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1:08One of the things that God has made very clear throughout Scripture from the very beginning is that God is holy. God is perfect in character, no flaw whatsoever. And he expects perfection in his people. And this desire for perfection is a person. Perfection is revealed to us very early on. When he first meets Abram in Genesis chapter 17, he says to Abram, when Abram was 99 years old, Genesis 17:1, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. If you have a King James Version, it translates it perfect. Be perfect.

2:01But God's standards for perfection is also seen in the sacrifices that he expects from his people. Leviticus 22, 21 says this: when a man offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord to fulfill a special vow or a free will offering or of the herd or of the flock, it must be perfect to be accepted. There shall be no defect in it. That's quite a high standard. Perfect. This standard of perfection was also what God expected from the nation Israel. Listen to what he says in Deuteronomy 18:13. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. Or in the King James, you shall be perfect.

2:58How are you guys doing so far? This is his standard. And guess what? When we come to the New Testament, he didn't just throw all that away and say, you know what, we're going to go with plan B. Listen to what Jesus says to his disciples, Matthew 5:48. Therefore, you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. God expects perfection, and he expects perfection in his people. So, how are we to understand a God like this?

3:35Is he some overbearing father that just wants to celebrate himself? Does he want us to live up to his standards? Because really, he wants to celebrate himself? Think about a father who was once a great athlete, and you can fill in the blank, whether he's a great athlete in baseball, football, track and field. But imagine this father was the excellent of the excellent, the top of the top, and then he has a son, and he wants his son to be just like him so that the father could live once again those glory days of his own by watching his son parade around on the field in excellence as he once did. Now, imagine this son isn't physically endowed to do so.

4:28Suppose he can't live up. To the performance standards of his father. You know what's going to happen to him? Every single time he steps onto the field, he's going to demonstrate just how inadequate and how unlike his father he really is. You see, this father demands top performance. And so, what does the son's life look like trying to please his father? He spends his life trying to live up to his father's performance standards, only to fail miserably, only to disappoint his father, only to publicly display his shortcomings, and to begin to loathe himself and despise his father.

5:18That is what a performance-based relationship looks like. It's slavery, and God's standards are perfect. So, why does he reveal them to us? So, are we to understand him as an overbearing father, or are we to understand him as a loving father who is bringing his children up in the way that they should go? The gospel teaches us that God is not an overbearing father, he's a good one, full of grace and mercy, and yet he still reveals his standards of perfection.

6:00In order to bring them about in us, not to shame us. He knows we're not like him. God does expect perfection in his people because he loves his people and he wants what is best for them. You see, God isn't just simply unhappy with your imperfections. You know what he's doing? He's active in bringing about perfection through the work of his son. That's why he sent them. But it takes faith to see this, doesn't it? Because if you're not careful, all you can see is these great standards of perfection.

6:45And then you can look at yourself and see just how unlike your heavenly Father is. Or you can look at the perfections of God and see in them the goodness of God and see in them what he is doing in your life to share those perfections. So I have a question for you. Is your relationship with God this morning based upon performance or is it based upon faith? It's very important. What is the relationship that you have with your Heavenly Father right now? Is it performance-based?

7:31Faith-based. Do you think that God revealed his standards of righteousness so that you could earn his love? Or do you think he revealed them because he already loves you? Do you think that God took into account that, in light of these perfect standards which he revealed throughout the scriptures, this perfect character of his own being, do you think that it ever crossed God's mind that an honest soul would figure out that he or she couldn't live up to them?

8:14And that's why he or she needs a relationship with God? Do you understand that he reveals these standards because you and I need to be in union with him? Or do you think that God was just oblivious to the fact? He reveals these standards, tells the world to be perfect, tells his people to be perfect, and deep down he has no idea that nobody can live up to them. I know, of course, he knew. Psalm 14:2, God says, There is no one who does good, not even one. And yet he still wants perfection in his people.

9:00You see, God knew that no one in their own strength could be perfect like him. So, what does he do? Does he lower his standards? No, he sends his son so that you can be in a relationship with him to elevate you to his standards. And see, that's what happens. When you have a performance-based relationship with God, either one, you're going to be so ashamed and so guilt-ridden, or you're going to lower his standards so you can jump across them. A performance-based relationship with God is slavery.

9:44But a faith-based relationship is about the gospel. You see, God didn't lower his standards, he set out to transform his people. He set out to do something in us that only he could do, and that is to make us perfect. That's the work of the son, that's the work of the spirit, that's the desire of the father. You see, Christ in you is God's gift to you, that's what elevates you out. Of the grave into a right relationship with God and it puts you on that track of genuine, true righteousness. Not just that it's accounted to you, but then it becomes actual as you learn the difference between good and evil and choose the good and walk and grow. And then one day He's going to confirm us in that holy state forever in a glorified body for eternity. You see, Christ's likeness in you is God's gift to you. Do you treasure that today?

11:03Christ's likeness is the gift and blessing to the whole world. It is God's work and it is God's solution to man's problem. But you see, the problem with many of us today is that we do not want the spirit of sonship. That's what the gospel is about: bringing those who are apart away from God into this relationship with God that cries out, saying, Abba, Father, the Spirit of sonship. You see, what the world wants today, and what many of you here today may prefer is that spirit of independence. That's our world, a spirit of independence, a spirit of autonomy.

11:53Question becomes: who gets this gift of Christ's likeness? Those who want it, those who are. Wanting that spirit of sonship. Those who want his likeness formed in them. That's who's going to receive this gift. By his grace, he makes us willing. But I can assure you that it is only those who want his likeness that he is going to bring it in. Why does God form his likeness in people? Why is that what he's about? Well, because God the Father loves the Son, and he wants to celebrate the Son, and he wants to display the glory of his Son by forming his likeness in every single person that will live forever with him. He celebrates the glory of his Son, and he celebrates you by giving you Christ's likeness. It's all about God's glory. And we're in the middle of this section, this little mini-series. We're working our way through verses 21 through 31. And look back at verse 21.

13:15Paul says, Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? You see, there are those who are wanting to go back to the law, to a performance-based relationship with God. And Paul says, Paul is saying, are you even listening to the law? Are you even taking in what it actually says? You see, Paul wants to get this works, righteousness, mindset out of the churches in Galatia. There is no freedom, there is no joy in a performance-based relationship with God. I think you hopefully you've lived long enough to realize that. If you want your whole basis of relationship to God with how well you perform and live up to his standards, you are conscripted to a life of slavery, a life of doubt, no assurance, no joy. And if you have any kind of success at all for any short time, your head will explode with pride.

14:28You see, slavery comes from a performance-based relationship based upon the Mosaic law. That's what they were dealing with. Sonship comes from a faith-based relationship that is based upon the gospel. And the last time we looked at, in this series, we looked at Abraham's two sons. Look at verse 22. For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman. Was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through promise. Ishmaels and Isaacs.

15:09You see, Ishmael came about as a human solution to a human problem. Human solution to a human problem. Sarah wanted to bring about God's promises for her husband. She knew she was barren, and she wanted to help Abraham out, help God out by bringing about God's promises. So she thought, you know, let's get Hagar in the mix here, and let's make her be a surrogate mother and have a child from her, and that will be our child. So Ishmael, he came through man as an effort of man. Isaac, on the other hand, was God's solution to the human problem. He didn't need Sarah's help to bring about his gospel promise to Abraham.

15:58God knew how to bless all the nations. He knew how to bring it about. See, Isaac was God's solution to the human problem, and he came through man, but as a gift from God, a promise of God. Those are the sons that we looked at, Ishmael's and Isaac's. And today we're going to look at two mothers, the two mothers who brought them forth. Looked at Ishmael, we looked at Isaac, and now we're going to look at the two mothers. Who bring forth this spirit of slavery and this spirit of sonship in the world?

16:40Two mothers. So last time we looked at the two sons, this time we'll look at the two mothers. And that's probably all we'll have time for. So look at verse 24. This is allegorically speaking. Okay, stop for just a second. This is allegorically speaking. This is referring back, it's plural, these are referring back to the two women that he's just talked about, the slave woman and the free woman. This is allegorically speaking. What is allegory? Well, it's like a metaphor that's extended. So you can think of some translations say this is symbolically speaking, this is metaphorically or figuratively speaking. But when you think about an allegory, it is like an extended metaphor. It has many points of contact, not just one. So in verses 22 and 23, when talking about the sons, Paul is being very literal. He's saying, Abraham had two sons, literally speaking. He had two sons, one Ishmael, one Isaac. He talks about them. Two sons by two very different women. And really, he's speaking about, he's highlighting their status.

18:00One slave, one free. But in beginning in verse 24, Paul flips into an allegoric mode. He's going to talk about these two women, the mothers that gave birth to Isaac and Ishmael, as a symbolic means to describe how people enter into a relationship with God. Two very different ways of relationship with God. So he's going to speak from an allegorical standpoint. One of the sons, or one of the women, one of the mothers, brings forth those entrenched in slavery, and the other one brings forth children in joy and freedom. So how are we to read our Bibles? Well, this is kind of like a little side note, but we have to deal with it. How are we to read our Bibles? And some people come to this text and they say, well, look, Paul is speaking allegorically, therefore, he wants us to read our Bibles allegorically.

19:11As if this Bible was one great big old allegory. Now, you all have been here long enough to know I love allegory. What's a good allegory that we like to study around here? Pilgrim's Progress. That is one great big allegory, and it is rich in Jesus. Truth. And what does John Bunyan do? He can take a little phrase like the city of destruction and just put a whole universe of meaning in that, right? When he talks about the city of destruction, he talks about the world and its fallenness.

19:49He can use that same expression to describe the world's character. He can use that same expression to use the pending judgment that is coming upon this world. All that in just a little phrase, city of destruction. And then you love his characters: pliable, obstinate, slothful, ease, presumption. There's just a universe of meaning in each of those little phrases. And so you are to, when you come to Pilgrim's Progress, you are to read it allegorically. There's all kinds of things going on.

20:26But that's not how you're to read the Bible. No? Is what Paul saying here is that the Bible is to be read just like that? Well, allegorically. And then all of a sudden you just start reading all kinds of meaning and everything in it. No. It's not an allegory. It's truth. And truth is to be understood literal. There's not all kinds of meanings. There's one meaning, one meaning in Scripture. And that's the literal meaning. One meaning that may have many applications, but there's one meaning. One meaning.

21:09So, Paul is not trying to justify an allegorical approach to reading the Bible. There's a lot of dangers into all of a sudden coming to the Bible and saying, Yeah, I'm going to read into this what I want to read. It moves the authority out of the scripture and puts it into the reader or into the system of theology in which the reader has been brought up in. No, Martin Luther, time of the Protestant Reformation, denounced this approach to interpreting Scripture in some of the strong, strong terms. The Reformation was as much about the way you read your Bible as it was about what you considered the Bible. Listen to what Martin Luther says.

22:03And he's dealing with the Catholic multi-sense senses in Scripture, the multi-meanings in Scripture. This is what he says: the idle and unlearned monks and the school doctors taught that the scripture had four senses: the literal sense, the moral sense, the allegorical sense, and the mystical sense. And according to these senses, they have foolishly interpreted almost all the Words of scripture. With these trifling and foolish fables, they rent the scriptures into so many and diverse senses that silly, poor consciences could receive no certain doctrine of anything. Martin, what do you really think about that?

22:49You see, allegorical speculations do not bring clarity or certainty about the meaning of the text. Paul's use of allegory here is not to justify an allegorical approach to scripture and to just haphazardly read whatever kind of sense you want into it. No, that's not at all. So then, how are we to read it? It's easy to say how we're not to read it. How are we to read this passage? Well, literally, Paul is literally using allegory to make a point. It's not hard to understand.

23:25Paul is literally using allegory, and he has told his readers he's using allegory. He's making an analogy. And I'm not pulling the wool over your eyes. I'm not spinning a yarn. I'm not pulling your leg. What am I doing? I'm using metaphor, just like he is. But I'm literally saying something. And I'm saying I'm not lying to you. I'm not bamboozling you. He has told us that he is. Using making a metaphoric connection. Look, Jesus used allegory all the time. This is what we call a parable. It is an effective way to communicate. So Paul is literally using allegory to make a point. And so we are to come to this passage like we would any other passage of scripture and literally understand what he is saying and literally understand the allegoric connection that he is making to make his point. Make sense?

24:34And by God's grace, that's what we want to do. We want to understand the connection that Paul is making under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. How is he using this allegoric analogy about these two mothers? And it's rich. He's making a lot of very insightful connections about the Mosaic covenant and the new covenant and how we are to understand how relationships with God are birthed. Very profound and rich way in which he's doing that. Well, we're not left wondering. Look back at verse 24 what these two women stand for. Look back at verse 24. This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants. Wow, that makes it easy, isn't it? These women are two covenants. That's how Paul wants you to think about them. These two mothers are two covenants.

25:31Two covenants. And these covenants, in this allegorical connection, he's likening a covenant to a mother. And what does a mother do? A mother, well, does a lot of things, but one of the things, certainly in view here, is a mother produces children. That's what a mother does. Think about a mother as one, historically, thinking about the mother as the one who provided a basis of relationship to the father. Think about the relationship that Sarah's child had to Abraham. Think about the relationship that Hagar's child had to Abraham. One was a slave, one was free.

26:19So these are covenants. These are the covenants that birth the Ishmaels and the Isaacs of the world. That's what he's talking about. Ishmael and Isaac were both children of Abraham, but they were born under very different circumstances and had a very different relationship. So think about this. Where does this spirit of sonship come from? Paul's been talking about that. Spirit of sonship. Where does that spirit of sonship come from? And where does this spirit of slavery come from?

26:57Well, they come from the mothering conditions under which they live. Are born. Is your relationship with God performance-based, or is it faith-based in the gospel? Which is your covenant mother? That's what Paul is expressing. And Paul is going to go on to describe both. One covenant produces slaves, the other free. So let's look at the first covenant. Covenant number one, verse 24, going back, this is allegorically speaking. For these women are two covenants, one proceeding from Mount Sinai, bearing children who are to be slaves. She is Hagar. Now, this Hagar, verse 25, is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. So notice how the language, this is a rich, rich metaphor. He's describing the covenant. And look at the terms. He uses bondwoman, or he's already used bondwoman in the preceding verses. Mount Sinai, Hagar, and the present Jerusalem. All of these have shed some light on the meaning of this first covenant, this Mosaic covenant. Well, we understand that it comes from a bond woman.

28:30Came from Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai was what? That's the place where God made the Mosaic covenant with Israel. Was Hagar ever at Mount Sinai? You Bible students? No, Hagar never made it over there. Or certainly she was, you know, not at the time of the giving of the law. Hagar predated the Mosaic covenant by hundreds of years. She wasn't there. So, what is Paul doing? He's making an analogy. He's drawing an analogy. She is the covenant mother that produces a spirit of slavery.

29:20Ishmael was a slave, born of a slave. That status wasn't going to change. Listen, if you are, if your relationship with God is performance-based, you are in an enslaved, morally and spiritually conditioned. Enslaved conditions. You are performance-based. Your relationship really has no hope for a share in the inheritance, just like Ishmael. Hagar. You're not left wondering what Hagar is. Hagar is Mount Sinai. Some versions say Hagar stands for Mount Sinai. What do you, when you think about Hagar, what comes to your mind? What's the term? Slave.

30:18When you think about Mount Sinai, what comes to your mind? Law. And now, what does Paul takes it, the last description he gives of this first covenant? Certainly, those under it, the present Jerusalem, the present Jerusalem. And that's the Jerusalem of Paul's day. And I believe the Jerusalem of our day as well. Still, the relationship. This is a people whose relationship is overshadowed by the law and by slavery. It's a relationship with God that characterized the Jerusalem of Paul's day. And these Judaizers who had come up from there are there amongst the midst of the Galatian churches and telling everybody, you need to go back to obeying the law. And what Paul is now, he's saying, look, tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not listening to what it says? And he's talking to them. And he's saying, this is you.

31:31Now, Paul is describing the Jerusalem of his day. So now he's moving into taking on these Judaizers, and he's saying, You're like the law, Sinai, you're like slavery, Hagar. But it leads to an important question that I'd like for us to think about. How did the Mosaic covenant produce the spirit of slavery? How did that come about? I mean, we read throughout that the law is good. That the law is perfect, converts the soul. So, what went wrong? Was there something wrong with the law that produced slavery, or was there something wrong with the people?

32:23Well, let me show you just briefly from Israel's history that the problem wasn't in the law, but it was in the lack of faith that the people had. In Exodus 19:8, you don't have to turn there, I'll just write these down if you want to go back and look at them. But listen to Israel. Exodus 19:8, you know, after coming out of the Exodus, out of Egypt, all the people answered together and said, All that the Lord has spoken, we will do. All of it, we're going to do it all.

33:00Wow. Just think about that. Then, going on in Exodus 24, 3, then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances. And all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words which the Lord has spoken, we will do. So there it again. We can do this. We will do this. Go tell the Lord, Moses, we're going to do every single one of them. Exodus 24, 7.

33:32Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. Then they said, All that the Lord has spoken, we will do, and we will be obedient. A couple chapters later, they're making a golden calf. They didn't even get past square one. Then in Deuteronomy, it's clear that in chapter 5 and verse 27, the people didn't want to speak to the Lord anymore. They wanted Moses to go up there and talk to the Lord. And this is what they said: Moses, you go near and hear all the Lord, hear all that the Lord our God says, then you speak to us all that the Lord our God speaks, and we will hear and do it. Moses, we're tired. We don't want to stand before you. That's kind of scary. We want you, just tell us what he wants, and we'll do it. You ever seen that attitude? God, I wish you would just tell me, open up the heavens, tell me what you want, and I'll just do it. You see the arrogance there? God, I can meet your criteria.

34:50And a couple verses later, listen to what God says about them in Deuteronomy 5:29. Oh, that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear me and keep all my commandments, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever. God's saying they don't have a heart to do that. That's their problem. There's an arrogance. They didn't have faith. In fact, in Jeremiah's time, the people were afraid about Babylon, and they were thinking, what should we do? Should we go to Egypt? Let's go talk to Jeremiah. And Jeremiah, and they said to Jeremiah, Pray for us to the Lord our God. In Jeremiah 42, 20, as Jeremiah is reciting it, pray for us to the Lord our God. And whatever the Lord our God says, tell us so, and we will do it.

35:51Jeremiah said, Don't go to Egypt. And guess what they did? Went to Egypt. You see, they thought of themselves. As the children of Abraham. We read earlier in the service, John 8. In John 8:33, Jesus said, or the Jews said, We are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. How is it you say you will become free? And Jesus goes on to say, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The Son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. Jesus says, I know you are Abraham's descendants. You are his physical offspring. Yet you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. I speak the things which I have seen with my father, and you also do the things which you have heard from your father. And they answered and said, Abraham is our father. And Jesus said, If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham. So he's saying, Look, I know you're physical descendants of Abraham, but if you're really a child of Abraham, do the things that Abraham did. And as Jesus goes on, he says, You are really of your father, the devil, in John 8:44, and you want to do the desires of your father.

37:25You see, what Jesus is pointing out here. Is that the idea of a performance-based relationship with God isn't just misguided and needs to be tweaked? It's satanic. If Satan can get you into thinking that I have got to perform to God's standards, he has defeated you because you can never live up to them. But if you'll let the Word of God tutor you and bring you to the end of yourself, you'll see God has revealed His righteous standards so that we would come to the end of ourselves, so we would seek a relationship with Him, so that He would bring about that inner transformation, that forgiveness and inner transformation that brings us up in those standards.

38:20So, back to my question: how did the Mosaic covenant produce a spirit of slavery? Well, the fault wasn't with God, the fault wasn't the Word, the fault was with man. In Romans 9:31, Paul says this: Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though by works. When they read the righteous standards of God, they said, Oh, yeah, we can in our own strength, we can do this. Just tell us what you want, we'll do it.

39:00That's a performance-based. They didn't have faith. When you really look into the law and you see someone who says, Love your neighbor as yourself, and you see this, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you start seeing how this plays out in a civil government, all of a sudden you realize, wow, there's a depth of righteousness here and a beauty in this way of living, and I am not there. Oh, that God would give me a heart. God, you want me to have a heart like this. Oh, that you would give me a heart to do this. That's a grace-based. That's a faith-based, grace-based relationship. So, the first mother represents the Mosaic covenant. Her children are those who seek a relationship with God based upon servile obedience to the law, and that in their own strength. So, whether it was the Jew who was born under the law, or those Gentile proselytites in Galatia who were trying to come under the law, either way, they were coming back to a performance-based relationship, faith in oneself, and there is no security there at all. Every time they get on the field, they're just going to demonstrate over and over how much they are not like God.

40:28That's no way to live, friends. But then there's a second covenant. In verse 26, Paul mentions, but the Jerusalem above is free. She is our mother. Paul has already described this second covenant by terms of a free woman in the earlier verses, 22 and 23. But now he's speaking of the Jerusalem above. Jerusalem above. Notice how he doesn't mention Sarah by name. He gets right to the analogy he's making is the Jerusalem above. So there's this analogy between the present earthly Jerusalem and the Jerusalem that is above.

41:18And that's what's in contrast. In contrast to the earthly, worldly, slavery Jerusalem is the heavenly Jerusalem. And by the way, Paul speaks as it is already existing. Yes, it will come down in Revelation in the future. You'll see this. And maybe there may be some more developments to it. I don't know. But it's certainly already existing. And he's likening it. Keep in mind, this is a covenant. It too is likened to a mother, like a spiritual birthing center, a place where new life comes from.

41:58It's a place. Place of origins, spiritual origins, in union with God. And by the way, it's not the church. I see a number of people making this be the church, and the problem with that is that makes the mother and the child the same thing. The Isaacs are the offspring. The mother is not the offspring. The mother is one. Paul's not going there. And this really creates a problem, by the way. Many churches would, or a number of those people who would go down this road would say, well, the church is the mother church. The church gives birth. We, at one time, are birthing somebody else, and at the same time, we are born. The problem with that is all of a sudden you get this crazy notion that unless you absolutely fit squarely with our doctrinal position, guess what? You're outside the faith because we're the mother church. Very off. But it doesn't fit with the analogy. The mother is the covenant. He's already told us what the mothers are. Isaacs are the offspring.

43:05The will or the promise from heaven is what brings offsprings into existence. The word covenant is the will, the testament, the will of God, a promise from heaven, from heavenly origins. That's what brings these Isaacs into existence. It's a covenant, a new covenant. That was also promised to Abraham. The gospel beforehand. In chapter 3 and verse 8, he says, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed in you. That's the gospel beforehand. And the new covenant in Christ's blood, the gospel that Paul had been preaching, was an expression of that new covenant that brings people into a right relationship with God. But Paul's language here, the Jerusalem above, is exactly the same as that of Jesus. Do you remember in John chapter 3, verse 3, Jesus spoke to Nicodemus and he said, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. That word for again, unless one is born from above, same word that Paul speaks about, the Jerusalem above, unless one is born above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. See what Jesus was, the point that he was making there, and one must be born from heaven in order to go to heaven.

44:44And what Paul is, he's picking up on that, the Jerusalem above, and origins that are not of earthly, fallen humanity, but of heavenly proportions. From God Himself. And notice, but the Jerusalem above is free. Free. She's not bound. That's the main contrast going on here. There is a kind of relationship, a performance-based relationship, that enslaves a person. And there is a kind of relationship that is based upon God's promise, that releases a person, frees a person. But the question comes: free from what? Well, I can think of a few. Free from the apprehension of not being acceptable to God? You ever feel like, okay, God doesn't really pay attention to me? I'll never be acceptable to him.

45:44Well, the gospel frees you from that. Free of the guilt and shame for past sin. You ever think and mull over your past sins, I wish, and shame comes over? Well, you're free from that in the gospel. He took that sin. Free of the shortcomings in our present works. Do you feel like, okay, there's sin in my present work? There's limitations. I can't really live up. Well, you're free from that because it's he who works in you.

46:13Free from the fruitlessness of lives, of ministry. It's he's the one who is at work. Free from trying to live up to God's righteousness in our own strength. Have you ever tried to just live up to carry these things out? And you're free from the Curse of the law. Only thing left is the blessing that God has promised. That's what the gospel does. It frees a person. Is your relationship with God based on faith in the gospel or faith in the Mosaic covenant? Or, let me say it like this: faith in your ability to live up to God's standards. Is your faith in yourself or is it in God?

47:04Notice the last thing that Paul says in verse 26: She is our mother. She is our mother. Paul is saying, This is the one that metaphorically brought him into existence. Once he hated the church, now he loves the church. Once he hated Jesus Christ, now he was a servant of Jesus Christ, a follower of Jesus Christ. Oh, God had put a heart in Saul of Tarsus and transformed him into Paul the great apostle. He went from a spirit of slavery to a spirit of sonship, and he understood.

47:46And so he is active in communicating that gospel. And he doesn't want to see these Galatians go back who had embraced the gospel and all of a sudden we're Be told, no, you need to measure up here, you need to measure up here, you need to go back here. He's like, there is no freedom there at all. Take it from someone who knows. Well, God's standard has not changed. He still wants perfection. Is your relationship with God performance-based or is it gospel-based?

48:28Do you have faith in yourself to live up to God's standards of perfection, or do you have faith in the gospel that makes us meet God's standards through the perfections of Jesus Christ and union with Him? We come into His merits. We come into His relationship. We are justified by Him. Our sins are taken away. That's why He dies. And we are resurrected because of His righteousness. That is why we come out of the grave. He went to the cross because our sin was imputed to Him. We come out of the grave because His righteousness was imputed to us.

49:08That's the gospel. Do you believe it? How can you tell if you are living under a performance-based relationship or a gospel-based relationship? That's a good question. How do I know? I'll tell you one way: how do you expect others to relate to you? That's a good indication of how you see yourself relating to God. Do you expect others to perform up to your standards? And if they don't meet your criteria, boy, you cut them off. You don't know the gospel of grace.

49:52Are you full of grace to others, even when people wrong you? Is there a disposition that allows you to show grace? That's evidence that you've been touched by the God of grace. But boy, if you're cutting people off, that tells me you don't know the God of grace at all, no matter how smooth or elegant your prayers, or no matter how devoted you seem, or whatever it is, it's nothing. Without love, you are nothing. You see, Sarah's relationship with Abraham was very different than Hagar's, and therefore, their children's relationship to Abraham was very different.

50:38Isaac received the inheritance. Ishmael did not. The son lives forever. The slaves do not. I encourage you to come into your inheritance today by denouncing a performance based on God. Relationship with God and embrace the gospel in Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this beautiful analogy that lays out before us so clearly the two different ways to relate to you and the kinds of hearts that are engendered because of your truth and the beauty of your gospel. Father, may we all leave every vestige of a performance-based relationship with you and trust in the gospel. And yes, let us, like Paul, then seek, because you give us a new heart to live out in obedience to your word, to the perfection standards of your Son. But knowing, Father, even after you've forgiven us, Father, we still have so much ways to grow. Father, even in our sanctification, help us, Father, to trust in your great gospel and get back up when we sin and confess and go on in the way that you have before us for your glory and for your great name. We thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.