Galatians 4.21-5.1

Today, we celebrate Father’s Day.

We are called to celebrate Fathers because when they are functioning in the God designed way, they are head of the family unit, the provider and the protector of their wives and kids.

Fathers are meant to be the Christ figure in the home, loving and giving of themselves for the good of those that God has given them to care for.  

Now, here today, I know that not all of us have had that experience of a Father functioning in our life as God designed them too.

Some of us do have a Father that we call our hero and has loved us as Christ has loved the Church.

Some of us have a complicated relationship with our Father.

Some of us have been abandoned by our Father along the way.

And, some of us sit here this morning not knowing who are real biological Father is.

Because of the corruption of Sin, all families experience some form of dysfunction.  

However, despite sin driven dysfunction, some families do promote a picture of Godliness by being examples of love, grace and forgiveness.  While other families unfortunately lean into sin driven dysfunction and  promote a picture of Godlessness with their trauma, grudges, and division.

Family is important to God.  God created the family to be a place of safety and security, of peace, love, and grace.

Economic expert, Robert J. Samuelson says, ”Along with the budget deficit, we have a family deficit…We’ve learned that what good families provide cannot easily be gotten elsewhere. For the nation, it is [the family] deficit that matters most.”

In this morning’s Biblical text, from the the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatians, we hear the Apostle Paul describe two different families.  In one family, the Father, Abraham, dysfunctionally leads his family in disobedience away from God.  In the other family, the same man and Father (I know complicated situation), Abraham, overcomes sin-driven dysfunction and leads his family in obedience toward God.

Let’s hear about these two families now.

Stick with me through this text thick in Old Testament history and I will help you understand it on the other side.

Galatians 4.21-5.1 says this:

[21] Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? [22] For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. [23] But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. [24] Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. [25] Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. [26] But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. [27] For it is written,

“Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;

break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!

For the children of the desolate one will be more

than those of the one who has a husband.”

[28] Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. [29] But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. [30] 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.” [31] So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

[1] For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (ESV)

In these words, the Apostle Paul tells a tale of two families. 

For one family, it was the best of times.

For the other family, it was the worst of times.

Let me tell you about the bad news family first.

The first family is made up of Abraham as the Father, Hagar as the mother, and Ishmael as the son.

This family came to be by disobeying God’s design for marriage and parenthood.

When God called Abraham into his family, God made a promise to Abraham.  God told Abraham that despite his old age and the old age of his wife Sarah (both close to 100 years of age), God would allow Sarah to get pregnant and bear Abraham a son to be his heir.

However, as time went on and Sarah’s womb remained barren, Sarah and Abraham decided to take matters into their own hands (and loins) in order to have a child.

So, the plan they came up with was for Abraham to break his marriage commitment to Sarah and commit adultery by sleeping with one of their younger servants named Hagar.  In their selfish plan, Hagar would get pregnant and they would take the child from her and raise the child as their own.

As you can hopefully see, a sin soaked agenda from the very beginning that went from thought to action.  

To create this family, Abraham and Sarah stopped trusting in God and attempted to get the blessing of a child their own way.

A problem arose, not surprisingly.  After Hagar became pregnant and bore a son named Ishmael for Abraham, Sarah became jealous and treated Hagar so badly that Hagar ran away.  

This family consisting of Abraham, Hagar, and their son, Ishmael, was a family created by sin.

When we fail to rest in God and instead seek to be our own savior, the result is havoc and disintegration—spiritually, psychologically, and relationally.

Disregarding God and trying to forcefully find blessing and life apart from God’s grace led everyone involved back into slavery to sin creating a havoc filled family.

The second family that Paul mentions is made up of Abraham, Sarah, and their son, Isaac.

This family came to be completely by God’s doing.  God intervened in an impossible situation and allowed childless 100 year olds to get pregnant and birth a healthy son.  This happened by God’s forgiving of the parent’s sin and then God doing what God, the Creator and Redeemer, does best.  God fulfilled his promise to Abraham and Sarah despite their wrong doing in attempting to find blessing and life apart from Him.

The late NYC Pastor Timothy Keller explains this better than I ever could.  Keller says:

“Taken in this narrow, figurative sense, Hagar’s son represents seeking salvation by works, and Sarah relying on salvation by God’s grace. This is a really interesting analogy. The gospel is that we do not try to attain a righteousness that our abilities can develop. Rather, we are to receive a righteousness provided through supernatural acts of God in history—the miraculous birth, sin-bearing death, and death-defeating resurrection of Christ. We need to rely on God—just as Abraham eventually learned that he needed the miraculous work of God to provide him with a son and heir. As Abraham needed to switch his faith from his own efforts to God’s supernatural work, so these Galatian Christians need to look back to Christ’s work, rather than at their own law-keeping efforts.”

The first family is the “have to” family. They are slaves to working as hard as they can to try to make things happen for themselves because they don’t trust God is for them.

The second family is the “get to” family.

The second family was built on knowing the truth of Psalm 118:5 which says:

[5] Out of my distress I called on the LORD;

the LORD answered me and set me free. (ESV)

It is in the freedom of forgiveness, living with the knowledge that God loves you despite your past and regardless of your future failures because of Jesus sin forgiving death on the cross, that Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac can love without fear of failure.  Failure doesn’t define them.  Being God’s sons and daughter through grace and faith defines them.

In the upside-down world of the gospel, failure equals free-dom. To fail is to be crowbarred from the lockstep lunacy of success at all costs. To fail is to be forced to drop that weight which has withered your humanity and your childlikeness. To fail is to have the chance to look God straight in the eye.

Janis Joplin once sang about failure: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

In their 1968 hit single, “Time of the Season,” The Zombies, asked both “What’s your name?,” and, “Who’s your daddy?”

This morning, I ask you, “Who’s your Daddy?,” and, “What family do you belong to?”

Are you still living apart from God?  

Are you without faith in Jesus Christ as the only Lord and Savior who can help you?

Are you part of the first family described by the Apostle Paul that is defined by slavery to sin, attempting to do things your own way because you don’t believe God is good and faithful, walking a path to ultimate eternal destruction and condemnation?

Or, are you living with God’s presence forgiving you and comforting you because you find yourself believing in Jesus Christ as the only Lord and Savior who can help you?

Are you part of the second family described by the Apostle Paul that is defined by God’s forgiveness, serving God and others because you have first been loved and served by God, your Creator, through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, doing things empowered by God’s Holy Spirit, walking a path to ultimate eternal life saved and redeemed for God’s Kingdom of Heaven?

If you are in the first family this morning, living as a slave to sin, finding yourself hopeless because you know there is no real way to find peace with God and blessing from God in the things you are trying to do, I want you to know the Good News that God is calling you right now to join the second family, the family that He has created for you.

So, join God’s family defined by promises and blessings, grace, mercy, and love, by repenting and believing.  That’s all.  Confess your Sin to Him and He will immediately forgive you because God paid for your Sin in the death of Jesus on the cross for you.  And, confess your faith in Jesus as your Savior.  

As one of our Confirmands shared with us last week, Romans 10:9–10 says, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

God wants way more for you than for you to remain flailing around in sin like a pig rolling around in a pile of crap and food scraps.  

That’s why God came to you in the person and work of Jesus Christ, to live a perfectly righteous life for you, to die a sacrificial death on the cross to pay the price for your Sin, and to rise from the grave defeating the power of sin and death to separate you from God forever.

And, because of all of that, rejoice with the Apostle Paul that it is For freedom Christ has set us free; [and, today] stand firm..and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

This is the Word of God for you today.

This is the Grace of God for you today.

Amen.

Reverend Fred Scragg V.

June 15, 2025

Prayer:

God our Father, 

You see Your children growing up in an unsteady and confusing world: Show us that Your ways give more life than the ways of the world, and that following You is better than chasing after selfish goals.

Help us to take failure, not as a measure of our worth, but as a chance for a new start. Give us strength to hold our faith in You, and to keep alive our joy in Your creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (For Young Persons – BCP p. 829)