The Christian life is a miracle.  If you are a Christian, you are a miracle of God’s grace.  Do you know that?  Unfortunately, most people approach religion, whether Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or Christianity assuming that the blessing we receive - we have either caused or deserved.

Take for instance, karma - the Hindu belief that one’s actions in the past and present determine their future fate.  Seems to make sense.  A guy screams at his server in a restaurant, stiffs her, and leaves only to have a speeding car roll through a huge puddle of water, soaking him.  Instant karma!  That jerk got what he deserved.  Seems to make sense to us.  You get what you deserve.  But this is what sets Christianity in another category altogether.  This is what makes Jesus and the family he invites us into so strange and wonderful!  Because we don’t get what we deserve - to the praise of the grace of God!  The Christian message is says there is a two way exchange.  Jesus actually received what we deserve.   And we now [amazingly] receive what Jesus alone deserves, namely God’s eternal love and a future as bright as a thousand suns!

In Galatians, Paul wants you to understand that if you at any level begin to think that you cause God’s blessing or you deserve it, then you will find yourself under a legal system, building your life on what you can achieve, which leads to slavery. And it is so easy to slip into this - even for Christians, like the Galatians.  So Martin Luther says we need to beat the gospel into each others’ heads,

I must hearken to the gospel, which teaches me, not what I ought to do, (for that is the proper office of the law), but what Jesus Christ the Son of God has done for me: that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel wills me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consists. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know [the gospel] well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.

This text tells us that the Christian life is a miracle of God, earned by Jesus, and fueled by grace from beginning to end, producing true freedom.  Paul shows us this in four steps.

Step One - Paul goes way back to the beginning of the bible to show us how the family of faith started.

Tell me you who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?  (Galatians 4:22)

Paul is dumbfounded and asks, “You want to be under the law?  Don’t you hear what the law says?  Do you know what it even means to be under the law?” Then what Paul does is interesting.  He doesn’t go back to the Mosaic law.  He goes back to Abraham and his two sons. Then Paul explains how these two sons came to be born and says this is to be interpreted allegorically.  In other words, this story is meant to shed light on a deeper and more profound truth.  And it does!  Let’s briefly walk through the story of Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael and Isaac and how they were born thru Hagar and Sarah:

In Genesis 12 God calls pagan Abraham seemingly out of nowhere.  God decides he’s going to start his new worldwide family through Abraham who is 75, Sarah is 65 and they have no child yet.  God gives Abraham this audacious promise: In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

We come to Genesis 13 and they still have no child, but God promises, “I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth in number.”  In Genesis 15, years are passing by and Abraham and Sarah are still childless, yet God says “Abraham, look up to the sky and count the stars if you can.  So shall the number of your offspring.”  Genesis 16, Abraham is now 85, Sarah is 75 and they decide it is time to take matters into their own hands.  Sarah tells Abraham to go into Hagar and treat her as his wife and hopefully she can bear them a son.  Hagar gets pregnant and gives birth to Abraham's first son, Ishmael.  But God makes clear that Ishmael is not the child of promise.

Thirteen years pass as we come to Genesis 17.  Abraham is 99 years old and Sarah is 89 and God appears to Abraham again.  He has not taken back his promise.  In fact he says to Abraham: “You will be the father of many nations" and Sarah " you shall bear nations.”  This now seems laughable to Abraham and he does literally laugh to himself.

In Genesis 18, God appears to Abraham and says “I will come in 1 year and Sarah shall have a son.”  Sarah overhears this word from God and it seems so utterly impossible, she laughs.  They are 99 and 89 years old.  Hebrews 11 tells us how dire things seems.  It says Sarah was past age and Abraham was as good as dead.

But we come to Genesis 21.  Abraham is 100 and Sarah 90 years old.  And the scripture says, “The Lord visited Sarah and did to her as he promised.”  The miracle child, Isaac, born!

Here is the point.  The promised blessing was sonship - God had promised a son.  And this son would not be the product of  human achievement, but miraculous gift!  Abraham had two sons.  Ishmael was the result of what Abraham and Hagar could do,  while Isaac was the result of God’s promise and accomplishment.  Genesis 21: “God visited Sarah and did to her what he had promised” and Isaac was born.  Paul says Ishmael was a child of the flesh, and therefore born into slavery, while Isaac was a miracle baby, born according to God’s gracious promise, and therefore born into freedom.  So way back at the beginning of the bible, we see this gospel truth: God’s blessing of being his child is given as a divine gift NOT caused or deserved.

Step Two - Paul connects us to this story.  You too are a child of promise.

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. (Galatians 4:28)

This is amazing.  Paul says, “You know Isaac, the miracle child?  You [brothers or Christians] are like Isaac - a child of God by his miraculous work in your life.”  Verse 29 says that we were born “according to the Spirit.”  If you believe in Christ, there was a whole lot more going on that led to you believing and that keeps you believing now!

When we think of being children of God, we tend to emphasize the human element.  Here’s what I mean: I attended a meeting, I heard the gospel, I realized that I needed a Savior, and I asked Jesus to forgive me and come into my life.  Amen to all of this!  But Paul wants us to realize that there was something other-worldly going on before and underneath and in and through all of these things, namely a God performing the miracle of raising you from the dead and giving you a brand new heart.

Some OT prophetic texts tell us it required a major, open heart surgery where God took out a rock that was in the place of a heart and put in us a real beating heart.  He put his Holy Spirit in us.  He wrote the law of God on our minds and in our hearts.  He put the fear of God in our hearts so we won’t turn away from him.  And as a Father he rejoices now to do us good with all his heart and soul.  

You didn’t cause and of this. God did.  And you didn’t deserve this.  It was all a gift of grace.

This is summed up in John 1:12-13 says,

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

You are a child of God because of a miracle.  In order for this miracle of grace to be given to us, Jesus had to deal a death blow to the law and its demands and threats against us.  And he did.  Colossians 2:13-14 says,

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Because of your law breaking, there was an enormous debt you owed to God.  He could have called it due at any time.  But instead he required payment from Jesus.  The record of debt and all the demands of retribution were nailed to the cross.  “To all who receive Him…”  Receive Him!  Friday, one seemingly unimportant word jumped out to me.  You, like Isaac, “are” children of promise. You did not cause or deserve your birth into God’s family and you do not ultimately cause or deserve your standing in God’s family as a child of promise now.  It is not that you need total grace to become a child and then lots of human effort to remain a child.  NO!  God the Father is utterly committed to keeping you by his ongoing, miraculous grace.  When you walked down that prodigal road and collided with the grace of God the Father as he ran to meet you, he determined to never let you go.  

Step Three - As children of promise, we are born into a life of freedom.

So brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman. (Galatians 4:31)

You, like Isaac, are a product of miracle.  When you were dead in your sins, God made you alive.  When you were not a child of God, he put the Spirit sonship into your heart.  Therefore, Paul says, we have been born not into slavery but into freedom.  God started his family of faith through Abraham and the miracle birth of Isaac.  You too have been born into God’s family as a miraculous provision of God’s promise.  When we realize this it produces freedom.  Freedom from what?  If we are enslaved to the law, Luther says, “we are slaves of sin, death, and everlasting damnation.”  But if the Son has set you free, you are free from the law, and therefore from sin, the curse of death, and the threat of eternal hell.

There’s more though. We are also freed for something!  When a criminal has paid his debt to society and is released from prison, he is not just free from the consequences of his former crimes, he is also free to leave prison and do things he was unable to do before.  So what are we freed for?  Galatians 5:13 tells us what we are freed for.  Check this out:

For you were called to freedom brothers.  Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

That is what freedom is for.  It is not to get on with your designer life.  You are now free to love.  How does grace produce freedom to love?  Well, let’s first think about what the law does.  The law can only coerce us externally.  And it seeks to motivate us through fear, guilt, or pride.  Grace works much differently though.  Bryan Chapell explains how God’s grace through Jesus Christ produces the heart chemistry that frees us from sin and fuels the Christian life - a life of love.  Grace changes us from the inside (rather than external coercion) and motivates us through God’s love.  It is summed up in these contrasting statements.  Legalism says this: “obey and God will love you and accept you as his child”.  The gospel says, “God loves you and accepts you as his child on the basis of Jesus Christ alone.  Believe!  And then as a child, obey.”  Night and day.  Ephesians 5:1-2 puts it perfectly,

Be imitators of God, as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.

If you belong to Christ, you are a child of his promise.  Born by the Holy Spirit and born into freedom. Live as a free child!

Step Four - Be ruthless with legalism anywhere you find it in your life.

But what does the scripture say? “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.” (Galatians 4:30)

The law tells us what we must do.  The gospel proclaims the happy news of what Christ has done for us!  The law leads to slavery - however spiritual it may feel.  The gospel leads to freedom!  You are not under the law anymore, it has been fulfilled for you.  So rejoice in Christ’s completed work and refuse legalism any room.  Martin Luther, commenting on this verse said,

Our quarrel is not with those who live in manifest sins. Our quarrel is with those among them who think they live like angels, claiming that they do not only perform the Ten Commandments of God, but also the sayings of Christ, and many good works that God does not expect of them. We quarrel with them because they refuse to have Jesus' merit count alone for righteousness.

Jesus’ merit alone.  That was one of the big issues of the Protestant Reformation.  The word alone.  The men and women at the forefront said, “It is not just that you need the work and merits of Christ.  It is Christ alone”  The catholic church believed you needed Christ’s merits, but it was Christ’s and yours (and maybe some dead saint’s who could spare some). Don’t we work though?  Yes of course!  But we work from the Father’s pleasure and not for the Father’s pleasure.

Are you living in joy and freedom?  I don’t mean is life easy or that you are chipper, chipper, chipper all the time.  I mean do you live in the realization of the miraculous work of God through the accomplishment of Jesus Christ in the unlimited power of the Spirit at work toward you?  It can be yours.  Fix your gaze on Jesus Christ alone.