Turn in your Bibles to Galatians 4. Galatians 4, if you've got a Black Church Bible, it's on page 974.
! We're looking at verses 21 to 31. Yo mama jokes. Do you know yo mama jokes? A yo mama joke
is a form of humour involving a verbal disparaging of one's mother. Used as an insult, yo mama
preys on widespread sentiments of parental respect. Suggestions of promiscuity and obesity
are common in the yo mama jokes. Compared to other types of insults, yo mama insults are especially
likely to incite violence. In non-American areas, the association can be seen with juvenile culture
culturally. Wikipedia. Yo mama jokes. I think you've got a yo mama passage in chapter 4 of Galatians
verses 21 to 31. That is probably the last bit of lightness you've got for another 25 to 30 minutes.
All right? Three points all beginning with I. The inheritance grace gives. Sometimes people will
look at someone and they'll say, oh he's just like his mum. Just like his mum. He's his mother's son,
all right? And in some ways that is what Paul is saying to the Christians in Galatia. They're their
mother's sons. The matriarch was Sarah. What has amazed me this week in studying this is Paul expects
the Galatians in the New Testament to know their Old Testament very, very well. He expects you and I
to know our Bibles. And so Galatians is full of illusions pointing back. Sarah, who was she? She was
Abraham's wife. And so we see that believers in the Lord Jesus are all Sarah's sons and daughters.
Now notice how Paul starts his argument in verse 21. It's pretty sharp, isn't it?
Verse 21, the false teachers in Galatia, they seem to want to embrace life fully under the kind of
complex of the law of Moses. That to be accepted by God, it's necessary to keep all the laws of Moses.
And so Paul says to them rather sternly, tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?
Remember, the Jewish people divide the Hebrew scriptures into three sections. The law, the first
five books of the Bible, the prophets, and the writings. The law and the Torah. And it refers not
just to the legal code or to case law, but the whole of the first five books of the Old Testament,
including the narrative sections, including the story of Adam and Eve and Noah.
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Thank you.
And then there's the other way of life, which is resting on God's promises and God's supernatural provision of free grace.
All of us here, sitting here before me, we are all sons and daughters of one of these two women.
We are all either children of the flesh or children of the promise.
Children of works, we could say, where you're trying your best, you're doing your hardest, or children of grace.
Children of the law and more children of the gospel.
That's the pattern.
That's his argument in a nutshell.
Now let's look a little bit more closely at it.
These women, he says in verse 23, represent two covenants.
A covenant is God, how God relates to us.
That is to say, it reflects two possible ways of approaching God's covenant.
The first law, the first approach to God's covenant, represented by those people, those legalists, with whom Paul is kind of locked in this argument, they want you to go to Sinai, to the law of Moses.
Now this is a little bit tricky, but hang with me for a moment, alright?
We need to see that Paul isn't actually saying that the Mosaic covenant, the law given to Moses, is actually just all about law.
That Moses is offering salvation to the people of Israel and us on the basis of our obedience.
He's not saying that.
But he is saying, this is how the false teachers in Galatia taught Moses.
And they distort Moses.
It's a bit like Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, when he says about the teachers of his day, he says, you have heard it said, he says to them.
He's not kind of sweeping away the law, but he's saying, the teachers in our day, they've changed, they've distorted the law.
And that's what Paul is saying here.
He's saying these people that have come to Galatia, it's not that there's a problem with Moses, but the way they've taught it, there's a massive problem.
They turn it into a covenant of works.
They turn it into a way of self-salvation, which it was never intended to be.
So in the earlier sermon, we saw from 217 to 21, you remember, we used an illustration, it's not original to me, but that of a railway line on a ladder.
So do you remember that?
The law of Moses, God's law is meant to be a railway line along the engine of our Christian lives travel.
And the engine is powered by God's free grace alone.
And the law is the rail tracks, which show us the path of a life which is honouring to the law.
God's law is not meant to be a means of salvation.
God's law is meant to provide direction in our life and guidance that we gladly take.
Having been saved already.
So you remember the Ten Commandments?
What's the beginning of the Ten Commandments?
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, who redeemed you from the house of slavery.
And it is the law of God that we use as our paths of obedience, the tracks on which our lives run.
But it was never meant to be, and it was never should be, a ladder up to God.
But they took the railway line of God's law, and they turned it up.
And so they made it something that they were trying to climb up to God.
And they sought to use the law in a way that it was never meant to be, or ever really is possible.
A means to climb up to God by our own strength.
By our good works and by our efforts.
One good work at a time.
Trying desperately to get to God.
And that's how the false teachers were using the law of Moses.
And the covenant at Mount Sinai.
But as persuasive as the legalists make this appear to the Galatian church, Paul says, what is it?
It's life according to the flesh.
In fact, verse 25, he says, all this approach can ever do is reduce your life to slavery.
You will end up resembling your mother, Hagar.
She provides a child for Abraham without regard to the promises of God.
She takes things into her own hands.
And instead of trusting the Lord, what is the consequence?
Slavery.
Everyone who uses God's law in this way ends up in bondage.
So Hagar, she models the fleshly approach to you and I.
That's how the legalists understood Mount Sinai and the Mosaic law.
As a way of self-salvation.
Do this, do that, do this, do that.
By the power of fleshly obedience.
You'll notice in verse 25 that in Paul's contemporary situation, that approach relating to God, it's embodied in this earthly city of Jerusalem.
He uses another picture.
The home, the headquarters of global Judaism.
Which though it tried to keep the law for justification in the sight of God, it just resulted in slavery.
But Paul says there's another approach.
There's a different approach to relating to God.
And that is represented by Sarah and her son Isaac.
One, a relationship that's not entered by law, by law keeping.
But a relationship that's entered into by God's free, undeserving grace.
Held out in the promise of the good news of the Lord Jesus.
As if Hagar is the symbol of legalism, represented by earthly Jerusalem.
Then Paul says in verse 26, Sarah is the mother of all who trust in the promise of God's grace in Jesus Christ.
And that's represented by, not the Jerusalem below, but the Jerusalem above.
And she is free, she's not in bondage.
She's our mother.
So verse 27.
You'll notice Paul takes that pattern and it's repeated again, much later on in the story, in Israel's own life.
And he quotes from Isaiah.
Isaiah chapter 54.
Can you see that in verse 27?
And he speaks to the nation of Israel and he says,
Rejoice, O barren one, who does not bear, break forth and cry aloud,
you who are not in labour, for the child of the desolate one
will be more than those of the one who has a husband.
Isaiah, looking back to Isaac and to Ishmael.
And Paul highlights, doesn't he, from Isaiah, the same pattern of God's undeserved favour.
It's grace, not works.
It's promise, not flesh.
It's gospel, not law.
Just like the barren Sarah.
The apparent barren remnant of Israel.
That people of God so beleaguered in Israel's time,
they'll one day bear more children by the supernatural work of God
than the one who has a husband ever could by natural means.
The children of promise will multiply as true sons and daughters of Abraham
all over the world as they come to trust the promise of the gospel.
It's complex, isn't it?
And I've given you pretty much raw meat to chew on this morning.
But despite the complexity of the argument,
it's really densely packed, it takes a bit of untangling,
but the point is actually really simple, isn't it?
He's asking you,
whose child are you?
Who is your mother?
Who's your mamma?
Is your mother this morning Hagar or Sarah?
Is it Sinai or Calvary?
Is it Moses or Christ?
Is it law or is it the gospel?
Is it the flesh or is it the promise?
And if you are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ this morning,
on the basis of the promise of grace alone,
you are the child of the new Jerusalem.
You are born like Isaac.
Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man,
but born of God.
And you are born from above,
as Jesus told Nicodemus, he must be.
Do you remember?
You are a child of the Jerusalem above.
And that's why the citation,
that's why the reference from Isaiah 54
is so important and so appropriate,
because it begins with a summons to joy.
If you are born from above,
regardless of your earthly circumstances this morning,
you have the best reason for joy.
And so he says, rejoice.
And only the sons of the free woman,
the heirs of the Jerusalem above,
have grounds for lasting joy.
Because we can rejoice this morning,
despite our circumstances,
because we're not in bondage.
And we're not in slavery to sin.
And we're no longer under the bondage of the law.
And we're no longer under the bondage
of the wrath and curse of God.
And we're no longer under the bondage
of satanic opposition and oppression.
No, we are free by his grace.
And we've been adopted children of God.
And we are born again.
And we have been made heirs of God
and co-heirs with Christ.
And we are bound for glory forever.
And so whatever you're going through this morning,
we can rejoice, despite all of that.
And that is the inheritance that only grace can give.
Who is your mother?
Is yours a life of slavery?
Or do you know the joy of gospel freedom?
The irritation, secondly, that grace causes.
The inheritance that grace gives.
The irritation grace causes.
Suppose you are a child of a free woman.
And you are this morning an heir of grace.
A citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem.
And you are trust...
Anyone own a black Vauxhall Vectra?
If somebody owns that, they can...
If they can go move that, that would be great.
Thank you.
That wasn't a planned interruption.
It would have been great if it was.
So imagine that you are...
There's a bit of lightness, isn't it?
Imagine you are an heir of the free woman this morning.
You are a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem.
And you're trusting today in the Lord.
What's that like?
When I said to you just now,
I said that you could rejoice.
Some of you are in the midst of real pain and agony.
Some of you have real difficulties.
And so is the Christian life...
Is it always joy and gladness from here on in, is it?
Is that what you can expect?
To bounce through life with a smile on your lips
and a skip in your step.
Is that how you're going to go?
Is that what you should expect from the Christian life?
We look down at verse 29.
And notice there Paul's great realism with the Galatians.
Just...
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.
Ishmael, do you remember him?
Born according to the flesh,
persecuted Isaac.
Born through the promise.
And in the same way,
in Paul's day,
the legalists in Paul's day
were heaping scorn
on the free grace people in Galatia.
And the reason that they were reacting so badly
to Paul's gospel of free grace
is because grace,
God's undeserved kindness,
is an irritant
to the soul of the self-righteous.
Grace is an irritant.
But when you understand that God accepts you
not from anything that you've done
or anything that you can do,
and that despite your sin and rebellion,
God in his wonderful mercy
will accept you solely because of what Jesus Christ has done,
that can be a real irritant
to those who are relying on themselves.
It's like grit under your eyelid.
It's like lemon juice in a paper cut.
It's like a splinter in your toe.
It's like a stone that's in your shoe.
It provokes.
And grace makes the legalistic heart restless
and it stirs it up and it incites it.
And you've got to get the grit out,
haven't you?
You've got to get the stone out of your shoe.
It makes you miserable.
And it's possible that you may be here this morning
and as you begin to understand about the gospel,
as you begin to understand how sinful that you are
and salvation has nothing to do with your self-image
and what you achieve and all those things,
actually grace becomes like grit in the eye,
like stone in your shoe.
And when you understand the wonder of free forgiveness
and adoption into God's family,
it makes you just a little bit uncomfortable
every time you hear it.
And you kick and you struggle.
You argue and you push back against the gospel.
And Paul gives you the explanation of this.
He tells you what's going on in your heart.
The reason why the gospel rubs you up the wrong way
is because the word says that you're wrong.
It's not that the word is wrong.
And that your heart and my heart is so locked in,
it is so wedded to self-righteousness.
And you and I are desperate to justify ourselves before God.
And the truth is a gospel of free pardon in Jesus,
received only by faith,
plus no works at all of yours.
Well, let me tell you what that does to your ego.
It takes an axe and it cuts your ego right down.
And it strips us of any claim to personal merit
before the days of God.
We're not saved because of, look what I did.
But we are saved only through the blood and obedience,
through the death and the obedience of the Lord Jesus.
But if you're seeking to assert your own righteousness,
if you're seeking to say, well, this is who I am
and this is what I've done,
you cannot tolerate a salvation that is free
on the obedience of another.
And I wonder this morning that as you seek to understand the gospel
and you begin to grasp it and you get irritated by it,
it really is a red flag, isn't it?
It's a warning light.
Alerting you to how far you are from the only safe path.
Because all your religion, all your piety,
all your morality, if you trust in it,
you cannot hope for peace in that.
The only thing that you can hope for peace in
is in the grace of God in Christ alone.
And there's a word of warning, isn't there?
There's a word of warning to the faithful Christians.
Paul wants the Galatians and he wants us as a church
to understand opposition, pushback,
criticism, persecution, shouldn't surprise us.
I think that's interesting, isn't it?
As we begin to think about praying more zealously,
more earnestly for people to become Christians.
As we think about the Christians, the non-Christians
that come in here week by week by week by week
and we begin to pray for them,
what must we expect?
Well, we must expect people to be converted.
But we must expect also pushback and criticism and opposition.
And of course, the Christian life is not just full
of endlessly happy moments.
Just as the rebellious, self-righteous heart
is irritated by free grace,
so the world is provoked by the witness of the faithful.
Grace drives legalists mad.
It's an irritant.
And so, believer in the Lord Jesus,
don't be surprised at the hostility
of non-Christian friends and family.
Get ready, that's normal Christian life.
Because when we understand the gospel,
that the gospel is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
and you will be saved,
you say to yourself, and I often say to myself,
it just can't be that easy.
It can't be that free.
It can't be that gracious.
There must be something left for me to do.
In fact, when you explain the gospel that simply,
people say, well, isn't that just a license
for me to live as I want?
Somebody said to me this week,
can't I just go on sinning?
If you say that God accepts you for free
and only for the sake of the righteousness
of Jesus Christ racked into your account
once and forever,
and you are forgiven once and forever
in that moment that you trust the Lord Jesus,
if you say that,
someone might think, well,
doesn't it matter how I live?
If you need to qualify every statement,
if you feel like you've got to say,
well, no, we have to keep the law,
remember that grace that is qualified by works
is not grace alone.
Paul is saying, make your stand on free grace alone.
And that lifts a terrible burden from your heart.
It lifts guilt from your shoulders.
The burden of trying to be so holy
that you will impress God.
It's a fool's errand that you'll never accomplish anyway.
But you need to beware,
and I need to beware,
and count the cost
as you begin to live your life
on the promise
and on free grace
and on the gift of God.
Don't be surprised
at just how annoying
the world is going to begin to find you.
when people really understand the gospel,
and when a church preaches the gospel,
no matter how kind and warm
and loving you may be
to someone,
if that person hangs their hope
before God
on their doing
and their own self-righteous,
you will be obnoxious to them.
The glory of the gospel
is that it's free.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and you will be saved,
you and your household.
That's all the gospel requires.
Repent.
Turn from your sin
and trust in Jesus Christ.
Alone.
Trust his obedience
and his blood.
And you will find him
to be a perfect
and a comprehensive
saviour now and forever.
There is no hope.
There is no hope,
none for you
apart from that simple message.
But as you embrace that message
in all its simplicity,
count the cost.
Get ready
because the world
is perfectly happy,
isn't it,
with any form
of self-salvation.
The world is glad
to allow and embrace
all manner
of works righteousness.
But strip people
of their own power,
tell them all grounds
for hope in themselves
and in their own efforts
is futile
and you shatter the illusion.
I'm a nice guy.
God is bound
to accept me
because I'm a nice guy.
Take that away
and say,
no, no, no.
The only hope for you
is Jesus Christ
and you will soon
find how hostile
they will be.
The inheritance grace
gives
the irritation
grace courses
and then lastly,
the intolerance
that grace requires.
Look at verses 30
and 31.
The intolerance
grace requires.
Verse 30,
what does the scripture say?
He 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.
And Paul again
is quoting
from the same story
of God's command
to Abraham
to set Hagar
and her son Ishmael
to set them aside,
to send them away
in favor
of Sarah
and her son Isaac
because only Isaac
is the child
of the promise.
He alone
is to inherit
and so Hagar
and Ishmael
are to be ejected.
What's his point?
Well, it's not very subtle.
He's saying to the Galatians,
do not be a tolerant
and inclusive church.
Do not be a tolerant
and inclusive church.
What do I mean by that?
There must be a limit
to our tolerance
when it comes to error.
There must be a limit
to our tolerance
when it comes to error.
So we live in a time,
don't we,
where tolerance
is virtually
the only
non-negotiable ethic
people have got left.
It's the only law.
Be tolerant.
And yet,
we know,
don't we,
that even the most
socially progressive
voices in our society
that constantly preach
inclusion
and tolerance,
actually,
when you say something
that they disagree with,
they become awfully intolerant,
don't they?
When their own
moral vision
is challenged,
they become very intolerant.
So,
haven't you found that
to be so?
When you affirm
that homosexuality
is a sin,
when you maintain
that people
cannot change
their biological sex,
how tolerant
are people?
We all have limits
to our tolerance.
Tolerance cannot
be an absolute ideal.
And Paul is
urging the church
in Galatia
to understand
the intolerance
that grace requires.
Cast out
the slave woman
and her son.
And so,
we need to be careful
here,
don't we?
But we need to say this,
false teaching
must have no place
in the church
of Jesus Christ.
Christ.
Do not make room
for lies.
Don't say,
well,
that's just
another strand,
another interpretation.
Don't accommodate
those who peddle
a false gospel.
grace.
You cannot include
in the same church
both grace
and anti-grace.
You cannot include
in the same church
Christ
and anti-Christ.
Christ.
You cannot include
in the same church
the free gospel
and the false gospel.
The inheritance
grace gives,
it gives you,
it gives you joy
at adoption.
It gives you joy
at being included
in the household
of God
on the basis
of God's rich gift.
It's a glorious
inheritance.
But then there is,
isn't there,
an irritation
that grace provokes.
If you embrace
free grace
this morning,
you strip away
all grounds
for boasting
in yourself,
but watch out
because grace
will always be
an irritant
in the heart
of the self-righteous
and the religious.
And then the intolerance
that grace requires.
We cannot live
with lies.
We must,
we must,
we must be kind.
And yet we must
be firm.
And we must stand
for the truth.
Because it is
terribly unkind,
isn't it,
to not stand
for the truth.
And so Paul concludes
in verse 31,
can you see it?
Brothers,
and there he does mean
brothers and sisters,
he says we are not
children of the
slave women,
but the free.
Stop flirting
with legalism.
Stop accommodating
yourself to keep
in with the
accepted group.
Keep the world
off your back
for a moment.
But you cannot
save yourself.
And so don't
embrace that peculiar
religious brand of it,
of self-salvation.
In the end,
you cannot have it
both ways.
So can you see
you're either Sarah's
or you're Hagar's
this morning,
two mothers,
who's your man?
And if you're a child
of the free woman,
a child of grace,
then it's time to
embrace the gospel.
Chapter 5,
verse 1,
can you see it?
For freedom,
Christ has set us
free.
And so put away,
cast out,
get rid of the
legalism.
Because what will
that do?
it will rob you
of your joy.
And that's Paul's
message to the
Galatians and to us.
May God give us
grace to understand
it and to embrace
it.
Let's pray.
Amen.