.

- The Judaizers came hoping to affect the Galatians, but not for their good.

- They wanted to "exclude," meaning to bar a door shut, to isolate them from outside influence so that the Galatians would only receive from them.

- The Judaizers, like all false teachers are only concerned with what is good for them! They are not interested in what is good for their listeners, their congregation.

- They live in an environment of consistent self-seeking. They wanted to be sure by barring the door shut, that theirs were the only voices that the Galatians were hearing.

- They isolated them so that they would share their zeal for them. "Be excited about our program and our church and pay no attention to those outside. They don't understand us!"

- Paul had taught them to be zealous for the Lord when he was with them! Stay there in that zeal for God, Paul says! Keep your excitement for Him, don't give it to them!

• Galatians 4:19,20 : "My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you, I would like to be present with you now and to change my tone; for I have doubts about you." : Paul calls the Galatians his little children, a common and tender way to address Rabbinic students, devotees and an apt title for what he feels about them.

- Paul was frustrated with them for their easy willingness to give in to the Galatians and give up their freedoms in Christ. How difficult was it for Paul?

- The Apostle's labor for the Galatians was akin to the labor of a woman giving birth. In dealing with God's people, the Apostle is consistently in the pangs of childbirth.

- Notice the word "again!" Paul feels, with this current issue in their church, like he is going through the process of bringing them into existence all over again! It's that intense for him.

- It's constant commitment to bring forth Christ out of a life. Listen to Paul's words: Each time we are together, I am working to see Christ in you!

- What Paul wanted was to see the image of Jesus in their lives! He wanted to see them fully developed, strong and sure of themselves in Christ!

- The Judaizers were looking for people who looked like themselves which is always the way it is with cults. Everyone has to think and look like the leader!

- Imagine a Mormon missionary without a white shirt, a bike and a badge! Imagine a Jehovah's witness lady without a long skirt!

- Paul is saying that Jesus is the leader and He's the One that we are all seeking to look like! That means, love God with all of your heart and let His Word live through you!

- Paul wished he could be there, to change his manner of speaking because he had some doubts about their walk with the Lord.

• Galatians 4:21-26 : "Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar—for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children— but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all." : The Judaizers were telling them to obey the law, to be under it. Were they not listening to the law?

- Paul equates the "law" with of an interesting part of Abraham's story that deserves our reflection. God ratified His promise to Abraham at the end of Genesis 15.

- Genesis 16:1 says, "Now Sarai, Abram's wife bare him no children." We don't know how long they "tried" and the certain stress that this caused when pregnancy didn't occur.

- For some couples, there is a blessing of pregnancies that occur quickly. For others, it is a constant struggle, complete with plans and charts and medical intervention.

- Imagine the expectation that Sarai must have had. God promised. God ratified a covenant.

- This was going to happen and she was again the hold up! She was barren. "There must be another solution! What can we do?"

- She began to thoughtfully consider that God said that He would give Abraham from HIS body. "Wait, maybe that means that I (Sarai) don't have to be involved!"

- What a vile thing it is for us to give into impatience and then to interpret God's clear words outside of their natural environment.

- A promise to Abraham was a promise to Sarah! Where else would Abraham get a son!?

- But Sarah gave in to temptation and began to move toward manipulation when in that same verse, the Word records, "and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian whose name was Hagar."

- Lacking the technology that we have today, a couple could employ a slave who would serve as a surrogate. In that world, nobody would bat an eye at this acceptable practice.

- The problem of course isn't with surrogacy. It is a problem to seek to bring about God's will through worldly methods! Sadly, it doesn't seem that Abraham had a problem with this.

- In Genesis 16:4, Abraham "went in unto Hagar and she conceived." There was no prayer. No recorded moment of seeking God for clarity. Certainly, there was little thought.

- But just like that, the fleshly, worldly way produced results.

- What a vindication Sarah must have felt. But as with all flesh dominated victories, the satisfaction is short lived.

- The fleshly way also produced what she did not anticipate, as the Word says, "and when she saw that she conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes!"

- All of a sudden, Hagar the slave declined to respect Sarah the wife, as she had given Abraham what Sarah could not! She had given him a male child, an heir, Ishmael.

- The flesh might be faster, but the peace with God that you lose and the tension you gain in your most beloved relationships will never be worth the trade off!

- 14 years later, when Ishmael was of age to be considered and groomed to be Abraham's heir, God visited Abraham and had to tell Abraham the truth about Ishmael.

- In Genesis 17, God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision and a reminder that the son that He promised was yet forthcoming and his name was not Ishmael!

- Abraham was grieved and says as much in Genesis 17:18 : "Oh that Ishmael would live before you!" In other words, "Lord, bless my plan" to which God says, "No!" every time!

- A year later, when Abraham was 100 years old, God brought the son that He promised that Sarah would have, through Sarah's womb.

- Now, this brings us to where we are. Ishmael was born the natural or fleshly way. Isaac was born in a miraculous way, given to Abraham and Sarah by God's intervention.

- Paul tells us that these things having been literal and historical, take on in this context a symbolic metaphor for the two covenants he has been discussing, one of promise and one of law.

- The first from Sinai, the law of Moses, gives bondage, slavery. The human Jerusalem, where the law prevailed is in slavery, even at Paul's time.

- This was true with regard to Rome's rule over Jerusalem, as well as the prevalence of the law's rule over most of Jerusalem's inhabitants.

- But the Jerusalem above, where God lives and rules, there is no such problem! The place where God rules is free from law!

• Galatians 4:27 : "For it is written: 'Rejoice, O barren, You who do not bear! Break forth and shout, You who are not in labor! For the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband.'" : Paul quotes here from Isaiah 54:1, the opening of a chapter filled with promises to the righteous.

- Ultimately, Hagar will have many more sons than Sarah physically having been a younger woman. Sarah will only have Isaac before her death.

- In this case, when looking upon what cane be seen, the outcome is deceiving.

- Sarah could rejoice at the knowledge that the child of promise, the one received by faith, would bring in a line of people who would forever be established in righteousness!

- In God's economy, things might have looked terrible for Sarah, but the desolate one had many more children that she who had a husband! He speaks of us!

- We are not physical descendants. We are descendants of an ideal, a promise, by faith!

• Galatians 4:28, 29 : "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now." : Those who are Christians, who are in the line of Abraham's faith, are full blown heirs, like Isaac was.

- Paul now brings us back to our story in Genesis 21. There is one line that stands out. Isaac was old enough to be weaned from his Mother's breast, likely about 3 years old in that culture.

- Genesis 21:9 says, "And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing." Ishmael was mocking Isaac.

- Ishmael took on his mother's disdain for Abraham's family. Ishmael at this time was much older and obviously much stronger.

- One can imagine the scenario. Both Abraham and Sarah are awfully old. There are more days behind them than there are ahead.

- How can they train this little child to be the heir and why would they need to when he, Ishmael, was already capable of being trusted with the family?

- With that as a potential mindset, Ishmael, the son of a slave, mocked the heir of the house consistently. Paul says, "That's how it was and that's how it always is!"

- Those who walk according to the flesh and that live according to law, mock the ones who know they don't have to to be pleasing to God!

- In Paul's time, the mockery began with statements regarding circumcision. "You mean, your not even circumcised!?"

- Today, you might hear phrases that sound like this: "Oh, you believe in cheap grace huh?" "I guess you can join all the other groups that do nothing and expect God to respond to you."

- Many Christians today in response, have traded in God's grace for a social experiment, or a moral crusade, believing that this is what the church is to do.

- Certainly, this is a PART of what a true church is to do, but NEVER at the expense of what the main thing is, and that is, to make Christ known and His way of salvation clear!

- Let the legalistic mock on, for it's never been otherwise! But listen to Paul's next word:

• Galatians 4:30,31 : "Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? 'Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.' So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free." : Nevertheless what does Scripture say? Not "What does the legalist say?" NEVERTHELESS, what does SCRIPTURE SAY? The two don't say the same thing!

- The scripture, THE Authority says this: "Cast out the bondwoman and her son! Ishmael won't be the heir with Isaac." This was the quote from Genesis 21:9.

- Sarah's word was proper, as even in the heathen codes of the day, specifically that of Hammurabi, slaves were to be released if there was no intention of making them heirs.

- Genesis 21:10 records the end of this fleshly journey, with Abraham grieved because of his son Ishmael, a moment brought to you by his own fleshly decision.

- But it's Genesis 21:14 tells us that Abraham did in fact send them away. Paul has made his point very clear: Sarah is our mother and therefore, we are in the line of inheritors.

- The Judaizers could certainly claim Abraham as their Father, but that was not the point. The point is that Hagar was their Mother and they were slaves just like her!

- What was to be done? The law that they wanted to serve said to cast out those that would mock grace and make slaves of the son!

- Ishmael, had he been given the inheritance, would have made the miraculous child, Isaac, a slave in his own home! That's what the Galatians were allowing to happen.

Conclusion
- Walking away from the Lord to anything, whether it be law in this case, or sin, is walking back under the yoke of slavery!

- Jesus Christ died to free you, so that you might be sons, daughters, heirs with keys to the Kingdom, free to enjoy the Father through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

- Why settle for less?