When Abraham and Sarah believed the promise that God would give them a son, they didn’t get pregnant immediately. In fact, there was a 25-year gap between when God made the promise they’d have a son and when Sarah got pregnant. Now, 25 years is a long time to wait for a son when you are newlywed; when you’re in your 90s, it probably feels like an eternity.
Around year 15, Sarah decides it’s time to help God out. So, she brings her young and gorgeous household servant, Hagar, to Abraham and says, “Look, it’s clearly not happening with me, so maybe you should have a baby with her.”
What is Sarah doing? She hasn’t stopped believing the promise that God would give them a son. She just thinks it is on her to make it happen. She is attempting to fulfill the promise of God through a scheme of the flesh.
Abraham apparently had more issues than a lack of faith, because he just goes along with it. And shortly thereafter, Sarah’s “plan” works: Hagar gets pregnant by Abraham and calls their son “Ishmael.” Ishmael will himself grow up to father a great nation—but not the nation of promise.
This, the Apostle Paul says, is exactly what the Galatian church is doing when they turn to the law to bring them closer to God. They are attempting to fulfill the promise of God through a scheme of the flesh. Like Sarah, they haven’t totally stopped believing God’s promise of salvation; they just think it is on them to accomplish it.
Like Sarah, like the Galatians, we too often want to fast-track God’s promise. But Paul warns us of two important truths we need to remember when we are waiting on God’s promise:
1. Those saved by grace will always be hated by those seeking salvation by the law.
Galatians 4:29 says, “But just as then the child born as a result of the flesh persecuted the one born as a result of the Spirit, so also now.”
Ishmael’s descendants would become the sworn adversaries of Israel, the descendants of Sarah’s son Isaac, continuing down to this day. Interestingly, Muslims around the world proudly claim Ishmael as their spiritual father—and Islam is a religion that from start to finish teaches that you are saved by works!
Paul predicts that any who rely on obedience to the law—whether we’re talking about Judaizers in Paul’s day, the Roman Catholic Church in Luther’s day, Muslims in our day, or legalistic Christians in our own churches—will hate and resent those who rely solely on the promise of grace for salvation.
Because the gospel of grace says to them that all your striving, all your zeal, all your knowledge doesn’t bring you one whit closer to God. You are powerless to do anything that accomplishes your salvation.
Salvation belongs to God alone, and it is a gift you can only receive by faith.
2. God is much abler to accomplish his promise than we are.
In Galatians 4:27, Paul quotes an Old Testament song about Sarah from Isaiah:
For it is written, Rejoice, childless woman, unable to give birth. Burst into song and shout, you who are not in labor, for the children of the desolate woman [Sarah] will be many, more numerous than those of the woman who has a husband [Hagar]. (CSB)
In other words, barren Sarah will be more fruitful than beautiful Hagar.
You would have never thought that, of course, by looking at them. One is the ideal candidate for motherhood; the other has no potential. But God chose the one with no potential to accomplish his promise.
That wasn’t an accident. And, in fact, it completely aligns with the good news of the gospel: God doesn’t need any potential from you to work miracles in you.
This reminds me of one of my favorite promises about the Holy Spirit. In Luke 7:28, Jesus points out to the disciples that the greatest preacher who ever lived was John the Baptist. And then he says, “The least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
“Least in the kingdom” means you have the least potential, you are the least impressive, and you have the fewest spiritual gifts. Statistically speaking, someone has to be the least. (Maybe you’re thinking, “That sounds right. I think he may be talking about me.”) But you need to understand this: Even if you are literally the least in the kingdom, you have more potential in ministry than John the Baptist ever had, because you have something he never had: the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is no longer about the ability you bring to ministry but your availability to Christ.
You may come from the most jacked-up background, or your resume may be a litany of failures, but God can still bring about his promise through you. It doesn’t matter if you are barren, because Christ supplies everything.
With Christ, we can wait with confident hope, knowing that the same God who worked miracles for Abraham and Sarah is eager to work miracles in and through us. If God can make something of Abraham, who the Bible says was “as good as dead,” then he can make something of you. Granddaddy Abraham is proof that God isn’t done with any of us.
