This week, Pastor Matthew continued with our Galatians series with a sermon out of Chapter 3.
This chapter is all about God wanting our hearts. Pastor Matthew made three primary points:
1. You receive the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ.
They didn’t earn nor manipulate it, it was solely through their faith. Too many of us are trying to live a life with Christ without the power of the Holy Spirit – and it’s not possible.
2. You are Abraham’s children by faith in Christ.
Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness – that was faith. Similarly, when we receive Jesus through faith we are grafted not only into the line of Jesus, but also into the line of Abraham as well. And thus we have inherited his promises.
3. Faith is the key to our hearts.
Faith is better translated as trust, and we must put our full weight upon Him in mind, heart, soul, and strength. Going to church does not make us right before God. We don’t come to church to be saved, we come to church because we are saved. We need to stop being “Jesus and” people, which leads to shame, guilt, and fear. Instead we need to fully rely on and trust Him.
Galatians | Week 5 | Pastor Matthew | 07/10/2022
July 10, 2022 • Matthew Anderson • Galatians 3
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.