Your Family Tree

Galatians 4:21-31

We live in a time of opportunity and individual accomplishments.  You can more or less choose to pursue whatever you choose.  We’re not set in a social level or occupation.  You can make of your life what you choose.  Not everyone even has those opportunities, but most of us are very fortunate to have the opportunities that we enjoy.

But you’ll have to recall that for much of history this was not the case.  Your family determined your occupation, your social status, your marriage partner, etc.  If your dad was shepherd, you’d be shepherd.  If you dad was a blacksmith, you’d be a blacksmith.  There was a time when the family you were born into was everything:

If you were born a Rockefeller, Carnegie, or Kennedy [picture], you were set for life.  You’d get the best education, the greatest opportunities; you’d mingle with high society.  You’d have status, power, wealth, and a fabulous inheritance.

Or if you were born a slave, you were a slave [picture].  You wouldn’t have a choice or opportunity.  You were born a slave, and you would die a slave.

For a moment, let’s put off our modern, middle-class mentality and imagine ourselves back in a time when your birth family determined your life.

It’s been a while since I been able to pick up on our study of Galatians, but I want to remind us that we’re trying to learn what it means to live in the gospel, to live by faith.

Paul recounts a story from Genesis 16.

God has promised a son to Abraham, but no son was coming Abraham was 85, Sarah was 75, and still no son.  Sarah suggests that Abraham sleep with her servant Hagar, and Hagar becomes pregnant and gives birth to Ishmael.  God later says that Ishmael is not the promised son.  The promised son would come through Sarah, and 15 years later, Sarah gives birth to Isaac.  Ishmael is eventually sent away.

Your birth determined who you were: if your mother was a slave, you were a slave; if your mother was free, you were a free.

This was an important story for the Jews because they were the descendents of Isaac.  They were the heirs of the promise, God’s chosen people.  The Ishmaelites were Gentiles.  They were outside the covenant, without the law, without God.

And this great divide was because one was the descendents of Hagar, the slave woman, the other was descendents of Sarah. the free woman.  For the Jews, this was their big claim: they were the children of Sarah, the children of the promise, children of privilege and freedom.

Paul takes this story and turns it upside down.  He says it is the people of the law who are the children of Hagar, and it is the people of the gospel who are the children of Sarah.  More specifically, these circumcision-requiring Judaizers (who are so zealous for their Jewishness) were the descendents of Hagar, slaves.  And these Gentile Christians were the descendents of Sarah, the free ones.

Paul reversed the sides.  He turned their whole religious/ethnic identity upside down!  It’s like he was saying to a group of American soldiers and politicians, “It’s the Taliban who are American Patriots and you are enemies of freedom!”  It’s hard for us to feel the offensiveness and shock of Paul’s re-interpretation.

Let’s take a closer look at our passage

21                 Paul is addressing these Galatians Christians who were thinking that they need to be circumcised and follow the Mosaic law.  He’s been arguing how this would be going back to slavery and turning away from the gospel, and he’s trying to convince them of how wrong this would be.

from Fung, 213

22-23        Abraham had two sons, one by Hagar, one by Sarah.  Hagar’s son was born in the ordinary way (a natural birth), but Sarah’s son was born as a result of a promise.

24-26 Paul takes this story and sees an illustration, an allegory of a principle, he draws some theological connections

Hagar stands for the Law, present Judaism, slavery

Sarah stands for freedom, for the covenant of promise, for the new, heavenly Jerusalem

The story of Hagar is the story of Abraham and Sarah using their own effort and wisdom to produce a child.  It was their plan, their design.  Ishmael was the product of Sarah’s idea.  Ishmael was born “according to the flesh,” the phrase Paul’s been using to refer to human effort.

The story of Sarah is the story of a ridiculous impossibility.  When angels came to tell Abraham that Sarah would have a child in one year, Sarah laughed.  She couldn’t believe it.  Isaac was the product of God’s miraculous intervention, of God’s promise fulfillment.

The two stand side by side as stories of human self-reliance and God’s gracious miracle.

One is the path of righteousness by law-obedience, human effort, works.

One is the path of righteousness by faith, by believing God’s promise.

Do we live in the story of Hagar or the story of Sarah, a story of self-reliance or a story of faith.  Which side are we on?

I recent heard of a pastor who has a really powerful ministry.  People often experience deep conviction and spiritual revival.  It seems like God’s Spirit is working in powerful and obvious ways.

Part of me praised God for His work.  But another part of me thought, what about me?  Why doesn’t God work is more powerful and obvious ways in my ministry?

My response was, I need to pray more.  Prayer is the key.  If I prayed more, I’d have more “spiritual power.”  With prayer comes power.

Now, I should pray, and quiet honestly, I do think as a church it would do us much good to pray more.  But I want to be careful: there is a way to pray that is like the story of Hagar (legalistic), and there is a way to pray that is like the story of Sarah (by faith).

If I think, I need to pray more.  The issue is my discipline, my effort, this is something I have to do—then we’re like the Hagar story.  We are working “according to the flesh,” we are relying on our discipline, our effort.

Instead, Gal 3:2, 5, says we receive the HS not by obeying the law (doing the right things) but by believing.  We receive the HS not because we’re diligent about our spiritual disciplines.  We receive the HS by the faith in praying, not the activity of praying.  It is not about how long did we pray, how hard did we pray, but what were we believing when we were praying.

And on the other side, to not pray at all is not living by faith either.  To not pray demonstrates self-reliance and betrays any kind of dependence on God—we don’t need God.  And there is no expression of faith, no clinging to or claiming of God’s promises.  In fact, it is to live autonomously, to live as if God wasn’t there.  We live in a world where there is no God.

To live by faith is to pray because you believe He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. 

It is to believe that our Father wants to give us good gifts, and so we ask. 

It is to cast our cares of Him because He cares for us. 

It is to meditate on all that God has done and promises to do for us, so much that we find supernatural peace that transcends understanding.

It is not about how long did we pray, how hard did we pray, but what were we believing when we were praying.

At the core, prayer must be primarily an expression of faith, not an exercise in personal discipline.  The righteous will live by faith, not discipline, not laziness.

It’s not about what we do but about what God does. 

And when we understand/trust in what God has done, that produces what we do.  (Faith produces works; e.g., we believe He cares and wants to give us good things, and so we ask)

If it does not produce good works, then our faith is dead.  (against antinomianism, faith does not produce laziness)

If we do anything that does not come from faith, that work is worthless.  (against legalism; pray, serve, help the poor, share the gospel)

Christian living, living by faith is living in light of what God does for us.  (It is to live trusting in His promises.)

27                     We have this prophecy from Isaiah

Paul is saying the gospel is superior to the law.  Sarah/Heavenly Jerusalem will be more abundant and fruitful than Hagar/Judaism.

29-30        There is an enmity between the sons of slavery and the sons of freedom, between Law and Gospel.  You cannot mix Law and Gospel.  These are incompatible.  Either we are living by self-reliance or we’re living by faith, but there is no middle ground.  Paul is urging the Galatians to completely reject the Judaizers, the legalist.

28, 31   You are children of the freewoman, children of the promise.

Why would you want to live under the bondage of the law?  You are free!

1.       This is about spiritual descendents not physical descendents.

God had made a promise to Abraham and his descendents, and that’s a promise He will keep.

To understand how to put together OT promises to Abraham with NT gospel we need to recognize that God was not focused on Abraham’s physical descendents.  That’s where the Jews got things wrong.  They kept thinking they were the descendents of Abraham (and they were).

Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac [not Ishmael] that your offspring will be reckoned.”  ⁸ In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.  (Romans 9:7-8)

Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.  (Gal 3:7)

If we have faith in Christ, then we are children of the free woman, we are the spiritual children of Abraham.  It’s about faith.  The righteous will live by faith.

Our focus is not so much on what we do, but on what we believe.  And that belief will produce what we do.

2.         This is the work of God

The whole point is the contrast

human effort, self-reliance, works-righteousness                          what we do

God’s promise, God’s work                                                                                            what God does

There is nothing you do to be born into the Rockefeller family or into a slave family.  There is nothing you did to be born into the family you have.  You are passive in this.  But this is what Paul focuses on: who was your ancestor?  What family were you born into?  That determines everything.

Notice 4:29 and 4:23, “born by the power of the Spirit,” “born as the result of a promise.”  These are interchangeable terms: the people of the promise are people in whom the Holy Spirit powerfully works.  This birth is a supernatural work of God: we are born again, we are a new creation.

We are not saved by work, by something we do.  This is the work of God.

We are saved by trusting in what God does.  But even that faith is the work of God’s Spirit.  The HS must produce living faith in us.  We are born by the power of the Spirit and we live by the power of the Spirit, the Spirit that produces faith in God and His promises.

Even as I want to teach our church how to live by faith, I recognize that in the end, this must be the work of God.  This is not a concept we learn, this is the work of God.  And often, God uses His Word to accomplish His work in us.

In one sense, it is humbling—we are powerless.  We have nothing in ourselves that can save us.

In another sense, it is freeing—this is the work of God.  It is God’s work to call, to justify, to sanctify, to glorify.  And we rest on God’s work.  It is God’s story.  Which leads to my last thought:

3.       There is freedom (5:1)

Paul’s point, conclusion

Paul isn’t trying to tell the Galatians to do something.  He is telling them to understand, believe something, to see themselves differently.  When Paul says, They are the descendents of Sarah, the children of the promise (4:28, 31), this was a big thing.

I recognize this may not feel that exciting to us, but please try to understand the immense sense of privilege, security, wealth, status that these Gentile Galatians Christians must have felt.  They don’t have to be circumcised, they don’t have to become a Jew—they already are, even more than ethnic Jews, the children of Abraham and heirs of the promise.

It’s a silly example, but I remember when I was going through my ordination exams with the Korean Eastern presbytery.  My dad studied at WTS and was a pastor here in Philly many years ago, but most of the examination committee members knew my dad.  And so when they found out that I was the son of their friend Chang Je Kim, they immediately warmed up.  How is your father?  How is your mother and your siblings?  Oh, we’re supposed to examine Paul.  And they asked some pretty “friendly” questions.  I had favor, not because of anything I had done, but because they knew my father.  It mattered whose son I was.

(BTW, I did well on the written and oral exam, and like to think that I would have passed even if the examination committee members were not friends with my dad.)

You’re a Rockefeller, Carnegie, a Kennedy.  More than that, 1 John says how great is the Father’s love that we should be called the children of God! 

Henrietta (Hetty) Howland Green [picture] was a notorious miser. 

She never turned on the heat nor used hot water. She wore one old black dress and undergarments that she changed only after they had been worn out.  She ate mostly pies that cost fifteen cents. One tale claims that she spent a night looking around her home for a lost stamp worth two cents.

Green made much of her business at the offices of a bank in New York, surrounded by trunks and suitcases full of her papers; she did not want to pay rent for an office.

Her son broke his leg as a child, but Hetty took him away from the hospital when she was recognized. She tried to treat him at home, but the leg contracted gangrene and had to be amputated.

When her children left home, Green moved repeatedly among small apartments in Brooklyn Heights and Hoboken, New Jersey, mainly to avoid establishing a residence permanent enough to attract the attention of tax officials in any state.

In her old age she began to suffer from a bad hernia but refused to have an operation because it cost $150.

Hetty Green died in New York City on July 3, 1916, at the age of 81.

An estimate of her net worth was around $100 – $200 million (or $1.9 – $3.8 billion in 2006 dollars), arguably making her the richest woman in the world at the time.  (Wikipedia)

We don’t realize who we are and what we have!

We are not the children of peasants or slaves.  We are the children of a billionaire; we are children of enormous wealth, status, privilege and power.  Paul is trying to tell the Galatians (and us): do you know who you are!

By faith, we have become the descendents of Abraham, the heirs of the promise, the children of God.