Title Liberal/Galatians 4:28-31
Content Freedom (Galatians 4:28-31) - Lecture 11
I told you this morning that you cannot go to heaven with religious zeal. When a believer leads a religious life with religious zeal, they make one mistake, and that is to make their zeal the standard of their faith. Since zeal for prayer, zeal for reading the Bible, and zeal for giving are the standards of faith, believers are forced to look at their current zeal to check the level of their faith. However, if they are not satisfied with the number of times they attend worship services, the extent to which they attend meetings, the time to pray, and what they donate, they become anxious about their beliefs. In other words, they think their beliefs are being shaken. Eventually, to supplement his faith, this person will increase the number of worship services, spend more time in prayer, try not to miss meetings, and try to donate a larger amount. When this happens, this person will not live freely, but will become a life bound by the law.
Today, too many believers are seen living their lives tied to the visible organization of the church. Because we are immersed in the thought that what we do to the church is what we do to God, we cannot help but be bound by the church. As a result of this, we must consider that the biggest obstacle to believers now living their life of faith may not be the world, but rather the church. As I said in the morning, your zeal for the church will swallow you up.
In verse 29 of the text, there are 'those who are born after the flesh' and 'those who are born after the Spirit'. And in verse 31, those who are born after the flesh are called 'children of the slave girl', and those who are born after the Spirit are called 'children of the free woman.' And verse 30 tells us to cast out the slave girl and her son. This is because the son of the slave girl cannot inherit with the son of a free woman. Then what is the son of the maid, and why cannot the son of the maiden inherit?
Today's text is the story of Abraham's wife. By analogy to the story of Abraham's wife, it is telling who will inherit God's inheritance. Abraham's wives were Hagar, a slave, and Sarah, a free man. The Apostle Paul is trying to show that there are two kinds of people in the world by comparing the status of these two people. The text says that Ishmael, the son born to Hagar, is after the flesh, and Isaac, the son born to Sarah, is after the Spirit. And it is said that the son who follows the flesh will be cast out.
Then, what is born of the flesh and what is born of the Spirit? God promised Abraham descendants. However, God's promise is not fulfilled until Abraham's age is close to 100. Eventually, Abraham gave birth to a son through a maid named Hagar. But the son was not the promised son of God. Ishmael, who was born to Hagar, was just a sign that Abraham wanted to fulfill God's promise through his own efforts. In other words, it refers to the zeal to carry on the promises of God through one's own efforts, and is said to be born after the flesh.
Isaac, on the other hand, is thoroughly the evidence of God's promise. Isaac was the result of God's power without any human effort and zeal. It is a son who was not born after human effort, that is, a son who was not born after human blood. Although we are physically descended from Abraham's lineage, we are called those who follow the Holy Spirit because he is a God-given son, not Abraham's strength. It is said that only those who have followed the Holy Spirit will enter the kingdom of heaven.
It is said that it is not okay to try to keep the word of God through your own efforts like Abraham. Because the flesh is only a sinner. God gave the law to let people know that the flesh is a sinner, but people kept that law with their own efforts and used it as a way to heaven. He had become a bondager under the law, and he thought that it was the job of God's people to create numerous other laws to keep the law and to keep the law.
People say that salvation comes through faith, but they want to find the evidence of faith. A believable proof is that something has to be changed and shown. When Abraham received the promise of God, it was faith to look and wait for the promise, and not faith to try to fulfill the promise with his own efforts. The evidence of faith is to live only by looking at the Word. However, if you are trying to make a token of faith yourself with my zeal, you must know that it is nothing but creating Ishmael.
You must have freedom in your religious life. I'm not saying you should do it your way. It means that you have to move by holding on to the Word and do everything you want to do on your own. Doing it by someone's coercion or by law will only take you away from the grace of the Lord. Living a life of faith freely is the image of a person born after the Holy Spirit.