Message of the Week

The Little White Community Church

Scripture: Gal. 4: 21-31 March 2, 2025

Message: “Sarah and Hagar!”  

by Pastor George Gnade

Introduction:

1. A Bible Story is often more than a story. O.T. stories often teach N.T. truths. They are inspired stories, written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

a. Since the Book of Galatians often refers to Abraham, consider the story of how Abraham was told to take the son God had promised to give him, named Isaac, and sacrifice him on Mt. Moriah.

b. This true story was meant to be a picture of how God would send His promised Son to die on the cross. The ram in the thicket with his head in a thorn bush was sacrificed in Isaac’s place. This was a picture of how Jesus with a crown of thorns on His head would die in our place. It is an amazing story within a story, written with the help of the Holy Spirit (Gen. 22:1-19).

2. Today we are considering another true story from the life of Abraham meant to teach us a spiritual lesson.

a. God had promised Abraham he would have a son. But Sarah was barren and too old and to have children. So Abraham and Sarah decided to help God by allowing her slave Hagar to be impregnated by Abraham. That is how Ishmael was born (Gen. 16: 1- 15). 

b. But he was not the child God had promised. Nor was Hagar the woman God had chosen. God’s plan required Abraham to live by faith and wait for God to do a miracle. In God’s time, God did do a miracle and caused Sarah to get pregnant and have Isaac (Gen. 21: 1-21).

3. In our passage, Ishmael is referred to as the son of a slave while Isaac is referred to as the son of a free woman. 

a. This is what can happen to anyone if we go ahead of God. The son born through man’s efforts was jealous of the son born through the help and promise of God. He persecuted Isaac while Hagar made life tough on Sarah. And God told Abraham to let Hagar and Ishmael go so that peace could be restored in the home. 

b. This upset Abraham because he loved both of his sons. But God promised to bless Ishmael too. But His plan for Ishmael was different than His plan for Isaac. 

A. Let us consider the lesson God wanted to teach us through this O.T. story.

1. In Gal. 4: 23, Paul contrasts Abraham’s “ son by the slave woman” born “in the ordinary way” with his “son by the free woman” born “as a result of (God’s) promise.

a. Paul explains to us that the two women were meant to teach us an important lesson. Hagar stood for the old covenant given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. While Sarah represented the new covenant we have through the Lord Jesus.

b. The old covenant that requires us to keep the law only shows how enslaved we all are under the Law.  Sadly, people who do not know the Lord are often jealous of those who do. And they often give Christians a lot trouble. 

2. Sarah could not have children apart from a miracle. In plain words, she had to depend on the promise of God. Isaac was born because of the promise of God. 

a. A Christian is not born again through the lusts of the flesh or the ordinary way to have children. A person can only become a Christian by believing in God’s promise that He would send us a Savior. 

b. A person can only become a Christian by receiving the Holy Spirit into his/her heart. That is how God sets us free from the burden of sin and the slavery of the law.

3. Abraham could have avoided a lot of trouble if he had simply waited for God to keep His promise. So can we.

B. Paul takes this story and goes even deeper. He compares “the present city of Jerusalem” that was under the law of Moses and enslaved by Rome to “the Jerusalem that is above.” 

1. In Gal. 4:25 -26, he wrote: “Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.”

a. What does Paul mean?  Paul quotes from Isaiah 54: 1 where Isaiah wrote: “Sing, O barren woman, who never bore a child; burst into song and shout for joy, you who were never in labor, because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.”

b. Hagar could have children the natural way but they were born into slavery. Israel, under the Law of Moses, was able to have children but they were all born under the slavery of the law. And what Paul called “the present city of Jerusalem” was still in slavery for the same reason. 

c. In contrast, Sarah, who could not have children, brought forth Isaac simply because of God’s promise. And now, through Isaac’s descendants, the promised Messiah - the Lord Jesus Christ-  has also miraculously come. And the good news of the Gospel is that everyone who believes in Him shall be saved by faith and become a child of God in the spiritual family of God (John 1: 12-13).

2. Paul called God’s church “the desolate woman” who can’t have children in the natural way. But by faith in Jesus, the church would grow and grow. Every Christian who dies goes to heaven and becomes part of the “Jerusalem that is above.”  

a. Hebrews 12:22-23 describes this this way. It says: “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the city of the living God. You have come to 1,000’s upon 1,000’s of angels in joyful assemble, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.”

b. In Rev. 21:1-2, John writes: “Then I saw a new heaven and earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away…. And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”

3. This is “the Jerusalem that is above” that Paul speaks of in Gal 4: 25-26. As children of God through faith in Jesus, we are not under the law that makes us slaves, but we are free in Christ. 

a. While born naturally through our parents, we are born again through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

b. He moves in our hearts when we least expect it and draws us to our Savior who died for us.

4. God promised Abraham he would have a son through Sarah in their old age; and that through their son, the promised Messiah would come.  Abraham “believed God and it was counted unto him as righteousness.” He was saved by simply believing what God had promised.

5. Now we are saved the same way by believing God’s promise that Jesus would come. Now that He has, we are saved by simply trusting in Him for our salvation.  

a. In John 3:3-8, Jesus explained this further. He said: “Unless a man is born again, he can not see the kingdom of heaven… I tell you the truth, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he can not enter the kingdom of heaven. Flesh gives birth to flesh but the Spirit gives birth to our spirits… The wind blows wherever it pleases. You can hear the sound of it but you can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Holy Spirit.”

b. Sarah and Isaac represent those who are born through the promise of God. They represent Jesus who was miraculously born of Mary, and each and every Christian who believes in Jesus and is born again through the coming and indwelling of Holy Spirit. 

In conclusion: Just as Abraham was saved by faith in God’s promise, so are we through our faith in Jesus.