A Tale of Two Women

Hey, good morning.

I always have a great time coming up here and being with you all. Now, you may not have any fun, but I do. I hope you're all doing really great if you got your Bibles. Turn with me if you would. We're going to be in Galatians this morning and you may already know that.

And while you're turning there, I brought a little display. It's out here in your four year area and I would love for you to go by there and pick up a few things. And just real quick, just tell you what's out there. We've got our main brochure. We'd love for you to pick this up.

I want you to know real quick, if you go to McDonald's and after you order your food, if you show them this, you'll get absolutely nothing. But at least you have an opportunity to tell that person about us. And so I'm kind of fond of McDonald's. I even wrote a song about my favorite meal, but I'm not gonna share it this morning. Maybe second service will get that, I don't know.

But anyway, if you're a business owner, we have a brochure called Pillars of Hope and we would love to partner with you. And this tells about how you can do that and that's out there. And then if you're a farmer or you're connected to a farmer, we've got a brochure that talks about a really great opportunity of a tax write off by donating a crop from one acre of your of your crops for the year and that talks about that. And then of course, if you want to receive our newsletter, we've got a QR code out there. And if the Lord nudges you to throw some money in the, in our stock pot out there, just know that it's going to our efforts in Kentucky right now, as you and I are in this building, we have a crew on the road coming in from South Dakota to work with us in London, Kentucky.

And so be praying for that group if you would, as we are cleaning up from the aftermath of the tornadoes from just a few weeks ago. Can we do a little preaching? Would that be all right?

Now we're on a time crunch, but the good thing is I can't see the clock and we're going to look at some verses. I'm just going to tell you real quick, we're going to read a good chunk of scripture because I think sometimes as we read the scripture, we forget that the scripture can still speak for itself. Amen. And so I want to make sure we get a good chunk in of what I want to talk about this morning. And again, as always, I just want you to know I'm preaching to myself, allowing you to listen in this morning.

And so we're going to pray and we're going to jump right in. Let's do that. Father, thank you. First off, Lord, thank you for waking us up today and giving us the gift of this brand new day. We are grateful for that, Lord.

Father, I pray the songs that we have sung this morning have blessed you. I pray that the attitude of our heart this morning has been good. But Lord, right now as we look take the next several minutes to look at your word, God, I pray you would open it up to us today. Lord, as always, I invite you to be the editor of this message that you would take away and you would add to. But God, I pray that if there is someone here this morning because of situations or circumstances from this past week or this past month, Lord, if they need to hear a little bit different message, oh Holy Spirit, fine tune my words as they enter their ear and penetrate their heart, Lord, have your way in this place just like it was heaven.

And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen. We're going to begin reading in Galatians chapter four, and we're going to begin reading in verse eight. And we'll be reading out of the NIV translation. And again, we're going to read a good chunk of scripture this morning, but we're not going to preach it all because we'd be here for a while and I got to adjust things. I'm used to a little bit more lighting.

I've only got one good eye, so bear with me as I try to focus in here this morning. Let's begin verse 8. The apostle Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says this formally. When you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles?

I want to stop and hover here for a moment. You ever done that?

You ever found yourself going back to the old going back to the familiar? Let's continue on. Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.

I plead with you brothers, become like me, for I became like you. You have done me no wrong as you know it. Is because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. Even though my illness was a trial to you. You did not treat me with the contempt or scorn.

Instead you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that you could have done so. You would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. Verse 16.

Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?

Those people are zealous to win you over for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us so that you may be zealous for them. It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good and to be so always and not just when I'm with you. Verse 19. My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth, until Christ is formed in you.

How I wish I could be with you now and change my tone because I am perplexed about you. So Paul's laying some things out here, friends. He's been sharing the gospel. He's been passionately sharing the Gospel with the Galatians. And then all of a sudden, he's Catch this next part as he goes into story time.

Verse 21.

Tell me, tell me, you who want to be under the law. Are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise. These things may be taken figuratively, for the woman represents two covenants.

One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves. This is Hagar. Now, Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written, be glad, O barren woman who bears no children.

Break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains, because more are the child, the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband. Verse 28. Now catch this. Now you, brothers like Isaac, are children of the promise. And at that time the sons born of the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the spirit.

It is the same now. But what does the scripture say? Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman. For the free woman's Son, Therefore, brothers, we're not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman. Now, I know that was a chunk of text, but I felt like I would cheat you if we didn't put all that together this morning.

Because as we think about what we just looked at, and if you are taking notes, I simply entitled the message this morning. A tale of two women. The power of Promise Verse, the bondage of performance. If you think about this text here, of what the apostle Paul is telling the church of Galatia, he's not telling them something that they're not familiar with. In fact, as he starts laying this out about these two women, those who were listening, they would know about this story.

They would have known about the history of what he's saying here in Genesis 16. And we don't have time to go back there, but in Genesis 16, God promises Sarah and Abraham that they're gonna have a child. They're gonna have a son. And in fact, God goes to the point of saying to them that your son, the genealogy, the children after him will be so many that, I mean, you won't be able to count them. Be like the stars in the sky.

So they knew about this. So the first thing I want us to look at this morning is simply this. The performance of the flesh. The performance of the flesh. What's interesting, I think, is as God, as Paul lays this out to us here this morning in this text and we reference back to Genesis 16, we got to realize another thing about this is that Sarah and Abraham weren't young.

And when God told them that they were going to have this son and that Sarah was barren, as time kept going on, they took. Well, they took it into their own hands to do God's job. You ever done that? And so what happens is, as Paul lays this out to them, is that Sarah takes her servant Hagar and says to Abraham, her husband, you sleep with her. I'm giving you Hagar.

And so there's a son born, but it's not born the way that God wanted it to be done. And so we have Ishmael on the scene. What's interesting, I think about this is when we think about the performance of the flesh, do you ever feel like you're not good enough?

Hello? Is this thing on? Do you ever feel like that? That you just. You just don't measure up?

You're just. You just. You just can't do enough. You just can't give enough. You can't.

You know, you have your. You know, if I could just go to Church a few more Sundays, if I could just maybe write another check or maybe if I could show up to two or three more events the church is doing. It almost seems like we had this idea that we have to do, do, do, do, do, because we think that's how we're going to get into God's favor. You ever been like that? You ever felt that way?

Do you know anybody like that, that you feel like that you just can't do enough? It's that whole idea of the flesh control that you just feel like you've gotta control all the circumstance, all the situations that are going on and that if it gets out of control, then you can't handle it.

It's interesting, I think, because I think if all of us was really honest with ourselves, we, we can find ourself. A lot of times in a part of this story about these two women, this whole idea of Sarah and Abraham trying to figure out what to do here, and Sarah says, here's what we're going to do. This is how we're going to get our son. And then we find out that's just not the way that God intended it. This wasn't what God had in mind.

What's interesting, I think, is that Paul is warning us in this text about the law. Listen, friends, we're not under the law. We're under grace. Amen. And what we need to realize is that we can't be good enough.

I mean, think about this for a minute and I'll try my best not to get too happy here, but think about this. If we could do enough, if we could be good enough, then Jesus came for no reason. His death was worthless. But we know that is because abundantly amen. What's interesting, I was standing back here behind stage, and I'm not.

Don't want to embarrass anybody. I never caught the young man's name. But we just saw a death, burial and resurrection over here, didn't we?

And the thought always goes through my mind and someone made a comment back there says, boy, we're going to be rejoicing with the angels. And the thought always goes through my mind and at the same time I'm thinking about how the scripture says that heaven rejoices over one that comes home. At the same time the devil's ticked off because he lost one. And you know as well as I do that we, as the church, as the body of Christ, need to do everything that we can to encourage, pray and uplift this young man who just made a very Great and deadly decision.

Because you know as well as I do that once we give our life to the Lord, there becomes a bullseye on our back from the enemy. And the enemy is going to do everything he can to make us believe that we'll never be good enough. In reality, we already know that. Amen. We never will be good enough.

We can't do enough. I'll tell you what it's like. You know, I used to run when I was younger than. The only running I do now is to the bathroom. But it's kind of like this.

You're on a treadmill, and you're on a treadmill and you're running and you're running and you're sweating and you're out of breath and you're getting tired and you're running and you're running and you're running and you're not going anywhere. All you end up becoming is exhausted. And friends, that's what it is. If we think that we've got to perform to get into heaven, if we gotta perform to make God love us, that we gotta perform to be in the saving grace of Jesus. And all we're gonna do, friends, is we're gonna wear ourselves out.

That's all we're gonna do. And those moments of exhaustion, I believe, is when the enemy is the most powerful. But I also believe that he is powerful in those times when everything's going good. You know what I'm saying? You ever notice there's been a lot of things that my family's been going through in the last few years, and it's been interesting just to see how God is working through all that kind of stuff.

And there was a moment where my wife and I, we were having this conversation, and I told her, I said, you know, I said, I'm just loving. I'm loving where we are right now. And she says, what do you mean? I said. Because I said, you know what I said?

I said it wasn't because we were at a point in life where everything was good and we weren't thinking about God. But right now, because everything is so unsettled and we don't know even more, man. We're praying more to God.

You know what's interesting, I think, and it brings me to the second point of our message this morning. And this is it, the power of the promise. Because what's interesting is in Genesis 21, we have the story of when God fulfills his word. Sarah is 90 years old. 90 years old, and she gives birth to Isaac.

This is Crazy. Aren't you glad that doesn't happen today?

I kind of thought I'd hear a few more amens out of the women. Maybe. I don't know. I just. This past week or the week before, two weeks ago, I was preaching senior high camp in Florida.

And it was funny because I was. Every night I got to preach, I told the group there, I had my phone right here. I said, I just want to tell you, if my phone goes off, the sermon's going to stop. Because I got. I had a daughter and a daughter in law, both pregnant, could go anytime.

And so two weeks ago, my daughter gave birth at 2:32am in the morning to Ezekiel Little ZZ.

And then my daughter in law, the very next day gave birth to her third son, Daniel. That's Danny D. And so I've got six grandkids. I love every one of them. But it's so funny because my son, my son and my daughter in law, they got Samuel, Nathaniel and Daniel.

So it's Sammy, Sam, Naty, Nate and Danny D. They're all great.

And then when my daughter said she was gonna, was gonna have a boy and gonna name him Ezekiel, I said, sweetie, could you not find a name that your dad could spread, you know? And so she said, well, dad, you know, you'll never call him by name. You'll have something else. I said, well, of course, I said, you'll be zz, ZZ Top. Anyway.

But if you think about this, when so God brings about in Genesis chapter 25:21, he brings about the promise and Abraham and Sarah, they have Isaac. And what an amazing event because this, by all human standards, is physically impossible. Isn't that good news? Because what we believe is physically or humanly impossible is possible by the God of creation. And what I'm trying to get at friends this morning, as we think about these two women, we think about this story, I just want you to know that you land in one or two of those camps.

You're either in the Ishmael camp or you're in the Isaac camp. You're either a part of the camp that feels like you just got to perform. You got to perform, you got to perform. And maybe God will love you and maybe God will accept you. Or you're in the camp of Isaac, grabbing hold of the promise of grace and knowing there's freedom.

Are you free this morning, friends? You know, it's amazing. Look there, back at your text for a moment. It's interesting. Now we got to realize.

I know, I know you probably already Know this, but I feel I still got to tell you this. You do realize that chapters and verses were not put in originally, they were put in for us so we could find stuff. We know that, that this letter that Paul wrote, this letter would have been a rolled up scroll that they would have unrolled. And by the way, that's why you see at the letters, beginning of the letters, you find out the beginning of the, of the letter who wrote it. Because.

Because if you didn't, you'd have to unroll the entire scroll to get to the bottom to find out who wrote it.

So there's no chapter and verse here, but because of it. Look back, if you would look at the last verse that we read, verse 31 and it says this says, therefore brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman. Amen. And then look what happens in verse one of chapter five. 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.

Did you catch that? Let me read that one more time. Verse 1 of 5. It is for freedom. Christ has set us free.

Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Listen, friends, what we need to understand is we've got to stop trying to manipulate God's timing and stop trying to make things happen our way. And we need to realize is that God's in charge. God's in control. God has the promise that's been given to us.

I don't know about you, but the day that I realized that I couldn't do enough to get into heaven was a good day.

Because I know me.

I know me.

I know my skeleton's in the closet.

And I know I can't. I can't do enough.

I don't know where you are this morning, but let me ask you a question.

Do you take a bath before you take a shower?

I got a pretty good idea. There may be some people here this morning that you're just in that point where you're trying to get all your things in your life taken care of before you come to Jesus. You think if I can just get these things taken care of, if I can get these ducks in a row, if I can just quit that habit, if I can just stop going there. If I can. If I can turn.

Turn away from dealing with those people and if I can just. If I can just. If I can just. If I can just. If I can just.

But friends, let me tell you, the God of creation, who loves you so much that he was willing to send Jesus his son the best for us, is calling you and me to him and saying, come, come now. Just bring, bring, bring the rags, bring the dirt, bring the garbage. Bring it to me. You come to me and let me, let me clean you up. Because if we wait to clean ourselves up, friends, I just lay in my cards on the table.

You'll never get there. You'll never get there because your enemy will do everything he can to make sure you don't get there. Because he'll keep whispering in your ears and in your heart that you are trapped. You're garbage. You're not good enough.

And that church wouldn't want you when in reality God says, I want you. I want you just the way you are. You come to me and let me clean you up. Friends, if you've never made a decision, today is the day. The Bible says that today is the day of salvation.

Don't put it off tomorrow. You aren't guaranteed the rest of today. You know, the good Lord woke you and I up today. He didn't have to. The reason he woke you up this morning may be just to give you this opportunity to surrender your life to him.

So would you?

Would you?

Would you come? Father. Thank you Lord. Thank you for your word, God. Thank you for your promise.

Thank you Lord for your grace.

Oh Holy Spirit, Right now I just pray. Would you churn in the hearts of those in this place here this morning? Lord, you know those who are of you and those who are not God. I pray that you would bring conviction. Father, your word tells us that when it goes out, it never returns void.

So Lord, I'm confident your word has not fallen upon deaf ears.

Have your way in this place just like it was heaven. And we ask this in Jesus name, amen.