“Father Abraham, had many sons, and many sons had father Abraham. I am one of them and so are you, so let’s just praise the LORD.” A children’s Sunday School song many of us are familiar with. It certainly is true that Abraham had many sons—descendants. The question is, what does it mean to be a son or daughter of Abraham? Who really are the sons or daughters of Abraham? How can someone be considered a son or daughter of Abraham? Who is Abraham really the Father of?

It’s an important question, and one that Paul deals with in our text in Galatians this morning; who is Abraham the father of, and who is your father? I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was tempted to title the sermon, “Who’s Your Daddy,” but my better judgement told me not to; but that is the question essentially.

The question that I can still hear Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of his older blockbuster hits, Kindergarten Cop, where he plays an undercover cop posing as a kindergarten teacher to try to catch a criminal who is one of the fathers at the school…And on the first day walks in, introduces himself to the children, and begins with an exercise, sits all the kids down, and says, “Who is your daddy, and what does he do?!”

But it’s an important question, theologically speaking. One that Paul will address in no uncertain terms for the Galatians and for us with respect to Abraham. Who is Abraham the Father of and what did he do to become the Father of these children?

Because there’s a lot of people who claim Abraham as their father, forefather, Patriarch. Muslims claim Abraham as their father. The Jews, all ethnic Jews, claim Abraham as their father. The super religious, devout, law observing, zealous, Pharisees in John 8, especially claimed Abraham as their father.

And the Judaizers that Paul is arguing against in this letter to the Galatians, who believe in Jesus as Messiah and Lord and yet want circumcision and the mosaic law for salvation, they too claim Abraham as their father.

Yet Paul gives them the shock of their life by using their own argument from Scripture rightly understood against them as an illustration. He says, Abraham is not just the Father of his physical, earthly, ethnic, descendants, the Hebrews, Jews, those who are circumcised.

But he’s actually the Father of all those who believe, who have faith, because that was the grounds that God accepted Abraham and counted him as righteous from the start, by his faith, not by circumcision or any other human work.

And it’s the same for you and me. Abraham is your father if you believe in the promises of God in his Son Jesus, just like Abraham believed in God’s promise and considered him righteous—and that’s why he’s the Father of all those who believe. the Father of faith.

And that is the only claim of Abraham that has any meaning whatsoever in eternity. It doesn’t matter if you’re a physical descendant. The only way you can have your sins forgiven and be justified before God is by faith in his Son, Jesus, and if you believe in Jesus and come to him in faith, not only will you be a child of Abraham and have Abraham as your spiritual father, but you’ll be a child of God and have God the Father as your heavenly and eternal Father.

1