Martyn Lawrence - Paradox of Liberty - Class 5 - Proclaiming Liberty

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   Brothers and sisters, our first speaker this morning is our brother Martin Lawrence from the Cleckheaton Ecclesia in the United Kingdom. His theme for his classes this week are entitled Paradox of Liberty. Today’s session is entitled Proclaiming Liberty by the Mark. You might remember at the end of yesterday, we added another principle that we choose service because of the character of God’s servant. And we spent an hour yesterday, didn’t we, looking at those glorious passages in, in Isaiah’s servant servant prophecies, understanding a little bit about about what the servant was doing and the way in which he gave all of himself so that you and I might have our own understanding of freedom. Liberty is hard wired into the Bible’s overall narrative. It’s it’s seen in these these key moments in the early book, in the early chapters of the book of Genesis, it’s seen in those mini exoduses that that Abraham and Joseph and Moses have.

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   It’s seen, of course, in the life of the nation. And it’s seen in the later years as well in the exile and the return from exile. And, and as we begin just to move on this morning from some of the Old Testament passages and begin to make our way into the new, we’re going to see all of these things are are pictures of restoration, pictures of of God showing us the way in which he’s going to put people back or put creation back rather to where it was before.

3. 1:30

   Because they are pointing us forward to a man who was moved with compassion when he looked at his people, when he saw them bow down by sickness and disease and uncleanness, when he saw them overwhelmed sometimes by the weight of their sin. And so when he stood up in Nazareth and called for the scroll of Isaiah the prophet to be brought to him, you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.

4. 1:55

   Come with me to Luke chapter 4. I’m going to try to do 2 things this morning. One is spend a little bit of time here in Luke 4, and then we’re going to move into the letter to the Galatians. I confessed I did not think that in a 6th class series we would run out of time to cover some of the major parts of this theme.

5. 2:21

   But but we are going to do so. So we’re going to try to do this as a little bit of a pace. Let me bring you into Luke chapter 4, verse 16. Jesus came to Nazareth where he’d been brought up and as his custom was, went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read and there was delivered to him the book called the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book and found the place where it was written. And you know these words, they’re out of Isaiah chapter 61.

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   The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. It’s anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance or or liberty to the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are bruised, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book and he gave it again to the minister and sat down in the eyes of all those who were in the synagogue were fastened upon him.

7. 3:13

   Twice in verse 18, we’ve got the word liberty. As I say, 1 is, is just slightly hidden away. If you have a, a King James, it’s the word deliverance, but it’s hiding there twice. And the Lord is, of course, pulling out that quotation from not the servant prophecies of Isaiah, but the section that comes immediately afterwards from Isaiah 61. But it’s a.

8. 3:32

   It’s what you call a blended quote. He’s added a bit in not from from from any other any other prophecy, but he’s just. Built in a little bit there from Isaiah 58 as well. That’s that’s the section that you can see right at the end to set at liberty those who are bruised. And that’s because, post the Servant songs, Isaiah is going to return his his readers return his hearers to this theme of the Exodus.

9. 3:59

   So there at the top of the screen is Isaiah 61. There’s the quotation that the Lord has, or there’s the reading that the Lord has, has, has shown us in Luke chapter 4. But he’s also wanting us just to notice other parts of that same section of the book that talk about release from bondage.

10. 4:19

    So Isaiah 58. And we’ve just been doing these chapters or are about to do them in our in our afternoon classes. So they’re not they’re not unfamiliar, are they 58 verses 6 and seven, he’s going to loose the bonds of wickedness, undo the straps of the yoke, let the oppressed go free. There’s the the the bit that appears in in Luke chapter 4 and to break every yoke. It’s not a surprise if your mind is drawn back by the Lord to Isaiah 61 to begin to ferret around in that part of the prophecy to find out the other things which are going on could almost go back to Isaiah 49 as well. He’s going to establish the land, a portion of the desolate heritage.

11. 4:55

    He’ll say to the prisoners come out and to those who are in darkness appear. He’s using the language of of the law of Jubilee, isn’t he? He’s using the language of of that great release that was promised in the Old Testament in the Law of Moses, that divine agenda to support families and communities, that was designed to avoid excessive accumulation of property by anyone individual, that was designed to care for the poor, that was designed to grant a mechanism to escape poverty. It was another way of looking at those servant chapters or the servant verses that we spent some time with in Exodus chapter 21 as well.

12. 5:39

    In other words, what the Lord is alluding to is that there are a series of releases which are shaped by what God has already told us in the Old Testament. So. So why does He take his hearers there in the synagogue? Why are they so fascinated? Why in particular when he stops reading and we get this extra emphasis that he closed the book or closed the scroll? And gave it to the minister and sat down. Well, he’s doing what the teachers would do. Because of course, if you were, if you were the audience in those days, you’d be stood up And, and if you were the teacher, you’d be sat down.

13. 6:12

    Which frankly is something I think we should go back to. But there we are. Give, give my feet. A bit of a rest as well, but he’s deliberately done that, given it back to the to the minister, the ruler of the synagogue, and he sat down. What kind of freedom is the Lord going to bring? Well.

14. 6:27

    You would make me a good case that he would bring a whole series of different kinds of freedom. The Jews want him to bring freedom from Roman oppression, particularly in that part of the country. The the town of Sephorus nearby had been a site of a great Roman rebellion a few years ago, and the consequences of that would still have been rolling on. But the Lord’s not finished the quote, has he? And and those of you that did go back to Isaiah 61, and you can see it on the screen as well, may have just noticed that the Lord sits down at the crucial part that that last phrase, the day of vengeance of our God doesn’t actually appear in Luke chapter 4.

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    It’s almost as if he’s left them hanging. And I think that’s why Luke draws our attention to the fact that that’s the point he stops and that’s the point he sits down because it’s almost as if he’s then going to go on and explain it, right? Does it mean there won’t be a day of vengeance? Does it mean that that part of it isn’t going to be fulfilled? Is it only a message of peace?

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    Well, obviously not. And the Lord is actually going to return to this later on. If you just come over to Luke 22 very quickly. I’m sorry, Luke 21 very quickly.

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    It’s the Olivet prophecy and what the Lord has begun in Luke chapter 4, he’s going to finish in Luke 21 and verse 22 when he’s spoken of those in Judea fleeing to the mountains. Luke 21 verse 22 these are. The days of vengeance that all things which are written may be fulfilled. He’s picking up Isaiah 61 and verse 2 is finishing, if you like, the quotation which he’s begun back in the synagogue in Luke chapter 4. So, so in some way that day of vengeance will be the fulfilment of the Olivet prophecy.

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    In some way it will be 8070 and and the other ways in which Luke 21 and Matthew 24 are going to unfold because there is also a sense that the day of vengeance of our God is still going to be fulfilled in another way. Septuagint translates it slightly differently for us. It makes us look at it in a slightly different way. It translates it as the word payback. Now you can have payback in positive and negative ways. Samson talks about it in a in a negative sense back in Judges 16 verse 28.

19. 8:48

    Samson wants to pay back the Philistines for his two eyes. You remember when he stands between the pillars and brings the whole building down on himself and and everybody else there. But it can also be used in a positive sense. It’s used in the Psalms in that way. Don’t don’t forget all of the Lord’s benefits, all of the things he gives us.

20. 9:06

    And Paul uses it in Colossians as well. So it can be instigated in in more than one way. It’s the idea of restoration again, it’s the idea of recompense. It’s the idea of this latter jubilee, the latter day jubilee, I should say, being something where God is restoring his people to where they were before. It’s a very idea that we picked up time and time again that that what God has done at the beginning is give his creation all of this freedom with these very broad guardrails. And when things have gone wrong, things have become smaller, tighter, more, more more compacted. And the whole aim of, of the entire meta narrative, there’s an ugly phrase of, of the scripture is to get us back to that place where we have all of this, all of this liberty once again.

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    And, and one of the ways I think that the Lord is drawing our attention in Isaiah 61 to this is to say, yes, I, I, I can promise you healing. Yes, I can promise you a picture of sin. Yes, I can lift your burdens and relieve you in a day-to-day way. But, but the exodus was not set up to create laws that would bind consciences.

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    It was set up to show you that the perfect law of liberty was about restoring. It was about grace. It was about open handed giving and open handed generosity and it’s something that will appear later on in the New Testament letters. Can I bring you over to Galatians Chapter 3, conscious that we haven’t really done Luke chapter 4 justice, but I just want to bring you on to Galatians chapters 3 and 4. Or are we going to going to turn our attention for a little while?

23. 10:49

    Here in Galatians, Paul is at pains to protect the gospel from attack. And, and as you know very well, he, he’s, he’s trying to point out to them that righteousness does not come through serving the law of Moses does not come through quantifying your discipleship. It does not come through come through seeing grace as as a trade off. It comes through faith in the crucified Messiah. Something that the Jewish converts were clearly struggling to understand and struggling to make sense of. Have a look at Paul’s language in chapter 3. Let’s go to well verse 23.

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    In Galatians 3, before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up to the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, you’re no longer under a schoolmaster for you’re all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ.

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    Have a look at the language here. It’s it’s it is the language of anti liberty. It’s the language of being imprisoned. Verses 22 and 23, the law was a jailer. It it confined and it restricted them certainly the way that they were misinterpreting it. But there was something about law that was was not helping them.

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    Verses 24 and 25, the law was a a guardian or a schoolmaster or a disciplinarian, depending on the version that you’re reading from. It was designed for for those who had not yet grown up, those who were still on milk and not meat, those who were not yet old enough to be free, if you like, and make their own and make their own choices.

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    Chapter 4 and verse one. Now I say actually we’ve missed the crucial part, haven’t we? Don’t need to not not forget to read the end of chapter 3 For as many of you has have been baptised into Christ to put on Christ. There’s neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female. You’re all one in Christ Jesus, and if you’re Christ’s then you’re Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. And the heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, although he be Lord of all, but he’s under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father is the same transition to freedom, but just in slightly different language.

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    In fact, that’s why Paul begins chapter 4 by saying, well, I mean it like this. Now I say that he’s he’s just saying this is what I really mean in in other languages and and the expressions that he’s using are going to take a particular turn. He’s spoken of people being imprisoned. It’s even there in verse 22, isn’t it? The Scripture has imprisoned all under sin. He’s spoken of people being guarded or or constrained by a schoolmaster.

29. 13:37

    And now in chapter 4 and verse three, he tells us that when we were children, we were in bondage or we were enslaved to the elements of the world. But when the fullness was time has come and we were here last night, weren’t we? In the other session, God sent forth his son.

30. 13:54

    Born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Look at the way in which this language builds through these verses. You were under a curse. 3 verse 10. You were under sin. 3 verse 22. You were guarded under the law. You were under a teacher.

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    You were under guardians and stewards. I’ve got different translations on the slide from the one I’ve read, but you can follow it through. You were under these natural elements of the world, the entire. Way in which Paul is building up this point, which we’re going to understand in just a second is, is by saying as it was, you were not free in your former way of life. You were not free If you were still worshipping law, if you were still living under law, then then you were not, then you were not free.

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    And now suddenly, when the fullness of time is come, God sends forth his Son, who in some sense is himself constrained in this way, because he. Because he is born of a woman, because he is born under the law, because he is like you and I, or because you and I are like him.

33. 15:00

    That’s a better way of putting it. And yet the coming of the king completely changes things. We had been minors. We had no more rights than slaves. We were confined, we were guarded, we were restricted. And yet now you are sons and daughters, verse 6, and God has sent the spirit of his Son into your hearts crying ABBA Father, you will know about adoption in the 1st century, the way in which it was such a drastic and far reaching innovation. And we touched upon it again, didn’t we, a little bit last night when we talked about the way in which this even functioned in the lives of the Caesars. That when Julius Caesar, who was childless, needed an heir, he adopted Octavian, who becomes Caesar Augustus, who becomes the one that we compare the son of the of, of Almighty God with. So when we get into these verses in chapter 4 and we’re talking about the adoption of sons, I don’t need you not to miss the contrast sat under the surface again, are the the Roman emperors, the ones who wanted to be associated with their predecessors, the ones who were descended from, from God, from gods and and goddesses in the heavens. We’re also meant to see the connection to the Egyptian Pharaohs, the other ones who were sons of gods. So both in the Old Testament, where Pharaoh is the son of Rah and he’s going to be made immortal, and both in the New Testament where where Octavian is going to become Caesar Augustus and become the son of a God. We’re learning about something else because adoption into God’s family is a meteoric jump in

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    status moves us into a place that we could never have understood. I mean, it’s one thing for one thing for the the great ruler of the Roman Empire to be adopted into some ancient lineage, whether it was even vaguely true or not, but not a Thessalonian slave girl, not a young man who worked down the docks in Corinth.

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    Suddenly these things are moving the boundaries of our thinking again, and he’s setting us up to understand the significance of of adoption in the Lord Jesus Christ. But Paul is worried about something. He’s worried that having been set free, having been adopted as sons and daughters, we’re going to be returning to sin again.

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    You’re no more a servant but a son, he says. And if a son, then they’re of God through Christ. But verse 8, when you knew not God, you did service to those who are not God. You are restricted. You are in bondage again. But now verse 9, after that you have known God, or rather are known of God.

37. 17:40

    Now turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements whereof you desire to be again in bondage. Why would you go back into lockdown? Why would you go back into slavery? Why would you walk free from jail and then when you get to the front doors decide to turn around and go back in because it was better there? Why would you do that?

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    And yet you remember all those verses we put up a few days ago about the language that the Israelites use when they’re coming out of Egypt and they don’t like the wilderness journey and they want to go back to Egypt. We liked being slaves there. We served in Egypt. You have brought us out to die. All of those expressions that we’ve built up through those slides, one after the other was was saying actually they liked serving.

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    They liked being in bondage ultimately because they never thought they had been. That was the John 8 point that we got to, wasn’t it? We are Abraham’s seed and we’ve never been in bondage to anyone. They never understood that they had been all the time this great lie that we tell ourselves if we have not yet repented that we were never in bondage and therefore God can’t even touch us.

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    There’s nothing that can be done. And and and we meet again in these verses, this same challenge. I’ve always been able to do it myself. Maybe that’s the phrase to to hang our hats on on Independence Day, right? This idea that actually we we need yet again to to catch Paul’s concerns. I am afraid of you verse 11, in case I’ve bestowed my labour upon you in vain.

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    So Paul’s going to open this out for us, and he’s going to show us in particular with 11 remarkable piece of of inspired scriptural wizardry. He’s going to take us in verse 22 to a passage that we would not have read in the way that Paul is going to read it. I’m not suggesting there’s anything crazy going on here, but this is, you know, we would not have read the account that he’s going to tell us about in the way that he reads it. I don’t think we bring you all the way down again to to verse 20.

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    Well, verse 21 in Galatians chapter 4, just to just to connect things up. Tell me, you who desire to be constrained in bondage, restricted under the law, do you not hear the law? For it’s written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond made and the other by a free woman. Well, actually, Abraham had more than two sons. But we’re just drilling down into it to Isaac and Ishmael, aren’t we?

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    He who was. Born, or his rather, he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh. And it’s a little quotation. You may not see it as a quotation, but it’s a little phrase that Paul is is under inspiration plucking out of. Of the Gospel of John, although having said that, John’s not been written yet.

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    So maybe there is a process of inspiration working that, that Paul wants us to, to, to understand later. He’s he’s taking it from, from John chapter 1. You remember that the children of God are borne not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. The word is made flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. The one who was of the bondwoman was born in the same way of the flesh after the flesh, but he who was of the free woman was born of promise.

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    The promise of chapter 3 and verse 29 that if you are Abraham seed, you are heirs according to the promise. Pauline is setting up another contrast. I feel like all I’ve been doing this week is talking about contrasts being set up in scripture. Choices that we have to make between one path and another path. Do you want a human solution or do you want a divine solution? Do you want to follow rules and be restricted and constrained or do you want the law of grace?

46. 21:13

    So here is Ishmael born when Sarah says God needs a bit of a kick start. I think God’s timetable isn’t quite what I would like it to be. So I’m going to push him along in the right direction. And Isaac, who is born when God’s grace is shown to Abraham at the most unlikely time when he’s far too old to have children. And so is Sarah.

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    You know, it’s telling, I think actually that that Sarah is not mentioned here in this, in his allegory, in this, in this section at the end of Galatians 4. It’s not the allegory of, of Sarah and Hagar. It’s, it’s the allegory of, of Isaac and Ishmael. And, and maybe the fact that Sarah’s name is, is absent tells us a little bit about God’s judgement on her from that moment. And we’ll, we’ll see a little bit more of that in a minute. But the same situation exists in Galatia, where the issue of the Gentiles coming to the gospel has riled up the Jewish disciples, the Jewish converts, to manufacture solutions. And artificially raised the bar of fellowship. And Paul is writing this letter to try to get underneath that and to try to understand or to try to help them understand what’s going on.

48. 22:27

    These things, he says, are an allegory. It’s picture language. For there are two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, which genders to bondage, which is Hagar. This Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answers to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage with her children. We’ve got that same language again that you can see on the screen. We’re repeating this idea of language, of constraint and restriction and anti liberty.

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    But Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all. Remember Abraham and Isaac on Moriah, whose son is Isaac. Our process of the temptation of Abraham is for Abraham to understand whose son Isaac really is. Remember Pharaoh in, in Exodus chapter 4, the great, great failure that Pharaoh had made is, is making God’s son work for him.

50. 23:16

    This figure is at the very heart of the paradox of liberty. Can I bring you back to Genesis chapter 16? We’ll come back to Galatians, come back to Genesis. And as we were working through those little shadows of the Exodus, there was one which we just left on the side. Until now. Remember, we we looked at Genesis 12, we looked at Genesis 13, we looked at Genesis 14 and we said Abraham was, or Abraham was living out an exodus.

51. 23:44

    He went down into Egypt. There were plagues. They came out with great wealth. They then moved he and Lot to divide the land together. There was a conquest of the kings in Genesis chapter 14, and then there is a jarring break in Genesis chapter 16. Just glance back to chapter 15 verse 13 for a second. God says to Abraham no over surety 15, verse 13 that your seed will be a stranger in a land that is not theirs and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them 400 years. So three things just to note from verse 13, they’re going to be strangers, they’re going to be servants, and they’re going to be afflicted.

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    Well, that’s going to work itself out later in the nation, of course, but there is somebody to whom that will apply 1st and it’s somebody that we absolutely do not expect to see. So up to 16 and verse one. Now, Sir, I, Abraham’s wife, bear him no children, and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian whose name was Hagar, who probably came out of Egypt at the end of Genesis 12 when they came back in that figure we looked at earlier, three key things from Genesis 15.

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    They were to be foreigners. They were going to be servants. They were going to be afflicted. When we get to Hagar in chapter 16, she’s a foreigner, she’s a servant, and down in verse 6, she’s going to be afflicted. It’s the same word as in chapter 15, verse 13. That’s weird. We’ve got an Egyptian afflicted and made to serve in the House of the Hebrews. It’s a bit eerie.

54. 25:33

    It’s like an Exodus gone wrong. It’s like things have yet again been turned on their heads. You might even make the case that that there is a figure of Pharaoh present in Abraham’s house. You know what what Pharaoh does, or what he’s. Planning to do in genesis 12. Pharaoh likes taking women for himself that that are not his.

55. 25:56

    And, and when Abraham takes Hagar, who is not his wife, there is a slightly awkward echo of what Pharaoh is planning to do in Genesis chapter 12. Now, Abraham’s going to be formed in a very different way because of his relationship with God. Don’t misunderstand me. We’re not trying to paint too tight a picture here.

56. 26:14

    But there is just a just a whisper, just a shadow of what Pharaoh was like that manifests itself in in Abraham in these slightly awkward chapters in Genesis chapter 16 might be an echo of of the days of Noah. You remember when we were thinking about that, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair and they took them wives of all that they chose. Maybe we see a whisper of that in what Abraham’s doing when Hagar becomes his woman.

57. 26:45

    And it’s a full narrative as well. It’s not only like Pharaoh. It’s not only like Noah. But we’re also going back to the Garden of Eden, aren’t we? Chapter 16 and verse 2, Sir, I said to Abram, Behold, now the Lord has restrained me from bearing freedom word, I pray thee, going to my maid. It may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of his wife. Where have you heard that before? It’s Genesis chapter 3 again, isn’t it? Go and take my maid, she says, and he listens to the voice of his wife.

58. 27:18

    And as a result of that, what happens in Genesis 3 when Adam listens to the voice of his wife? Their eyes are opened. What happens when Abraham listens to the voice of his wife? Chapter 16 and verse 4. She saw she had conceived. And Sarai says, My wrong be upon thee, I’ve given my maid into thy bosom. And when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes.

59. 27:47

    She looked with contempt upon her mistress. Both Sarah and Hagar actually just take on a little bit of the character of Eve. We wouldn’t expect that. It’s like the Exodus has been turned upside down and inside out. Now, if that’s that’s reasonable, again, we’re not suggesting that that Abraham’s going to go down some awful path because we know that he doesn’t.

60. 28:11

    If that’s reasonable, what’s the what’s the next thing in the Genesis 3 account after and then listened to the voice of his wife and after their eyes had been opened. Well, you remember they hear the voice of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And here it is in 16 verse 7, the Angel of the Lord found her by a fountain in the wilderness, by the way, to Shure and said, Hey, go, hey, Garcia’s maid, where did you come from and where will you go?

61. 28:42

    It’s, it’s not the same words, but it’s the same idea here is God talking to somebody after the process that we’ve been through. I mean, even verses 10 and 11 look a little bit like Genesis 3, don’t they? This idea that I will multiply your seed and it won’t not be counted for multitude. I mean, it’s it’s not the Genesis 3 promise. It’s not the go forth and multiply promise or the have dominion promise of Genesis 1.

62. 29:05

    But there were little words there that you just might say, think, look a little bit similar. It’s a replay of Genesis 3. What what Abraham does wrongly, I think, and what Sarai does is just draw us back to a place where we probably shouldn’t want to go. Sarah’s like Eve, but she’s also like the serpent because she’s tempting Abraham. Abraham’s like Adam because he listens, but he’s also like Pharaoh.

63. 29:34

    There is an oppression of this servant, this stranger, which later we’re going to see open out in the land of Egypt. And slightly bizarrely, but very importantly for the point that Paul’s going to make in Galatians, Hagar’s the one who receives blessings and pains as a consequence of the fall. Genesis 16 is a replay of something that we’ve seen already. That’s why the allegory that the apostle Paul draws us to is so powerful.

64. 30:06

    This is not how God told his faithful disciples that discipleship would be worked out. Things have gone astray. And the experience of Hagar that the circumstances we see is an inversion of the Exodus. It’s like Pharaoh’s persecution within the House of the Hebrews. We read Genesis 16 and we go, well, you know, she’s kind of just collateral damage, which is a pretty awful way of looking at it. But actually what it does is it introduces us to Key key freedom themes, key liberty ideas, because you’ve got strangers in the house and you’ve got this idea of a sojourner and this idea of being afflicted.

65. 30:41

    Only here the boots on the other foot, the sandals on the other shoe, right? God’s going to fulfil his promises, but as he fulfils them, he will deal with the serpent like tendencies within all of us, even the people that we think are pretty good examples of faith, even people like Abraham and Sarai. And this spiritual formation that needs to begin within all of us needs also to begin in the life of Abraham. So there are two groups that Paul is pointing us to in Galatians chapter 4.

66. 31:14

    Come, come back there with me, please. I’m going to run out of, run out of time if we’re not careful. Galatians chapter 4 once again. And, and, and it’s a chapter that we’ll deal with two, two groups, I think.

67. 31:33

    The Jews who reject the gospel altogether and yet who are always dogging his steps wherever he travels around the Mediterranean, and the Jewish converts who don’t want the Gentiles in fellowship. And they’re the ones, I think, that are the focus most of all. Now Galatians is written. Did I mention it last night? I probably did.

68. 31:52

    It’s written almost certainly between Acts 14 and 15, after the first missionary journey. When the Gentiles are first publicly and visibly called to Paul’s ministry, come to Galatians 4, verse 27, where we where we finished before. For it is written, Rejoice, thou Baron, that bearest not break forth, and cry thou that travailest not.

69. 32:16

    For the desolate hath many more children than she which hath a husband. It’s quote from Isaiah 54 verse one which she. It’s significant, not least because it’s right after the 4th servant song where we were yesterday. So we’re picking up in that stream of thought that Isaiah has got. And actually all of the rest of Isaiah is about the redemption of Israel. It’s about the the the focus landing firmly on Jerusalem, but about God’s people coming back from exile. And we are comparing Sarah’s joy in bearing Isaac with, well, in Isaiah, the restoration or the freedom of Jerusalem after captivity, and what that will mean in a fuller sense later on when the king comes again in his glory. But also the freedom that Gentile converts have in Christ that Paul’s Jewish readers, Jewish hearers, are not expecting to come across.

70. 33:09

    And so not everybody’s happy with it, just like not everybody was happy that Isaac was born and changed the circumstances back in Genesis because Ishmael doesn’t want Isaac to inherit without him. And we see that later in Genesis. And the Judaizes don’t want the Gentiles to inherit without them. In fact, they they’d really like the Gentiles not to inherit at all. They’d like to push them right out of the gospel and push them away.

71. 33:32

    And verse 28 goes on to make that point. We brethren as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he who was born after the flesh, same phrase as verse 23 persecuted him, born after the Spirit, so it is now. So the context for Galatians is is in between Acts 14 and 15, there are four places in those chapters.

72. 33:56

    In fact, maybe just look at it rather than me tell you 4 places in Acts 13 and 14 where where the Jews persecute Paul during his preaching campaign. So there could be an underground allusion here to the Jews who are persecuting the gospel and persecuting the converts. But actually it’s more reasonable, I think, to see it in the light of the Jerusalem conference. In Acts chapter 15, that the Jews are wanting to put upon the Gentiles a yoke of bondage that they were never able to bear. If you’ve turned back to Acts, it’s Acts 15 and verse 10. Why therefore tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the next of the disciples, which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they and Paul says. Nobody’s been able to do it up until now, So why are you making them behave in the way that you never could? And it completely flips our understanding of what the Old Testament looks like because the Jews are convinced that they are not under bondage, that they are not restrained, they are not restricted, they are not unfree because of their heritage from Moses.

73. 35:02

    We are Abraham’s children and we’re never in bondage to anyone. And Paul says, you must be kidding me. You are the ones in bondage and the children of the free woman. That Paul talks to us about in Galatians 4 are those who can shake off their allegiance to law, not those who go back to it and stick with it every day of their lives. Which is why back in Galatians 3 and verse 30, Paul brings us to another quotation.

74. 35:28

    What says the Scripture therefore cast out the bondwoman and her son, For the son of the bondwoman shall not be free, shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. Have you noticed what Paul is doing in Galatians chapter 4? He’s just called the Jewish. Christian converts, descendants of Ishmael. He’s just called the Jews Arabs.

75. 35:53

    Can you imagine the reaction that that would have brought? He says they stand in the line of the Abraham who looked a bit like Pharaoh in that incident in Genesis chapter 16. And the core of Galatians chapter 4 is that both Jewish and Gentile converts to the gospel. They need to focus on being Isaacs and not putting themselves at the risk of being Ishmaels.

76. 36:19

    You think you were never in bondage to anyone? Well, you’re trying to be even in some sense Abraham was. And Sarai in Genesis 16, where they, as it were, put themselves under bondage by the actions that they took. And you remember the next incident after the Hagar chapter, after Genesis 16. What’s the next thing that happens in Genesis as the story rolls on chapter 17?

77. 36:46

    The covenant of circumcision. It’s about the taming of the flesh. It’s about bringing down your dominance. Abraham is being told not to follow in the paths of other Genesis. People. Who? Who am I allowed to say it like this? Who thought with that particular organ? People like Nimrod, the empire builder. People like the Babel? Well, those like the Babel builders. Who?

78. 37:07

    Who? Who brought about that enforced slavery? People like Pharaoh of Genesis chapter 12, Who? Who took women for themselves? And God introduces the covenant of circumcision, so that Abraham has no confidence in his own flesh. What does Paul do in the very next chapter? Galatians 5 and verse one. Stand fast in the liberty, therefore, where wherewith Christ has made us free.

79. 37:29

    Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul, say to you, that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. I testify again to every man who is circumcised that he’s a debtor to do the whole law. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts anything, but only for faith. Working in love might be my alarm call, I think. Come down to chapter 5 and verse 13, Galatians 5 and verse 13. For, brethren, you have been called unto liberty only. Use not liberty for an occasion for the flesh, but by love. Serve one another for all.

80. 38:09

    The law is fulfilled in this one word, that thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. If you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed of one another. Grace is not a trade off, Paul says to his readers. It’s done through love. It’s done through the one who took upon himself the form of a servant who was made in the likeness of men. It’s done through the one who was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, who gave himself up, who disadvantaged himself, all this different language of freedom and liberty that rolls away through our Scriptures.

81. 38:43

    It’s freedom from the mindset that says I can continue in sin, that grace may abound. That says God, if I do it like this, then I’ve earned something and I can take a day off tomorrow from worrying about discipleship. It’s freedom from the mindset that says, brother, you can have that today. Next AGM, we’re doing things my way. It’s a quid pro quo, been there, done that. I’ve had those thoughts in Agms.

82. 39:11

    I will trade out today in order to win something back next time around. It’s the difference between between being under something and not being under something. Those who are led by the Spirit, where am I looking? Verse 18 in chapter 5 if you are led by the Spirit. You are not under the law. It’s can I say it freedom principle #9 service is not a transaction.

83. 39:36

    It’s not a quid pro quo, it’s not a contract, it’s something that we do in love. 6 chapter 6 and verse one. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted, bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

84. 40:05

    That brother taken in sin, that sister taken in sin, you don’t forgive them because you’re buying goodwill in case you fall into the same temptation and you want to make sure you’re safe later on. Forgive them because, well, you know what it’s like to be sinful too, and still loved. And you say to that brother or that sister in those circumstances, I will stand beside you as you face the consequences for what you’ve done because that’s what the Lord did for me. That’s grace.

85. 40:36

    These are wisdom issues, brothers and sisters. We need to, we need to live as if we are members one of another. We need to live as if what the Lord said about his body is actually true, that grace is not a transaction, that acts of freedom are unquantifiable, That it’s easier to say no than yes, and a lot harder to say.

86. 40:56

    Here’s my open hand. How much do you need that Deuteronomy 15 language from from a little while ago? Liberty is not the liberty of the 1960s. OK, That’s the idea that you had when we came here this week. Then, then, then we’ve hopefully changed that. It’s not the liberty where God owes me something.

87. 41:15

    It’s not the liberty where I can earn or trade or argue my way to a better place. It’s the liberty where we do things out of grace and love. There was a preacher who once said, Lord, help us to be prepared to lose and lose and lose until we die and then wake up to eternal glory.

88. 41:39

    Now we didn’t mean we should suffer abuse. He didn’t mean that we should that we should die for others in in odd non gospel senses. He said, and I think he meant this is the the slave of Exodus 21. This is the man who says I love my master, my wife and my children and I will not go out free.

89. 42:01

    This is the person who gives for others, and you get to choose your redemption story just like I get to choose mine. And it can be the one where we are in bondage to everything that we’ve ever been tied down by, or it’s the one where we see grace and freedom and liberty. So how about you brothers and sisters on Independence Day? Have you, have you struck your own little deal with God? Is there a little secret place in your heart that you’re not prepared to let Him go?

90. 42:30

    Are you telling Him that you are a disciple and yet there is a little hole there that you aren’t letting anybody go and look at where you’re prepared to give just a little less of yourself to Him and still think that you are a disciple? Have you forgotten? Have I forgotten that redemption is not for my restriction, but for my glory or sorry for His glory and for my joy in that? Have I understood that freedom is not an unfettered pursuit of my desires?

91. 42:57

    It’s not a restriction of my brothers and sisters. It’s the joy of bringing God’s pleasure to Him because He has liberated me and set me free, but not free to go and do what I choose, free to go and be a servant again. They’re massive challenges. Freedom is not easy. And one of the things that we’ve been working our way towards is understanding this week that that as we live out our discipleship, as we begin to think about going back to our ecclesias and thinking about family life and ecclesial life, and the way we react when we walk into the office or the workplace in in however many weeks it is you go back to work.

92. 43:37

    The the The paradox of Liberty asks us to change our thinking, to rebuild our mindset, not to think about things as a quid pro quo, as a trade off, but to pour ourselves out for each other as the Lord poured himself out for us. Everybody serves. The only thing that we get to decide is what we serve.