This week Pastor Jermaine continued with our series on Galations with a message out of Chapter 2, verses 15-21. Justified by Faith.
Pastor begins the message by setting up the scene: the Jewish teachers had come into Galatia and began teaching old Jewish law to the church. In this passage, Paul comes in to tell the church of Galatia that Jesus has done it all and there is nothing we could do to add to our salvation, like the Jewish leaders were saying.
Verse 16: “We have been justified by faith in Jesus Christ, not by works of the law.”
Justification: Legal term, duty of the court to give justice.
Acquit: to relieve from a charge of fault or crime; to be deemed not guilty
Paul says the Torah and the old system of the law’s purpose was to expose his sin and the prevalence of sin in man.
Romans 8:3- “For what the law was unable to do, God sent His own son as a sin offering.”
Verse 18: Jesus’s death did away with the old system and the law. His work on the cross satisfied the Father’s justice and righteousness. There is a new covenant- we are now one with each other and with Christ because he tore the veil of the old law and created a new covenant. We have died to the law when Jesus died on the cross and are now alive in Jesus Christ.
Verse 20: “I have been crucified in Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
Verse 21: “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for nothing.”
There is no religious duty or sets of moral guidelines we could follow that would make us righteous, except Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross.
Pastor closes with the story of the thief on the cross in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus is suffering on the cross, feeling the weight of sin for the first time and He is praying for the ones who are beating Him. The thief next to Him asked Jesus if He was the Son of God, why won't He get them down? The other thief says, “this man is innocent, we deserve to be on this cross, Jesus, will you remember me in paradise?” And just like that, Jesus says he is justified and he will be with Him in paradise. Jesus saves and justifies the righteous requirements of God for us all.
Galatians | Week 4 | Pastor Jermaine Stewart | 06/26/22
June 26, 2022 • Jermaine Stewart
Galatians | Week 9 | Pastor Alex | 08/07/22
August 7, 2022 • Alex David
This week, Pastor Alex finished up our Galatians series with a message out of Chapter 6: 1-10. Within this Chapter, Paul lays out a series of exhortations to the churches in Galatians, which Pastor Alex broke into three primary points: 1: Growing (verses 1-5) If we are living by the Spirit, we need to be restoring people through gentleness. We do this as part of making disciples, which includes giving space for correction and feedback. When we see people in sin, it's crucial that we speak truth to them in the right way, with both correction and gentleness. This is part of carrying one another's burdens and therefore fulfilling the law of Christ. 2. Sowing (verses 6-8) Sowing into the church includes the giving of our finances, but it also includes the sowing of our time, attention, and resources. In addition to sowing into the church, we also need to sow into the Spirit. Part of this process is soaking in the Word of God. We need to know the Bible so that when things are called into question, we know what God's Word is, we have something to stand on, and we are therefore not simply guided by our feelings. 3. Going (verses 9-10) We need to not give up, but instead continue to do good - because in the right time we will reap a harvest. We need to be good and kind, wherever we go - as we are the ones who bring the light of Christ.
Galatians | Week 8 | Pastor Luke | 08/31/22
July 31, 2022 • Luke Isaacson
This morning, Pastor Luke continued on with our Galatians series with a sermon out of Chapter 5: 16-26. His message was broken down into three parts: 1. There is an inward battle going on within us, but not with equal forces. When we come to Christ, we enter into a battle between our flesh and our Spirit. The battle itself is evidence of the Spirit of God within us. But this is not an equal fight, as the Spirit of the living God is immeasurably stronger than our flesh. If we allow the Lord to work, we are always on the winning side. Transformation within the Christian life is not optional, it’s essential – and it comes through the Spirit of God. It is not an equal fight, and so we need to stop hitting snooze on our sanctification. Revival happens when the human heart partners with the Spirit of God within us. 2. The Flesh Paul mentions four categories of sin to define what the flesh looks like: Sexual Relational Excess Religious These categories have not changed over time. It is the same flesh and the same God, just a different day. The Lord came to set us free, so that we can love others fully and walk completely in the purposes of God for our lives. 3. The fruit of a follower Jesus embodied the fruits of the Spirit, and they are the litmus test of the Spirit of God within us. As followers of Jesus, the goal is to mature – we want to live, walk, and love like Jesus. It is the fruit of the Spirit and not the fruits of the Spirit, and therefore we are only as mature as our least mature quality. We all need the Lord to work in our hearts, because we never arrive. This leaves us in a place of great humility, where we consistently need the Lord to search us, know us, work in us, and take us from strength to strength. One of the paths to maturity is walking through hardships. We all have the opportunity to walk through hardships either with our eyes on Jesus, trusting in Him – or walking in our flesh with discouragement, fear, and panic. Our lives are to be testimonies to the world that we know and trust in a living God.
Galatians | Week 7 | Pastor Matthew | 07/24/22
July 24, 2022
This week, Pastor Matthew continued on with our Galatians sermon series with a message out of Chapter 5: 1-12. One of the most important things that we can do in this life is live by God’s values and truth, and not simply by our feelings. Anything aside from freedom in Jesus bounds us to a yoke of slavery. We have new life in Christ, which means that we must leave our old lives and its many loves behind. Jesus has provided for us a new mode of transport through this life – a Freedom Boat, who is Jesus. 1. You are FREE on the Freedom Boat. We have been set free by Jesus. This includes freedom from shame, guilt, and old patterns of attempting to earn our salvation. Jesus has paid our entrance fee, as He has with everyone else, and thus we are all on the same playing field. We need to renew our minds, and not get stuck within our old ways of thinking and feeling about the world and ourselves. We have the ability to confront the things that have bound us because the Freedom Boat is not held back by them. The enemy wants us to believe we are bound, but we are not. We do not have to be. The Freedom Boat is also not affected by sin. When Jesus died for us, the power of sin and death was broken. Sin has no authority anymore, and we do not have to wait for heaven to receive the freedom promised to us. We need to learn more and more to yield to His Spirit within us, which will walk us into more and more freedom as we abide, obey, and follow. Furthermore, this boat is Jesus’s boat, and therefore demonic principalities and powers have no power over us. With Jesus, we have the power to defeat darkness and we do not need to live in fear. The storms may rage, but will not swallow us up. 2. You must stand fast on the Freedom Boat. There will always be temptations to go back to the old ways, but we must resist and stand firm. Jesus has set us free and called us to His purposes, and therefore we must stand firm – being people of forgiveness, as Christ has forgiven us. 3. Faith works through love on the Freedom Boat! True freedom is not about using our freedom to do whatever we want – that leads only to slavery. True freedom is instead about faith working itself out through love. We need to love God, and love others. If we do this, people will see God. If we want to know what love is, we only need to look at Jesus. Faith moves us to forgive, to love our enemies, to run into the crisis, to speak truth in compassion, to believe in impossibilities, and to lay our lives down over and over again – that is what true freedom looks like.