Mary Hickey talks about the time when she was expecting her first baby. Then, a six-year-old neighbor girl was particularly curious. She wanted to see the baby furniture and hear her list of possible names.
When she asked where the baby was, Mary was a walking show-and-tell even at four months. But then the six-year-old asked Mary the question that probably had been foremost in her mind: “How did the baby get in there?”
Mary replied, “I think you'd better ask your mother about that.”
“Oh, I tried that,” the little girl confessed. “Nobody in my family knows!” (Mary L. Hickey, Kirkersville, Ohio, Christian Reader, “Kids of the Kingdom”; www.PreachingToday.com)
It’s certainly important for young people to know, at the appropriate time, the facts of their physical birth. But it’s even more important for us followers of Christ to know the facts of our spiritual birth. It’s important, because that determines whether we live our lives in freedom or in bondage. So, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Galatians 4, Galatians 4, where God’s Word presents the facts of our spiritual birth.
Galatians 4:21-23 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. (ESV)
The first book of the Law, the book of Genesis, makes it very clear that Abraham had two children with two different mothers. One was a slave. Her name was Hagar, and she gave birth to Ishmael. The other mother was free. Her name was Sarah, and she gave birth to Isaac.
Now, in Bible days, the status of the mother determined the status of her children. If the mother was a slave, then her children were slaves, even if their father was a king. On the other hand, if the mother was free, then her children were free, even if their father was a slave.
So, spiritually speaking, who is YOUR mother? Is she a slave or is she free?
Abraham had two different children with two different mother, and these two children had two different methods of birth. They were born in two different ways. Hagar, the slave’s son was born “according to the flesh” (vs.23). And Sarah, the free-woman’s son was born “through promise,” i.e., through a miracle.
God had promised Abraham and Sarah many descendants, as many as the stars in the heavens, but nothing was happening over the years. Abraham and Sarah were growing old, and still they didn’t have even one son, much less “many descendants.”
So when Abraham turned 85 years old and Sarah turned 75, they decided to help God out. By their own efforts, in their own flesh, they were going to secure God’s promised blessing. Sarah gave her slave-girl, Hagar, to Abraham as his second wife, and they had a son in the ordinary way. Ishmael was born according to the flesh, as a result of a man trying to get God’s promised blessing through his own human efforts.
But instead of a blessing, they got trouble. Hagar began to despise Sarah, and Sarah flew into a rage. Their home was thrown into turmoil, which still continues today, 4,000 years later, in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
My friends, that’s what happens when we try to secure God’s blessings through our own human efforts. We only make a mess of things.
When Paul Harvey was on the radio, he talked about a sign that he once saw at a service station many years ago. It read, Labor: $10 per hour. If you watch, $12 per hour. If you help, $15 per hour. If you worked on it first & then brought it in, $27.50 per hour.
Today, such a sign would read about 5 times as much, but I think you get the picture. When an amateur tries to help a professional out, it only makes things worse.
So it is when we try to help God out. When we seek to secure God’s promised blessings through our own human efforts, we don’t get blessed; we get trouble.
That’s what happened to Abraham. His own human efforts to secure God’s promised blessing only brought trouble to his family.
Even so, 15 years later, when Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90, God did a miracle. By His grace, God caused a 90-year-old woman to conceive, and Isaac was born, not in the ordinary way, not according to the flesh or any human effort, but as a result of a promise. God simply kept His word and allowed Sarah to conceive, even though Abraham and Sarah were “as good as dead” according to Romans 4:19.
Abraham had 2 children – one born to a slave, the other born to a free-woman; one born in the ordinary way through human effort, the other born miraculously, as a result of a promise.
Now, these two children represent two covenants. They represent two kinds of relationships. First, there is the covenant of law.
Galatians 4:24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically – i.e., by way of illustration: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai – where the law was given –bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. (ESV)
Hagar represents the covenant of law. It is a covenant in which one’s relationship with God is based on adherence to the rules. The law said, “Obey and God will bless you; disobey and God will curse you.” But this covenant only produced slaves.
Galatians 4:25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. (ESV)
Jerusalem in Paul’s day was a city in slavery. Its citizens were under Roman rule. You see, Israel through her own human efforts was unable to secure God’s blessing. She was unable to obey, so she was cursed with foreign domination, just as the Old Testament Law had warned in Deuteronomy 28.
And that’s what the law does to all of us. It promises rich blessings for those who obey. But we only get cursed, because we cannot obey it perfectly. In fact, the law only provokes us to further disobedience, leading to further bondage.
Several years ago (2010), Sandy and I left our home in Wisconsin to go on a vacation to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. On the way back, we stopped at the Petrified Forest National Park, where we saw this sign: YOUR HERITAGE IS BEING VANDALIZED EVERY DAY BY THEFT LOSSES OF PETRIFIED WOOD OF 14 TONS A YEAR, MOSTLY A SMALL PIECE AT A TIME.
It was a clear warning not to pick up any pieces of petrified wood we might find. Obviously, they had had a problem, but did the signs resolve the problem? That’s what Robert Cialdini, a researcher and an expert on the theory of persuasion, wanted to know. So he and his colleagues ran an experiment just a few years ago.
They seeded various trails throughout the forest with loose pieces of petrified wood, ready for the stealing. On some trails, they posted a sign warning not to steal; other trails got no sign. The result? The trails with the warning sign had nearly three times more theft than the trails with no signs.
Cialdini concluded that the park's warning sign, designed to send a moral message, sent a different message as well. Something like: Wow, the petrified wood is going fast – I'd better get mine now! Or: Fourteen tons a year!? Surely it won't matter if I take a few pieces. (Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Think Like a Freak, William Morrow, 2014, pp 115-116; www.PreachingToday.com)
You cannot better your life through more rules and resolutions. The law does not lead to greater blessing. It only makes things worse.
For even if we were to keep one small part of the law, we become proud and boastful. Then we become critical and judgmental of those who don’t measure up. And when we ourselves don’t meet the standard, we try to cover it up, becoming deceitful and hypocritical. Or worse yet, we lie to ourselves by redefining the standard. My friends, that’s what the covenant of law does to us. It makes us slaves to sin.
But there is a better way to relate to God, and that is through the covenant of promise. You see, God has promised to bless us unconditionally! We don’t have to work for those blessings. All we have to do is believe God’s promise.
Galatians 4:26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. (ESV)
As believers in Christ, we are citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is free!
Galatians 4:27 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.” (ESV)
This promise, from Isaiah 54, speaks of the restoration of Israel after a time of captivity. In captivity, Israel is barren like Sarah was, but God promises to restore Israel to greatness again. In fact, God will build a New Jerusalem, which is free from foreign control, unlike the Jerusalem in Paul’s day. And that New Jerusalem is our home! It is our motherland, even we who are Gentile Believers in Jesus.
Galatians 4:28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. (ESV)
Paul, a Jew, is saying this to Gentile believers, calling them “brothers!” All believers in Christ, Jew or Gentile, are children of the promise! We relate to God, not based on a law with its conditional blessings. No. We relate to God based on a promise with its unconditional blessings.
I like the way Ray Ortlund put it just a couple of years ago. In the Gospel Coalition blog, he wrote: “We were married to Mr. Law. He was a good man, in his way, but he did not understand our weakness. He came home every evening and asked, ‘So, how was your day? Did you do what I told you to? Did you make the kids behave? Did you waste any time? Did you complete everything I put on your To Do list?’ So many demands and expectations. And hard as we tried, we couldn't be perfect. We could never satisfy him. We forgot things that were important to him. We let the children misbehave. We failed in other ways. It was a miserable marriage, because Mr. Law always pointed out our failings. And the worst of it was, he was always right! But his remedy was always the same: Do better tomorrow. We didn't, because we couldn't.
“Then Mr. Law died. And we remarried, this time to Mr. Grace. Our new husband, Jesus, comes home every evening and the house is a mess, the children are being naughty, dinner is burning on the stove, and we have even had other men in the house during the day. Still, he sweeps us into his arms and says, ‘I love you, I chose you, I died for you, I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ And our hearts melt. We don't understand such love. We expect him to despise us and reject us and humiliate us, but he treats us so well. We are so glad to belong to him now and forever, and we long to be ‘fully pleasing to him’ (Col. 1:10)!”
“Being married to Mr. Law never changed us. But being married to Mr. Grace is changing us deep within, and it shows. (Ray Ortlund, "Who are you married to?" The Gospel Coalition blog, Ray Ortlund, 2-15-15; www.PreachingToday.com)
You see, grace does what law never could do! It motivates us to please the Lord, changing our desires as well as our deeds. So don’t relate to God on the basis of law; relate to God on the basis of promise – the promise of His unfailing love and grace.
You see, that promise is your spiritual mother, and she is free. That means YOU are free! You are no longer under the pressure to perform, but free to be all that God wants you to be. Oh my dear friends, get to…
KNOW YOUR MOTHER.
Become acquainted with her gracious spirit. Enjoy the relationship and savor the freedom. Stop trying to earn your way, and start enjoying your way to heaven. Know your mother, and…
THROW OUT THE OTHER.
Get rid of the legalistic messages. Discard those thoughts of shame, and reject any notion that says, “you have to do more to be accepted.”
That’s what Paul tells the Galatian believers to do. He refers back to the story of the births of Ishmael and Isaac. And he says…
Galatians 4:29 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. (ESV)
The legalist persecutes those who enjoy their liberty.
Galatians 4:30 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.” (ESV)
That’s what Sarah had said to Abraham, and by way of illustration, Paul says to his readers, “Get rid of the law with its conditional blessings. Get rid of your legalistic thinking. Get rid of any notion that you have to earn your way.”
The law is not your mother; promise is. So stop putting yourself in bondage to the law, always trying to measure up, but never quite succeeding. You are free from all that, because your mother, the promise, is free. Her blessings are yours without conditions.
Galatians 4:31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman. (ESV)
So get to know your mother, and throw out the other. Believe the promise, and stop trying to earn your way.
Helen Roseveare, a medical missionary in Africa, was the only doctor in a large hospital. There were constant interruptions and shortages, and she was becoming increasingly impatient and irritable with everyone around her. Finally, one of the African pastors insisted, “Helen, please come with me.”
He drove Helen to his humble house and told her that she was going to have a retreat – two days of silence and solitude. She was to pray until her attitude adjusted. All night and the next day she struggled; she prayed, but her prayers seemed to bounce off the ceiling.
Late on Sunday night, she sat beside the pastor around a little campfire. Humbly, almost desperately, she confessed that she was stuck.
With his bare toe, the pastor drew a long straight line on the dusty ground. “That is the problem, Helen: there is too much ‘I’ in your service.” He gave her a suggestion: “I have noticed that quite often, you take a coffee break and hold the hot coffee in your hands waiting for it to cool.” Then he drew another line across the first one. “Helen, from now on, as the coffee cools, ask God, ‘Lord, cross out the “I” and make me more like you.’” (Matt Woodley, in the sermon, Servant, www.PreachingToday.com)
In the dust of that African ground, where a cross had formed, Helen Roseveare learned that life and ministry is not about what “I” am doing, but about what CHRIST has already done on the cross. All we need to do is rest in Him and trust Him to do His work through us.
I think the hymn writer summed it up well when she wrote,
Jesus, I am resting, resting
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart. (Jean S. Pigott)
