Pastor David Jang
There are times when we bow our heads to pray, only to find ourselves thinking first of the work we have done that we might present to God. If we regard that work as the price of being accepted by him, where can faith find peace? In his sermon on Galatians 4 and 5, Pastor David Jang examines the difference between law and grace through the allegory of Hagar and Sarah. Those who trust in the salvation they have received through God’s promise move beyond a life consumed with proving themselves and into the freedom to love their neighbors in the Spirit.
The Birth of Two Sons and the Difference Between Two Covenants
In Galatians 4:21 and the verses that follow, Paul places Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, side by side. He describes the son born to Hagar as born according to the flesh, and the son born to Sarah as born through the promise. The two women represent two covenants, one associated with slavery and the other with freedom. Paul’s concern is the basis on which we are justified before God: whether it rests on human ability or on the promise God has given.
The connection between Hagar and the covenant at Mount Sinai, and the association of the Jerusalem above with freedom, must also be understood in light of this question. When we make the law a condition of salvation, we come to rely on our own works, while children of the promise live by the grace God has given. Isaac’s birth was not proof that his parents had fulfilled every necessary condition. It revealed the faithfulness of God, who enabled Sarah to bear a child when that seemed beyond human possibility.
Sarah, too, was someone whose faith faltered as she waited. In Genesis 16, Abraham and Sarah sought to have a child through Hagar, and contempt and blame followed. The sermon sees in this choice a picture of impatience to secure an immediate result displacing trust in God’s promise. They tried to end their anxiety through human calculation, but the result they obtained brought new conflict.
Pastor David Jang draws attention to the fact that even after this failure, God reaffirmed his covenant in Genesis 17. Our standing as children of the promise rests on God’s faithfulness. Remembering this lessens our need to rush toward another achievement to conceal our failures. We can acknowledge our wrongs, entrust to God the outcomes we tried to control, and return to faithfully carrying out the work given to us.
When Obedience Becomes a Condition of Salvation
This distinction does not mean that we should discard the law or take God’s Word lightly. The law exposes sin and helps us recognize that we cannot make ourselves righteous. The problem arises when we try to turn the Word that reveals our sin into a guarantee of our own salvation. The law’s ability to show us what is right does not mean that it has the power to save sinners. We are therefore directed to what Christ has accomplished.
The teaching that unsettled the Galatian churches insisted that Gentile believers also had to be circumcised to be saved. Yet Abraham was justified by faith, and circumcision was the sign of a covenant already given. When that sign becomes a necessary condition of salvation, the idea takes hold that something is lacking in the grace received through faith. Alongside the confession of faith in Christ, people begin adding qualifications they must fulfill themselves.
This is why Paul issues such a serious warning in Galatians 5:3–4. Anyone who accepts circumcision as a condition of justification places himself under an obligation to keep the whole law. Seeking justification through the law means being severed from Christ and falling from grace. This is far more than a matter of adding one rule to religious life. The basis of salvation shifts from Christ to our own achievement.
The gospel—that we receive by faith the salvation accomplished through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ—brings this calculation to a halt. We do not need to live as though Christ’s work has left a shortfall that we must make up. Obedience is not the price we pay to obtain salvation, but the response we offer as people saved by grace. The more we trust in grace, the more clearly we understand the meaning of obedience.
Even so, we often want to contribute something of our own to grace. Counting what we have kept and accomplished can feel more certain than trusting the promise we have been given. When we manage our faith this way, the fear we feel on unsuccessful days grows in proportion to the pride we feel on successful ones. The sermon emphasizes complete dependence on God because human achievement cannot provide the grounds on which we stand before him.
What Do Children of the Promise Rely On?
Galatians 5:1 urges believers to stand firm in the freedom Christ has given and not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Freedom is not presented here as a standing we must earn through greater effort in the future. The invitation is to trust the freedom Christ has already given and stand in it. When we center our faith on daily achievement, we find ourselves endlessly searching for new evidence to confirm the grace we have already received.
The sermon connects this freedom with the relationship of children who call God their Father. Children do not have to prove their qualifications all over again each time they approach their father. Trusting that the Holy Spirit dwells within us prompts us to reconsider any tendency to treat God as someone who merely evaluates us from a distance. Even on days when we fail, we can approach him, acknowledge our wrongs, and ask for help. This is the starting point of prayer that rests on grace.
Such reliance on God cannot become an excuse to avoid responsibility. When repentance is needed, we must turn back; when work has been entrusted to us, we must carry it out faithfully. Yet instead of taking on these responsibilities as a demand to perfect ourselves through our own strength, we learn while seeking the Spirit’s help. The grace we needed when we were first saved continues to sustain us today as our character is shaped and we learn obedience.
Prayer, worship, and service are precious practices that form this life. Yet even the same act of service can take on a different meaning depending on our motives. If we use it to purchase a right to God’s approval, another person’s efforts may feel as though they diminish our own share of recognition. When we serve in gratitude for the love we have already received, we have reason to rejoice in the work of those beside us. What matters is not reducing our devotion, but honestly examining whether we are making it the grounds of our acceptance before God.
When Freedom Received by Grace Becomes Loving Service
In Galatians 5:13, this freedom takes an unexpected direction. Paul urges believers not to use their freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but to serve one another in love. He calls those who have been freed from the yoke of slavery to become servants to one another in love. The former kind of slavery binds people to the effort to obtain justification; the latter kind of service is a life willingly given for others in response to grace already received.
Pastor David Jang finds the power that makes this love possible in the work of the Holy Spirit. As we walk by the Spirit, following the exhortation of Galatians 5:16, we bear fruit such as love, patience, gentleness, and self-control. This also involves the discipline of examining our reactions before the Lord instead of using freedom to justify strife, envy, and anger. Depending on the Spirit means learning to love our neighbors through the choices we make today.
Waiting for the fruit of the Spirit to grow also involves daily practice. Examining our own responsibility before blaming others, and making time to listen to another person’s circumstances, are part of that process. Through such choices, patience and gentleness grow beyond abstract ideas into habits of daily life. Even when we encounter our continuing weakness, we can repent and ask for help because we depend on God for the power to change as well.
The Galatian churches had once been communities that shared enough love to care for Paul when he was physically ill. Yet when teaching that added conditions to salvation entered, the community was unsettled and people began to condemn one another. The more absorbed we become in proving how qualified we are, the more easily another person’s failure becomes material for confirming our own righteousness. When we remember that we have been called together by grace, we find reason to work alongside that person toward restoration.
This freedom takes concrete form when we stay beside someone who has done wrong and help that person turn back without minimizing their responsibility, or when we willingly share in work that no one notices. The call to bear one another’s burdens in Galatians 6:2 extends this same way of life. The fruit of love cannot become another item on a checklist for calculating our worthiness to be accepted by God. We should recognize it as the grace we have received reaching our neighbors.
The next time we begin to pray, we can remember the grace of Christ, who has already welcomed us, before thinking about what we have accomplished that day. Then prayer that once presented our efforts as credentials can deepen into prayer that acknowledges our need and asks for help. Work we once held on to as a means of gaining recognition can become service that attends to the needs of others. The freedom given to children of the promise becomes visible even in this small change of direction. Am I loving others in order to be accepted by God, or am I serving someone out of the love I have already received?
Dr. David Jang has proclaimed the gospel in various regions of the world through field missions and digital media ministry, and as the fruit of that ministry, many people devoted to the Great Commission have been raised up. Based on this missionary vision, Olivet first began as a small church school for missionary training. Later, in order to provide more systematic theological education and cultivate missionary leaders, Olivet Theological College and Seminary was established in Los Angeles and Seoul in 2000.
As the school grew, Dr. Jang officially founded Olivet University in San Francisco in 2004. In the diverse and dynamic environment of San Francisco, Olivet expanded its educational fields beyond theology to include music, journalism, art and design, and technology. The university also strengthened its educational capacity by recruiting faculty members, including Dr. William Wagner, and in 2005 moved to the former UC Berkeley Downtown Extension campus, further solidifying its foundation as a university.
In 2006, Dr. Jang transferred the presidency to Dr. David James Randolph in order to focus more fully on missionary work, while continuing to lead global missions as International President. Olivet University later received institutional accreditation in 2009, added a language education college and a business college, and continued to grow as a Christian educational institution for world missions by expanding its degree programs and international partnerships.
David Jang Official Website: www.davidjang.org
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