Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Coffee and devotions. Baba. This is turning into a habit you know that. Let me go ahead and make sure everybody is able to join us live online. Send out the text message. We'll make sure we're going live everywhere Perfect. All right. Well, good morning. Good. Morning Good Morning Welcome to Coffee and devotions this where every day you and I and apparently Baba because this is turning into a habit. We get together. We have some coffee we get into God's word and we grow and I love the Lord together and this year 2022 will make from the book of Acts to finally acts to find Lehman. You're right. Yeah. And yeah, fine. Lehman Lehmann. Yeah, it's not like finally men's house but is a letter to Philemon. Why don't we have some coffee and we'll bring you know, I just gotta say, I kind of like it turning into a habit. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for this day. Thank you, for the work of Your Holy Spirit. And Father, we pray that we would desire your word. And then as we read your Word this morning that Your Holy Spirit would work in our hearts in such a way that we would understand unbelief. In Jesus's name, Amen. All right, we are at Galatians chapter four. Might help with I put on my old man eyes. Galatians chapter four. Well, you should put out your new my new old man eyes. What's that mean?
It's better than your normal eyes. That it's just getting what? Okay,
what we're at Galatians chapter four, beginning at verse 21. And we'll go through the end of the chapter, here we go. Tell me, you who desire to be under the law. Do you not hear the law? For it? is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond woman, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bond woman was born according to the flesh, and he of the free woman through promise, which things are symbolic for these are the two covenants the one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar. From for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, rejoice, oh, Baron, you who do not bear, break forth and shout, you who are not in labor, for the desolation has many more children. For the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband.
No, we weren't done as Isaac was our children have problems. But as we he was,
but as he who was born,
according to the flesh, prosecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, you will show it is now that will last what is done, what does the Scripture say? Test out the bottom woman and are shown for this other woman shall not be ill with the short term before.
Okay. All right. So oh, 31 Yeah, sorry.
So then whether or not children of
the fleet Okay, so, we need to ask ourselves a what is this? b What's Uh
huh. See, what are we called to do?
That's right. What are we called to do? Alright, so first A What is this about? Well, to understand this, we have to go all the way back to the book of Genesis. Do you remember the story about Sarah and Hagar? And Abraham had a wife and her name was Sarah. That's right. And God had appeared to Sarah. And he had come to their tent and said that she was going to have a baby. And what did she do? She laughed, right. And yeah, yeah, how can I have a baby right? So it was by supernatural means by a promise, right? But before that, they hadn't trusted God's promise. And they thought that they would do it themselves. And so Sarah gave Abraham her slave woman. And what did Abraham do with the slave woman? He had a he had a baby with her. Do you know Do you know the name of that baby? No, Hagar was a was a slave woman. Was Ishmael. Yeah, Ishmael. And so there's two different ladies, two different children. When Ishmael grew up, he would taunt Isaac the baby from the promise the baby that God gave miraculously to Sarah. And so, here this is Paul using what's called an allegorical interpretation. Have you ever heard of an allegory? Yes. Yeah. What is an allegory?
It's something to tell a story. Something to describe something but it is.
Yeah. So like a really common example would be something like the Chronicles of Narnia. Or in the Chronicles of Narnia who is Aslan supposed to be? Yeah, he's supposed to be Jesus, a lion of the tribe of Judah. Right? Who's the White Witch? Satan, right. So, so you're kind of able to tell right? And so this is the allegorical interpretation of that passage. Right? We don't often do this with the Bible, but I think every once in a while, it's acceptable on here, Paul does it right, he says, the woman of the promise. Who's that? Sarah is better than the woman of works and who is that Hagar? And he says, Hagar is like one covenant, a covenant of works, where they try to do it all by themselves. And does this end well for Hagar and Ishmael and Abraham. Oh, he has to send them away. Because that's like what it is with Mount Sinai and the earthly Jerusalem. Right, trying to accomplish all the works.
I forget what I think it is about some device actually, that most like I think it's 30% of the country is traced back to
well, yeah, so there's a lot of people in the Middle East who are traced back to to Ishmael. That's right. So God even promises that Ishmael will become a different nation. Right? But when it comes to, to that what happened at Mount Sinai, what did God give? You gave the 10 commandments, but he also gave the rest of the law as well. Right? So he gives the 10 commandments is a summary of the moral law right or the 10 commandments evil? No, do they? themselves, in and of themselves are not evil at all right? Did they tell us about who God is? They tell us about what God loves and hates. Yeah. Yeah, right. So so it tells us all this, but the problem is, is that some people would take this and say, Oh, this is just like the covenant of works. Exactly. So we try to accomplish all of it by our own works.
Yeah. That's pretty.
That's pretty much impossible. But, Sarah, what's the difference between what is Sara represent? Does she represent Mount Sinai or a different mountain? The earthly Jerusalem? Which Jerusalem as the Heavenly Jerusalem? That's right. And so the Holy Spirit is telling us here that she's a better covenant. She shows us that even better results come even better promises come a better kingdom, more offspring, all the blessings come, as a by works or by faith, my faith not according to the covenant like Hagar and Ishmael and trying to accomplish the promises by your own works,
but by something that could only happen. Like, just by God's help I got to doing. Could Sarah have a baby by herself? No, it says she was as good as dead is what the Bible says. Could you imagine Mrs. Baird having a baby
I think it'd be more like this.
Yeah, well, yeah. It's it's, it's an older woman having a baby like, that doesn't happen that happens to the young ladies. Right? And, and so hold on. That's not that's not going to normally happen and so it's gotta be God who does that? Right. So is this promise is this miraculous work that only God could do? So what does that teach us about our salvation whose children are we
every belief that say faith that God is going to do what? But if we were what was one of the more serious
yeah we're offspring of Abraham right by by Sarah. Good.
All by ourselves. We don't need anyone's help. Put the wall up, have quite a bit more. Hey,
that's right. We're children of Hagar. Now. Paul is saying here in that church, should they be surprised that the children of Hagar would persecute the children of Sarah? No, because it happened then, right? So he says, of course, the Judaizers are going to try to beat down the children of faith.
So don't be surprised when this happens. So in your own words, how would you summarize this section?
What's this about? Like God? Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I would say there are two covenants, one by faith one by works. allegorically Sarah, Heavenly Jerusalem, Hagar, Mount Sinai works. That's kind of long though, isn't it? It's okay, just commas and semicolons. I only had one period. It was a long sentence. It's kind of like Paul in the first part of Ephesians. Okay, well, what would you underline is the best verse. 27 Oh, okay. That's a good one. You know, I have verse 28. And 31 underlined in my Bible. So what would you guys underline in your Bible? What? What do you think is the most central passage or central verse that you could pick up your Bible, read the underlined mark and go, Oh, that's the main thing that this passage is about? Let us know down in the comments. Well last let's talk about calling. How does this point us to Christ? And how does this call us to live our lives? What do you think?
Not trying to keep trying to keep us trying to keep alive as best as you? Possibly can which isn't best, but have these uh,
yeah. So here, this is going to, it's going to be a little bit theological. Okay. So we are part of the reformed Presbyterian Church, right, so we subscribe to Reformed theology. And in Reformed theology, that we talk about the law, right and there are three we say that there are three uses for the law. Right, the first use of the law is to restrain evil. Right. So the moral law restrains evil in the world. The second use of the law and we've talked about this a lot is to convict us of sin. What you're talking about as the third use of the law, the third use of the law isn't to gain our own righteousness. But it's to show us here's the way that pleases God. The things that he loves the things that he that he hates, and bye. Oh, it's okay. Because I don't know what it is. Yeah, but but now we've come into a knowledge of the law of what God loves and hates, and so we endeavor now after new obedience. Is it out of works now? What is the motivation behind why we would endeavor after new obedience? What's the motivation?
Is Todd
Yeah, it has to be that we love Jesus, and that his spirit is moving us. Right? Because if it's just our own works, then we're back to Hagar. We're back to Ishmael. We always have to fight this in our hearts, right people, even Christians get this mixed up right because they start living according to the flesh, in their sanctification rather than living by the Spirit. We've desperately got to rely on the spirit. Okay, so yeah, I would say calling. Cling to faith, not just your faith but cling to Christ by faith.
Right walk before the Lord loving him. trust His promises. He led by the Spirit. does sound like good applications. Anything else you got for us?
No. Okay. I don't either. Well, let's go ahead and pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for the blessing it is to know that you have adopted us as children according to the promise you have poured out Your Spirit into our hearts that cries out Abba Father, Lord me thank you that we're not like Ishmael, in the desert crying under a tree, forgotten and neglected. But Lord that you have put your eye upon us. You have poured out your sovereign grace on us and we are children. Of the promise. Lord, we pray that we would live by faith and not by sight. We pray that we would be engrafted into Christ into Israel, the true Israel Lord and that you would let us walk in your ways. In Jesus's name, Amen. May the Lord bless you today. May you rejoice in Jesus Christ made you abide in Him and bear much good fruit as you walk by faith. We'll see you tomorrow. Say bye bye
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