Two Covenants

Introduction

A. Most of us have stories to tell about our birth. Your parents may have retold your story numerous times and while you were there you remember the details based on what was told to you. We have birth stories about both of our kids. Not all birth stories bring smiles. Some birth stories bring tears and memories of what could have been. Throughout Galatians Paul has reminded his readers that there are two stories. There is the story of the law which brings slavery. It is the story of having to trust yourself to keep the rules. It is the story of trying to win favor with God by how well you do. It is a story that ultimately has no life. The other story is the story of the gospel and it brings freedom. It is the story of trusting God. It the story of favor with God based on what God has done through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It is the story of life — real life in which we die and Christ lives through us.

B. Paul has been retelling these stories in various ways. In today’s text, he will retell the stories using an allegory from the history of Abraham and his two sons. The stories are woven through the birth of Ishmael and Isaac. The story may be Jewish but the implication applies to all who follow Christ and want to live in spiritual freedom.

A. To understand Paul’s allegory we must know Abraham’s story. God called Abraham to leave his home and to travel to a home that was unknown to him. Abraham listened and traveled a road of faith. God promised Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through him and that his descendants would be too many to count. Abraham was already older. And by the time he became 85 he began to doubt God. He doubted if God would keep his promise. So with his wife’s consent, Abraham took Sarah’s servant, Hagar, and had a child with her. Naming him Ishmael, Abraham thought this would fulfill God’s plan. But 14 years later at age 99, God tells Abraham that Ishmael is not the son of promise and that Sarah his 89 year old wife would give birth to a son.

B. Both Abraham and Sarah laughed at the prospect of having a child in their old age. Neither could imagine that such would happen. Abraham and Sarah had Isaac a year later. Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90. God had kept his promise and Isaac became the child of promise. He was the child that fulfilled the intent of God. It had been 25 years from the time God first told Abraham about a child of promise and during that 25 years, Abraham had to learn to trust God more and more as the years rolled along.

C. It is this story that Paul uses to make his point. False teachers are trying to persuade those in the churches of Galatia that keeping the law was necessary in order to impress God. As 4:10 points out, the people are now keeping special days and seasons as a means to prove that they are worthy of God’s love. Paul has argued that living under the law not only cannot bring one into relationship with God but it results in guilt, shame and the loss of freedom. There is no life.

D. Abraham’s story demonstrates that truth. Two sons. Ishmael and Isaac born 14 years later. 2 mothers. Hagar who is a slave. Sarah who is free. 2 births. One in the ordinary way. What Paul has in mind is that Ishmael was born not just from the coming together of a man and woman but through the intent of Abraham. Ishmael is the product of Abraham’s self-reliance. He is the product of Abraham trying to do things his way. But not so with Isaac. Isaac was the product of a promise. Isaac is the product of reliance on God. Isaac could only have happened because of the power and intent of God. No boasting on Abraham’s part.

E. Paul carries the point further — the son of the slave woman is a slave as well and the full picture is found in Jerusalem and the law. It all leads to a lifeless existence of having to depend on yourself to make God notice you. But the son of the free woman is free and the full picture is found in the spiritual Jerusalem and the Spirit. This leads to a Spirit led life which trusts God and rests confidently in the full acceptance of God.

So What?

A. Paul says that those who insist on proving yourself persecute those who trust God. This is true. Grace makes some uncomfortable. Grace makes some think that we are being too soft on people. Some believe that unless we feel bad then we can’t possibly be close to God. For some, grace is permission to fail and we have to take hard stands to prevent people from taking advantage of grace. How sad to believe that living in a prison cell is best. How sad to believe that by keeping the rules you can prove to God how good you are. How sad to want to force others to feel as lifeless and sad and choked as you feel. How sad to want to force others to live the way you live when you cannot live up to your own standards.

B. So what does Paul write? “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Hang on to your freedom. Christ died to bring freedom. Don’t let it go. Come out of the cell of prison. Let go of the shame and the perfection. Trust that God loves you and do not hang on to proving yourself with God. Give up living as if you must prove yourself and live in the freedom that Christ has brought to you. The freedom in which the Spirit of God is your guide and the Spirit’s presence allows you to know God in the calm confident assurance that he is “Abba, Father.” Invitation.

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