church

INI
Judica, Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 17, 2013
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

YOU'RE AN ISAAC, NOT AN ISHMAEL!
Galatians 4:21-23, 28-5:1

Peace to you all who are in Christ Jesus, Amen. Our text on this Fifth Sunday
in Lent comes from the letter of Paul to the Galatians, beginning at chapter
four, verse 21, as follows:

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is
written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a
freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the
flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise... Now we, brethren, as Isaac
was, are children of promise. But, as he who was born according to the flesh
then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now.
Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? "Cast out the bondwoman and her
son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the
freewoman." So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of
the free. Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free,
and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. So far the Holy Word.

In Christ Jesus, Who died to set us free, Dear Fellow Redeemed,

If someone were to ask you how many religions there are in the world, what
would you answer? A dozen? Fifty? A hundred? Believe it or not, experts
estimate that there are currently over fifteen hundred active religions being
practiced somewhere in the world! There are people who worship animals,
people who worship the sun, people who worship demons and people who
worship their own ancestors. There are polytheistic religions, which teach that
there are many different gods. There are pantheistic religions, which teach that
god is in everything - every rock, every tree, every ray of sunshine. There are
dualistic religions; they believe that there is one god of Good and an equally
powerful god of Evil. And then there are just a few strictly monotheistic
religions, which teach that there is only one God.

So many different religions in the world -- and yet, when it comes to salvation,
there are really only two - the religion of the Law, and the religion of the
Gospel! Because every religion except one teaches that salvation depends on
what you do for yourself. The only exception is Christianity. In true Christianity,
salvation rests solely on what Jesus did for you! In our text for today, Paul is
warning the Galatian Christians that they're about to make a big mistake in this
matter; they're on the verge of trading in their wonderful freedom in the Gospel
for that old slavery to the Law. He uses an interesting picture to help them see
their mistake - the picture of the two sons of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. This
morning I urge you to follow this picture with me, and heed Paul's warning, as
he reminds you --

YOU'RE AN ISAAC, NOT AN ISHMAEL!
I. Born of God's promise, not man's plan.
II. Heir of eternal life, not a castaway.

Paul wrote this letter to the Christian congregations in the province of Galatia.
They had a problem. These Christians had started out well, believing the
Gospel Paul preached to them. With joy he told them the Good News that they
could be saved eternally by trusting in Jesus Christ alone. But while the Apostle
was away preaching in other places, a group of false teachers moved in on the
Galatians. They were called the Judaizers.

The Judaizers were teaching that faith in Jesus wasn't enough. In order to be
saved, they said, you had to believe in Jesus AND keep all the laws of Moses:
the Ten Commandments, the laws of circumcision, of the Sabbath, of clean and
unclean foods, etc. When Paul heard about what was going on, he was inspired
by the Holy Ghost to write the Letter to the Galatians.

He was bitterly disappointed in them. "O foolish Galatians!" he said. "Who has
bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus
Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?" 3:1. Paul just couldn't
understand why these people, who had known the freedom of the Gospel,
would want to make themselves slaves to the Law again. In our text, he says,
Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? To show
them just how big a mistake they were making, Paul draws a parable from the
Old Testament: For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a
bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman
was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise...
Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise.

You probably know the back story here, but let me refresh your memory. God
had promised Abraham and Sarah that their descendants would be more
numerable than the stars in the heavens. But time passed, they grew old, and
still they had no children, because Sarah was barren. After a while, they got
tired of waiting for God to come through on His promise, so they came up with
their own plan.

Sarah had a slave woman named Hagar. Sarah convinced Abraham to sleep
with Hagar, thinking that, if a child was born, she could claim it as her own. So
they went through with their sinful scheme. And sure enough, a child was born -
a son named Ishmael. Being the son of a slave woman, he himself was legally a
slave. As it turns out it really didn't matter anyway, because soon after that the
Lord fulfilled His promise, and the aged Sarah miraculously bore her own son,
named Isaac. Now Abraham had two sons. One was Ishmael, the son of the
slave woman, the product of sinful human scheming. The other was Isaac, the
son of the freewoman, the fulfillment of God's promise. Isaac was born of
God's promise, not man's plan.

In this story, Paul finds just the illustration he needs to wake up the foolish
Galatians. To each of the believers there he says, Remember - YOU'RE AN
ISAAC, NOT AN ISHMAEL! You're the child of the promise! Paul had to
remind them of how they came by their salvation in the first place. Was it
something they did? Was it a plan they came up with that saved them from their
sins? It was not! In fact, Paul says in another place that the plan God had in
store to save mankind from sin was so unbelievable that no one could ever have
guessed it, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of
man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." I Cor 2:9.
The unguessable plan was unbelievably simple: God would give His own
innocent Son in exchange for us sinners!

You too, are an Isaac, not an Ishmael. You are a redeemed child, born of God's
promise in Christ. For some people, though, that's not good enough. Some
people are just like those Galatians - they can't leave well enough alone. They're
not satisfied with God's plan unless they can add something of their own to it.
Some feel they have to chip in their own good works, cooperate with God; "let
God do His part, I'll do mine." But that's not the plan.

I heard a man telling a story on TV. He said he never knew how much his
family loved him until he came down with double pneumonia. He was flat on
his back for two weeks. He was angry and frustrated because he couldn't do a
thing to help himself; he had to let his family do everything. One day he asked
his wife what she was so cheerful about, and she said, "Honey, I almost wish
you'd be sick more often - it's the only time we get a chance to do things for
you!"

God's the same way -- all He wants is to do things for us! He wants nothing
more than to free us from our sins. He wants to help us out of the sinful mess
we've made of our lives, and He has the perfect plan to do it. But He can't save
us as long as we keep insisting on saving ourselves. "If (salvation) is by grace,"
Paul says, "then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace."
Rom 11:6. It's one or the other - either Isaac or Ishmael. Let's be Isaacs!
Children of God’s plan, not man’s plan. Children of the Gospel, not the Law.
Let's own up to our sins, admit that we're powerless to help ourselves, and look
to the cross of our Savior for forgiveness. He won't let us down! John says, in
His first Epistle, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." I Jn 1:8-9.

Another reason why it's so important for us to be Isaacs, and not Ishmaels, is
because of where they're headed. The Ishmaels - those who put their trust in the
Law - are destined to be eternal castaways from God's grace. The Isaacs - who
trust only in the Gospel of Christ - are heirs of eternal life.

Abraham and Sarah, of course, ran into some trouble because of their sinful
plan. Once the son of the promise, Isaac, came on the scene, then Ishmael and
his mother inevitably became a source of trouble. Ishmael was jealous of Isaac
and persecuted him. In a spiritual sense, Paul says, the same thing's true today:
As he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born
according to the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what does the Scripture
say? "Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall
not be heir with the son of the freewoman.”

Even in Paul's day, the people who were ruled by the Law simply couldn't
stand the Gospel. They attacked Paul for preaching it, beat him up and threw
him in prison. The same thing happened when Martin Luther came on the scene
in the 16th century. When he preached that salvation lies in Jesus alone, not in
good works, the church of Rome did everything it could to get rid of him. Do
you think it's any less true today? It’s not! Any true believer who confesses that
his salvation comes 100% from Jesus and 0% from himself is eventually going
to find himself very unpopular. Don't let the name "Christian" fool you, either,
because there are a whole lot of Ishmaels parading under that name, and
precious few Isaacs! And those who are Ishmaels, those who made the dreadful
mistake of relying upon their own good works for salvation - even to the
slightest degree! - will taste the bitter results of their mislaid confidence on
Judgement Day. "Then will the King say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from
Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels!'"
Mt 25:41.

Thank God for making you an Isaac - a child of the promise! For if your hope
of salvation is laid solely on the cross of Jesus Christ, then there's absolutely no
doubt about your future. You are an heir of eternal life. Jesus paid for your sins
on the cross, He put His white robe of righteousness on you, and He's busy
right at this moment getting a place ready for you in the mansions of heaven!

I remember seeing an interesting attraction at the State Fair one year. Someone
put together a list of "lost bank accounts" from all over the state. Most of the
accounts belonged to people who had died long ago, but whose relatives had
never claimed the money. -So the money just sat there, sometimes for forty or
fifty years, earning interest. Some of the accounts contained tens of thousands
of dollars. Anyway, if you could prove you were related to the former owner of
one of the accounts, they'd give it to you. Well, not many people could resist at
least glancing down the list, on the off-chance that they might be heir to a
fortune.

Today the Apostle Paul's asking you to glance down the list. He’s saying to
you: If your name is Isaac, then you're the heir. If you're a child of the Gospel,
then, believe it or not, the fortune belongs to you. Through the faith in Christ
that the Holy Spirit has given us, each of us is an Isaac; each of us is
immeasurably wealthy -- for what price can you put on justification in Jesus
Christ? What price can you put on things like a peaceful conscience, absolute
security in this world, and the promise of everlasting life in the next world?! So
as we follow our Savior's suffering during this Lenten Season, let's not forget
that we're the reason He gave up His heavenly throne for the rough wood of a
Roman cross. I Corinthians chapter eight: "For you know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that
you through His poverty might become rich!" AMEN.