Introduction:
A. How many of you are familiar with the children’s book “Are You My Mother?” by P.D. Eastman?
1. It has been one of my favorite books since I was a child.
B. “Are You My Mother?” is the story about a hatchling bird.
1. His mother, thinking her egg will be fine in her nest where she left it, leaves her egg alone and flies off to find food.
2. The baby chick hatches while she is gone.
3. He does not understand where his mother is so he goes to look for her.
4. In his search, he asks a kitten, a hen, a dog, and a cow if they are his mother. They each say, “No.”
5. Then he sees an old car, which cannot be his mother for sure.
6. In desperation, the baby chick calls out to a boat and a plane, and at last, convinced he has found his mother, he climbs onto the teeth of an enormous power shovel.
7. A loud “SNORT” belches from its exhaust stack, prompting the bird to utter the immortal line, “You are not my mother! You are a SNORT!”
8. But as the power shovel shudders and grinds into motion the baby chick cannot escape. “I want my mother!” he shouts.
9. But at this climactic moment, his fate is suddenly reversed.
10. The shovel drops him back in his nest just as his mother is returning home.
11. The two are united, much to their delight, and the baby bird tells his mother all about the adventure he had looking for her.
C. You might be wondering “why in the world would David start this sermon with a children’s story of a bird wondering who is his mother?”
1. The reason is because in today’s Scripture section from Galatians 4:21-31, Paul tells the tale of two mothers to illustrate two different paths that people take in trying to find salvation.
2. Paul took the familiar story of Hagar and Sarah, whose sons are Ishmael and Isaac respectively, and drew from it basic truths about the Christian’s relationship to the Law of Moses.
3. The events described actually happened, but Paul uses them as an allegory, which is a narrative that has a deeper meaning behind it.
4. Perhaps the most famous allegory in the English language is John Bunyan’s A Pilgrim’s Progress, in which Bunyan traces a character named Christian’s experiences from the City of Destruction to heaven.
5. In an allegory, persons and actions represent hidden meanings, so that the narrative can be read on two levels: the literal and the symbolic.
D. Paul’s use of this story from Genesis as an allegory does not give us license to find “hidden meanings” in all the events of the Old Testament.
1. If we take that approach to the Bible, we can make it mean almost anything we want.
2. This is the way that many false teachings arise.
3. The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to employ this Old Testament story to teach a New Testament truth through this allegory, but we must not take such liberties on our own.
4. We must always interpret the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, and where the New Testament gives us permission, we may search for hidden meanings.
5. Otherwise, we must accept the plain statements of Scripture and resist the temptation to try to “spiritualize” everything.
E. Today, let’s approach this text and our discussion by doing three things: (1) by explaining the Old Testament Story; (2) by explaining the New Testament Allegory; and (3) by making Contemporary Application.
I. The Old Testament Story (4:21-23)
A. Let’s turn our attention to the text: 21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.
B. This story is found in the book of Genesis, chapters 12-21.
1. It basically goes like this: Abraham was a prosperous businessman in Ur of Chaldees when God appeared to him and told him to take his wife Sarah, leave that land, and go to a land that God would later show him.
2. God also promised to give him descendants who would become a great nation.
3. That was all well and good except that Abraham was 75, Sarah was 65, and they had no children.
4. In the course of time they arrived in Canaan, the land God promised them.
5. Ten years passed and still no son had been born.
6. Since the biological clock was ticking away, Sarah suggested that Abraham marry Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian maidservant.
7. After some hesitation, Abraham agreed and in due course Hagar became pregnant and a son named Ishmael was born.
8. It should be noted that Sarah’s motives—on one level at least—were noble.
9. She concluded that since she was 75 years old, there was no way she would ever have a baby. a. That was a perfectly reasonable and perfectly “human” conclusion.
b. So she and Abraham decided to take matters in their own hands and “help God out.”
10. But, of course, God doesn’t need our “help,” and whenever we try to “help” God (instead of waiting for God to reveal his plan in his own way in his own time), things get worse, not better.
C. And that’s exactly what happened.
1. Genesis 16 says that animosity arose between Sarah and Hagar.
2. You could have guessed that, right? When you’ve got two women sharing one man - that’s never going to work out.
3. Fourteen years pass and Abraham is now 99, and Sarah 89.
a. His body is “as good as dead,” and her womb seems shut tight.
b. There is no chance, none whatsoever, that they will ever have a child together.
4. But at precisely that point, God announces that Sarah will conceive and bear a son within a year.
5. God worked a miracle and 12 months later Isaac was born.
D. Paul’s summary in verses 22 and 23 can be put in this chart:
1. You have one father – Abraham.
2. You have two mothers – Hagar and Sarah.
3. You have two corresponding sons – Ishmael and Isaac.
4. The first son was born the ordinary way by the flesh, and the second was born by God’s intervention.
5. The first son was born by compromise, and the second was born according to promise.
6. In that sense, the first was born by works (trying to solve the problem by human effort), and the second son was born through faith (by believing God’s promise).
7. Now let’s see how Paul allegorized that historically true story.
II. The New Testament Allegory (4:24-27)
A. Galatians 4 continues: 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: 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. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 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.”
B. The easiest way to sort this is out is to start where Paul starts—with two women and two sons—all of them literal people who actually lived on the earth and whose stories are told in the book of Genesis, as I mentioned.
1. What happens next is that Paul looks back at these historical persons and draws certain conclusions from them.
2. In essence, he sees a huge difference between Sarah and Hagar.
3. Sarah represents Grace and Hagar represents Law.
4. Sarah stands for trusting God alone and Hagar stands for trying to please God through your own efforts.
5. And the sons born to them represent the way of faith (Isaac) versus the way of works (Ishmael).
C. When you boil it down, Paul is saying that Sarah is the line of faith and Hagar is the line of works.
1. And all humanity is either in one line or the other - There is no “third line” you can choose.
2. Those who follow Hagar are the people who believe that religion and good works and self-effort will be enough to gain forgiveness, salvation, and a place in heaven.
3. Those who follow Sarah are the people who have rejected self-effort and have chosen to receive the Gospel – salvation by grace through faith.
4. The reference to Mount Sinai points us back to the giving of the law to Moses and the “earthly Jerusalem” is the Jerusalem of the first century, which was the world headquarters of Judaism with its dependence on the law as a means of salvation.
a. But since no one can be saved by keeping the law, the people who live in Jerusalem are enslaved by the law.
b. They are trapped by demands they can never meet.
c. The slave woman (Hagar) produces a slave son (Ishmael) who stands for everyone who is enslaved by the tyranny of law keeping as a means of salvation.
5. By contrast Sarah stands for the promise of God found in the gospel, which reveals to us the Good News that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead.
a. The salvation Jesus offers is free to anyone who will take it by faith.
b. This salvation offers true and lasting freedom.
c. The free woman (Sarah) produces a free son (Isaac) who stands for everyone who is freed from the tyranny of the Law to be saved by grace.
6. Finally, verses 26 and 27 are a quotation from Isaiah 54:1.
a. They point to a coming day when the barren woman (Sarah) will rejoice because she has far more children than the woman with a husband (Hagar).
b. Ultimately, the Law cannot produce life, but grace produces life abundant.
D. So we can summarize the allegory with this chart:
1. One man (Abraham) had two sons by two mothers.
2. The two mothers represent two covenants – law and grace.
3. One comes from earth, and the other comes from heaven.
4. Law produces bondage, but grace produces freedom.
5. This is the difference between every other religion and Christianity.
E. From Abraham come two vast streams of humanity.
1. The “works” stream of humanity goes like this: Abraham – Hagar – Ishmael – Mt. Sinai – The Law – Earthly Jerusalem – Bondage – Death.
2. The “faith” stream of humanity goes like this: Abraham – Sarah – Isaac – Mt. Zion – The Gospel – Grace – Heavenly Jerusalem – Freedom – Life Eternal.
3. Note that Abraham stands at the head of both lines.
4. That’s why it is not enough to be Abraham’s descendants.
5. The important question is not: “Is Abraham your father?”
6. The important question is: “Who is your mother: Hagar or Sarah?”
III. The Contemporary Application (4:28-31)
A. Galatians 4 concludes: 28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 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. 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.” 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.
B. In order to make his final point, Paul returned to the story.
1. Back in Genesis 21, we are told of an incident where Ishmael was abusive toward Isaac.
2. It was customary for the Jews to wean their children at about the age of 3, and to make an important occasion out of it.
3. At the feast, on that special occasion, Ishmael (who was about 17 years old) began to make fun of Isaac, and that really upset Sarah, when she saw it happen.
4. There was only one solution to the problem, and a costly one at that: Hagar and her son had to be removed from the home.
5. With a broken heart, Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away, because that is what God had told them to do, in agreement with what Sarah had told him to do.
C. Paul wants us to understand three things - let’s spend a minute with each of them.
1. First, Paul wants us to understand that we, Christians, like Isaac, are children of promise and are therefore free.
a. How wonderful it is that we no longer have to be children in bondage to the Law!
b. The person who makes law the principle of his or her life is in the position of a slave.
c. But the person who makes grace the principle of their life is free.
d. Someone once put it like this: “Love God and do what you like.”
e. In the end, it is the power of love, and not the constraint of law, that will keep us right; for love is always more powerful than law.
f. Grace frees us to live by faith and by love through the Holy Spirit – these are themes we will be exploring in chapters 5 and 6.
D. Second, Paul wants us to understand that we, Christians, like Isaac, should expect persecution from those in bondage to works.
1. John Stott wrote: “The persecution of the true church…is not always by the world, who are strangers, but by religious people, the nominal church. The greatest enemies of faith today are not unbelievers…but the church, the establishment, the hierarchy. Isaac is always mocked and persecuted by Ishmael.” (The Message of Galatians, pg. 127)
2. No one hates God’s grace like the man who is trying to save himself by his own good works.
3. Nominal Christians hate true Christians because they can’t understand them and feel rebuked by them.
4. Our greatest opposition normally comes not from drug dealers but from religious legalists who oppose what we stand for.
a. It was religious Jews who hated Jesus the most—not the indifferent Romans.
b. And Paul’s greatest enemies were not the pagan philosophers of Athens but the fanatical Jewish legalists, that we call Judaizers.
5. The descendants of Hagar are always threatened by the descendants of Sarah because Sarah’s children live by faith, Hagar’s by works.
a. They hate Sarah’s children because faith always threatens those who think they can do something to earn their salvation.
6. That’s why so many religious people are lost. They are enslaved by the “law” that demands they keep on working, trying, doing, always trying to do enough to please God.
a. The end result is always failure, inner bondage, frustration, and spiritual death.
7. Another kind of opposition we face comes from those who claim to practice religion but do it in the name of tolerance, diversity and pluralism.
a. They oppose us because we stand for the truth that salvation comes only through Jesus Christ and he is the only way to heaven.
b. They oppose us because we refuse to call what is wrong, right and what is evil, good.
c. They hate us because we won’t join in with their compromise.
8. Paul’s point is clear: Don’t be surprised by the persecution by religious people. It started with Ishmael and continues to this day.
E. Finally, Paul wants us to understand that we, Christians, like Isaac, should not compromise with those in bondage to works, but must cast them out.
1. It was Sarah who told Abraham to throw Hagar and Ishmael out of the house.
a. On one level, that seems cruel and unfair.
b. But on a deeper level, Sarah knew what she was doing, and God backed her up on it.
2. The promise of God must be preserved at all costs.
a. If Hagar and Ishmael stayed in the family, there would be unending strife and compromise.
b. Someone had to go. If you let Ishmael live with Isaac, there will be nothing but trouble.
3. In the church there can be no compromise on the core doctrines of our faith, such as the Bible as the Word of God, Jesus as the Son of God, and salvation by grace through faith.
a. Other doctrines are also important and cannot be compromised, like: the sanctity of all human life, God’s design for marriage as one man with one woman for life, and moral purity in all things.
4. We must stand for these truths even if it costs us popularity and persecution.
5. We are willing to do this because we know that we are heirs of the promises of God.
6. Although we might lose everything in this world, and suffer all kinds of persecution, we know that our reward in heaven is great, and no one can take that away from us.
7. As God’s children, we have been adopted and redeemed, forgiven and born again, and commissioned and empowered.
8. We are numbered with the saints, protected by angels, and after we die, we get to go to heaven!
F. But all of that is only true if you have chosen the right spiritual mother.
1. So let me ask you: Who’s your Mama? Hagar or Sarah? I hope your mother is not “Snort!”
2. The children of Hagar, the Ishmaels of this world, they trust in themselves and are lost.
3. But the children of Sarah, the Isaacs of this world, they trust in God alone for salvation and they are saved.
4. The Galatians had initially made the right choice, but the Judaizers had caused them to switch.
5. We must not make the same mistake. The blessed choice is Sarah – we should look to her as our spiritual mother.
Resources:
A Tale of Two Women: Are You a Child of Promise? By Ray Pritchard. www.keepbelieving.com
Galatians, The NIV Application Commentary by Scot McKnight, Zondervan, 1995
Galatians For You, Timothy Keller, The Good Book Company, 2013.
Galatians, Maxie Dunnam, The Communicator’s Commentary, Word, 1982.
The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians, William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series,
Westminster Press, 1976.
Be Free – Galatians, Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, Victor Books, 1989.
