The Letters

Galatians reminds us that life with Jesus is defined by grace, not performance. In this letter, Paul calls the church back to the freedom of the gospel — a life shaped by faith, the Spirit, and love; not a life of trying to earn God’s approval. Paul exposes the traps of legalism and comparison, and re-centers the heart of Christian identity: we belong to God because of what Christ has done.

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Galatians 1:1-5

The Letters

Galatians 1:1-5

I. THE NEW YEAR WELCOME

We made it! The first Sunday of 2026! Welcome home! We are starting a journey together this year through a series simply called “The Letters.” Now, before we dive right in, let’s lay some groundwork for our time in the letters together. We need to work on how we actually read and listen to these ancient documents.

[STAGE DIRECTION: PLAY THE BIBLE PROJECT VIDEO]

II. INTRODUCING GALATIANS: THE SPIRITUAL WAKE-UP CALL

This morning we start with a really intense letter, the letter to the Galatians. Let me introduce you to Galatians: it is a spiritual wake-up call. It kicks the door down on legalism. Notice that Paul doesn’t start with warm greetings or long thank-yous like he does in his other letters. He opens with urgency. He opens with almost a sense of shock. Why? Because the very heart of the gospel is at stake.

Here’s what Galatians Is Really About: At its core, Galatians asks one explosive question: Is Jesus enough? That’s the question of a lifetime. I want to spend the next 12 weeks answering this question with you. Not Jesus plus what I bring to the table. Not Jesus plus religious performance. Not Jesus plus cultural expectations. Just Jesus.

III. THE DRIFT TOWARD “PLUS”

The early church in Galatia had started well. They had faith. They had joy. They had freedom. All of it. But somewhere along the way, voices crept in saying, “Faith in Christ is good, but it’s not enough. You need to add more.” Rules. Rituals. Works. Control.

And Paul loses it! …but he does it in the holiest, Spirit-filled way possible. Galatians is Paul standing up and saying: “If you add anything to the gospel, you don’t improve it, you destroy it.” Here’s why this book still hits so hard today: Because we haven’t changed much. We still drift toward:

Earning God’s approval instead of resting in it.
Measuring spirituality by behavior instead of transformation.
Trading freedom for control.
Living from fear instead of faith.

Galatians exposes our “default mode,” which is turning grace into a system and freedom into a checklist. And Paul won’t let that slide. Because the gospel isn’t just how you start the Christian life. It’s how you live it.

IV. THE CHARACTER OF THE LETTER

After today’s first 5 verses, you’ll start to feel the tone of this letter. It’s urgent. It’s personal. It’s unapologetic. This letter is deeply theological, even in some of our verses today, but you cannot miss that it is a letter. Which means it’s personal, it’s emotional, and it’s pastoral.

Paul’s Mission in these pages: He Defends the true gospel. He Defends his apostolic calling. He Defends the freedom of believers. And then he shows what life in the Spirit actually looks like. By the time you reach the “Fruit of the Spirit” in chapter 5, you realize something stunning: Freedom isn’t the absence of restraint, it’s the presence of the Spirit.

V. WHAT GALATIANS WILL DO TO YOU (IF YOU LET IT)

Galatians will: Strip away your spiritual performance. Challenge your religious pride. Comfort the weary and heavy-laden. Call you back to grace. And remind you who you really are in Christ.

So if you’re tired of trying to prove yourself to God… If you feel trapped by what you “should be doing” and spiritual expectations… If you’ve confused maturity with perfection… If you want to rediscover joy, freedom, and life in the Spirit… Then grab your bible, your pen, your journal, and welcome to the book of Galatians. This book calls you to believe deeper and rely on grace.

VI. THE ROADMAP

We will be looking at the book of Galatians first in our journey through “The Letters.” For your notes, here is our quick outline:

Chapters 1–2: What is the gospel?
Chapters 3–4: How does it save?
Chapters 5–6: How do we live it out?

VII. VERSE 1: ON WHOSE AUTHORITY?

Galatians 1:1 — Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.

One of the problems this letter addresses is this: On whose authority can we say that Jesus is enough? The answer comes through the very clear authorship of this letter. Who wrote it? The Apostle Paul did. But how do we know he is an apostle? This was part of the debate in Galatia. Men were teaching young Christians that they needed to add things to what Jesus had done because “Jesus alone isn’t enough.”

Part of their strategy was removing the authority of others—namely, Paul. The questioning probably started like this: “How did Paul become an apostle? Does he have the right credentials? Did the other apostles in Jerusalem really say he is an apostle? Is he ordained? What denomination is he from?”

Paul clarifies: I am an apostle. A biblical apostle has 5 distinct characteristics:

They Are Sent by Jesus, Not Self-Appointed.
They Are Witnesses to the Risen Christ.
They Speak With Delegated Authority.
They Are Entrusted With the Gospel.
They Lay the Foundation of the Church.

Definition: A biblical apostle is a Christ-appointed messenger who is sent with authority to bear witness to the risen Lord, proclaim the true gospel, and lay the doctrinal foundation of the church. Here’s why this matters to you: If his apostleship is from Jesus, the gospel he preaches is authoritative. If it is human, the gospel becomes negotiable. The gospel is not negotiable. Paul is not protecting his ego. He is protecting the integrity of the gospel.

VIII. VERSE 2: THE UNIFIED VOICE

Galatians 1:2 — …and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia:

Notice that Paul often has co-authors. His co-authors here are “the brothers.” This means this letter is not just Paul’s private opinion. It bears the weight and authority of the church as a whole. Notice the progression: From God the Father… Through His son Jesus Christ… Through His Apostle Paul and the brothers… To the churches of Galatia.

This isn’t a lone voice. This is a unified witness standing around one confession: Jesus is enough. The Galatians weren’t being asked to reject Jesus outright. They were just being asked to add to Him. And the church says, with one voice: No. Not Jesus plus law. Not Jesus plus rituals. Not Jesus plus performance. Just Jesus.

IX. VERSE 3: GRACE AND PEACE

Galatians 1:3 — Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

Paul is doing something intentional here. He is drawing from two worlds. Grace comes from the Greek world. Peace comes from the Jewish world—the Shalom of God. Paul uses the word “grace” more than 100 times—nearly twice as much as all the other New Testament authors combined. Grace carries two ideas:

Beauty: The Greek word charis speaks of charm and loveliness. If grace is working in your life, it should make your life beautiful. Not perfect, but compelling. Too often, goodness exists without charm. Grace is where they meet.
Undeserved Generosity: It is a gift no one earns and no one can repay.

When Paul says, “Grace to you,” it’s as if he’s saying: “May the beautiful, undeserved love of God rest upon you in such a way that it makes your life beautiful too.” Then he says, “and peace.” Paul is thinking of Shalom. Shalom is not just the absence of conflict. It means wholeness. Restoration. Peace is what happens when a person is rightly aligned with God.

X. VERSE 4: THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL

Galatians 1:4 — …who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.

This is the beauty of the gospel. The lynchpin of the argument. There is no way we could’ve dealt with the issue of sin on our own.

The Gospel breakdown:

The Giver: Christ Himself.
The Reason: Our sins.
The Result: Deliverance.
The Scope: This present age.
The Source: The will of God.

[ILLUSTRATION: THE THRONE ROOM]

How do you think that conversation goes before the throne of God? “Hey God, I’m really thankful you sent your son… but can you pull up my serving stats real quick? Can you check my tithe report? I’d like to add that to the blood of Jesus.” No. The sacrifice of Jesus is enough. To be delivered from this present age means we don’t have to live by the rules of this world—rules of status, comparison, and “enoughness.” We live by the rules of the Kingdom.

XI. VERSE 5: THE GLORY

Galatians 1:5 — …to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Who’s glory is it? God’s. The moment we add ourselves to salvation, we divide the glory. But when Christ stands alone as Savior, God gets all the glory. Paul finishes this introduction not with a period, but with an “Amen” and a doxology. He is so caught up in the reality of the grace he just described that he has to break into worship before he even gets to the body of the letter.

XII. CONCLUSION

Church, this is how Paul opens. Not with a list of things to fix, but with the Gospel. Before he challenges their drift, he reminds them who Jesus is. Jesus gave Himself. For our sins. To deliver us.

Over the next 12 weeks, this letter is going to press on us. It’s going to expose some things. At times, it may feel uncomfortable, because grace always feels threatening to our need to earn. But Galatians is here to free you. Is Jesus enough? Enough for your salvation? Enough for your standing? Enough for your future? Every week, Paul will answer: Yes! So lay down the scoreboard. Release the pressure to perform. Stop trying to add to what Christ has already finished.

Amen.

Galatians 1:6-24

Sermon: Is Jesus Enough?

Text: Galatians 1:6–24

Intro: Who Do You Trust?

Who do you trust when it matters most? Like when your kid is sick, what do you do? Well, after you Google everything, scare yourself half to death with AI, and rule out the bubonic plague, stage-four cancer, and every rare disease known to mankind, you eventually do the right thing. You go to the doctor.

This whole past week our family has been sick. It started with David and just slowly worked its way through the house. One by one, we’ve all been taken out. Selah and I are the last holdouts, for now. And when David was really not doing well, I took him to urgent care. They did all the things. They tested his urine. They swabbed him for the flu. They checked him over. They came back and said, “He’s dehydrated, and it’s probably viral.”

Now listen, I’ve never been to med school. I am not smarter than anyone in that room or this one for that matter. But I can assure you of two things: my son was dehydrated, and there was a really good chance it was viral. That’s, and I can’t be any more clear here, that’s why I went to the doctor.

But what happens when a trusted voice loses its trust? What happens when the source you rely on starts giving you answers that don’t actually heal? Answers that don’t fix the problem? Answers that sound fine, but don’t lead to life? That’s exactly what’s happening in Galatia. The churches didn’t stop believing in Jesus. They started trusting the wrong voices about Jesus. And Paul writes this letter because when the gospel is altered, when the source is questioned, people are put in danger.

So in Galatians 1, Paul does three things. First, he sounds the alarm. Then, he makes the source of the gospel unmistakably clear. And finally, he offers proof, his own life, that this gospel doesn’t come from man, but from God. Because the question underneath it all is simple and eternal: What is the gospel? And once you answer that, you’ll have another piece to the puzzle to answer the bigger question: Is Jesus enough?

Our piece of Scripture today has 3 movements we should understand:

Movement	Verses	Theme
Movement 1	6–9	DANGER!!!
Movement 2	10–12	The Source
Movement 3	13–24	Paul’s Proof

Movement 1: DANGER!!! (v. 6–9)

We are going to park at this point for quite some time. Here’s how it starts: Unlike every other letter Paul writes, there is no thanksgiving here. No prayer. No warm introduction. Paul skips the pleasantries and goes straight to the emergency because the situation calls for urgency. This is not a minor disagreement or a theological nuance. This is a five-alarm fire.

Paul says, “I am astonished.” That word matters. He’s shocked. Stunned. Almost at a loss for words, not because they’re struggling, but because of how quickly they are turning away. And notice what he actually says they are turning from. Paul doesn’t say, “You are deserting a doctrine,” or “You are abandoning a belief system.” He says, “You are deserting Him! Him, who called you in the grace of Christ.”

That’s our first and most important clue about the gospel. The gospel is not first an idea. It is not a behavior modification plan. It is not a moral improvement strategy. The gospel is predicated on a Person. To turn away from the gospel is not simply to change your theology, it is to turn away from Jesus Himself. And as they turned to a different gospel, they were simultaneously turning away from the grace of God. There is no neutral shift here. You don’t drift into something better. You drift away from grace.

So here’s the first danger: To turn away from the true gospel is always to turn away from Jesus and His grace. Then Paul exposes what this so-called “different gospel” really is by giving us three facts in verse 7.

First: The False Gospel is Illegitimate. Paul says, “not that there is another.” In other words, this isn’t an alternative option. It’s not Gospel B. There is no backup plan. There is one gospel, and anything else is a counterfeit. The people bringing this message may have said, “Paul has his version, and we have ours.” Paul flatly rejects that idea. The gospel is not customizable. Truth is not subjective. There are not multiple saving messages, there is one. Jesus says it this way: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) There is one Gospel, one way to salvation, one good news, His name is Jesus.

Second: The false gospel is not good news at all—it is trouble. The word gospel literally means good news. Paul is saying, “There is nothing good about this message.” It doesn’t bring freedom; it brings confusion. It doesn’t bring life; it brings anxiety. It doesn’t bring assurance; it brings burden. And notice this: false gospels don’t just appear out of thin air. He says, “there are some who trouble you.” Which means that people bring these false gospels. Often sincere people. Often charismatic people. Often religious people. But sincerity does not equal truth.

Third: The false gospel is a distortion of the true gospel. This is where it gets dangerous. This false gospel didn’t invent a new god. It didn’t deny Jesus outright. It used familiar language, Scripture, Jesus, obedience, our words, but it twisted those things just enough to make them deceptive. That’s how false gospels work. They don’t remove Jesus; they add to Him. They don’t deny grace; they redefine what it means and who gets it and how you get it. They don’t reject faith outright; they supplement it. And that’s why Paul says they are “distorting the gospel of Christ.” Not the gospel of Paul. Not his personal preference. The gospel belongs to Jesus.

You might ask, why would anyone want to distort the gospel? Because the true gospel is deeply offensive to us. Paul summarizes the gospel clearly in 1 Corinthians:

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and was raised on the third day. That message tells us something we don’t like to hear: we cannot save ourselves. We bring nothing to the table. No credit. No résumé. No leverage. The gospel says salvation is entirely the work of Jesus, from start to finish. And that offends us. So people tweak it. Soften it. Add requirements. Insert human effort. Because we want a gospel that gives us at least some credit. That’s hard, but it is the truth. It’s God’s, not ours. We are God’s, not our own. Are you with me today?

Finally, Paul delivers one of the strongest warnings in all of the New Testament. Twice he says: “Let him be accursed.” Even if it’s an apostle. Even if it’s an angel. Even if it’s me. Paul doesn’t just say, “Ignore them.” He calls for a curse. And that can feel jarring. Where is the love in that, right? Here’s the answer: Paul’s love is for Christ and for souls. A false gospel cannot save. It is a rescue ship that looks convincing but is already sinking. And Paul refuses to watch people board it without warning them. This is not harshness, it’s pastoral urgency.

So when Paul raises his voice here, it’s because eternity is on the line. And this is where the question presses us: If Jesus, God Himself, is not enough, then what is? If grace needs help, it isn’t grace. If faith needs supplementation, it isn’t faith. If the gospel needs adjustment, it isn’t the gospel. And that’s why Paul says, loudly and clearly: Anything that adds to Jesus ultimately takes you away from Him. That’s the warning, and for that reason, it needed to be that intense to start our morning together.

Movement 2: The Source (v. 10–12)

In verse 10, Paul shifts the conversation to the source of the gospel, the one true gospel. And he does it by asking a series of questions that cut straight to motive: “Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man?” And then Paul answers his own question with absolute clarity: “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

The most important thing for Paul was never to win approval, it was to please God. He refused to shape his message around the desires, preferences, or pressures of his audience. Faithfulness mattered more to him than popularity. Though Paul doesn’t name them directly, we can feel the contrast here. The false teachers had adjusted the gospel in a way that appealed to people. And that’s a temptation for all of us. Know this, we can choose faithfulness, or we can choose applause. But we cannot choose both.

And that’s why Paul calls himself a servant of Christ. If you’re a Christian here today, you carry many beautiful titles in Christ—child of God, beloved, saint—but you also carry this one: servant of Christ. That title comes with honor and responsibility. We don’t preach to win arguments on one side, and we don’t preach to be liked on the other. People are not liked into the kingdom of God. They are loved by God into His kingdom as they hear the gospel, confess their sins, repent, and turn to Jesus. And that’s because the gospel actually does something to us. It reshapes the way we think, the way we act, and the way we speak.

Then Paul presses even deeper in verse 11. He says, “The gospel which I gospelled you with did not come from man.” In the Greek, Paul intentionally uses the word gospel as both a noun and a verb. It’s almost like he’s saying, “The gospel I announced to you as gospel, the real gospel, that didn’t originate with people.” Paul is stacking the language on purpose. He’s giving them reason after reason to trust the message, not because of who he is, but because of where it came from.

And then in verse 12, he leaves no room for confusion about the source:

“For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:12)

Jesus is not just the messenger of the gospel, He is the gospel. It starts with Him and it ends with Him, because Jesus is God. The source of the Gospel is Jesus Christ Himself.

Now Paul’s experience with the gospel was unique, I will say that. Most people hear the gospel from someone else, that’s God’s normal design actually. But Paul encountered the risen Jesus directly on the road to Damascus. Jesus spoke to him. Paul was blinded. He fasted for three days. And during that time, whether on the road or in those days of darkness, Jesus revealed the gospel to him. And we know Paul received it clearly, because the moment he could see again, he began to preach the very message that had transformed him. This gospel didn’t come from man. It wasn’t shaped by culture. It wasn’t softened for approval. It came from Jesus.

What that means for us today is this: The gospel is not shaped by man for approval, it is revealed by Jesus with authority. Thank you Jesus for revealing yourself to us and the eternal plan from the beginning to end. I can’t wait to see the whole thing with you! This is a bold statement to make, and yet Paul is going to show us his proof in our last section together today.

Movement 3: Paul’s Proof (v. 13–24)

We have heard this story a few times in the book of Acts. Paul shares who he was and what happened to him in Acts 9. But he’s doing something unique here with his proof. I’d like to show you this in a memorable way so you can take it home with you today:

Paul’s Proof	Evidence	Verses
Contrast	God changed him	13–16a
Confirmed	The gospel came from Christ	16a–20
Credit	God received the glory	21–24

Let’s start with the contrast. By the time Paul writes this letter, his story is already well known. If Paul spent any amount of time with a church, it wouldn’t take long before they heard his testimony. And his credentials as a zealous Jew and a persecutor of Christians were beyond dispute. Acts tells us he didn’t just disagree with Christians, he hunted them. He approved of their deaths. He dragged men and women off to prison. Paul was not searching for a new truth when Jesus confronted him. He was fully convinced he already had the truth.

Paul didn’t come to Jesus because someone persuaded him. He didn’t have a spiritual curiosity phase. He wasn’t looking for a new revelation. In fact, Scripture warns us that people who go looking for new revelations often find them, and end up deceived and drawn away from Christ. Paul’s conversion wasn’t man’s idea. It wasn’t at the pleasure of any human authority.

Verse 15 says it happened “when it pleased God.” And God didn’t choose Paul because there was something impressive in Paul either. He says he was called by grace, God’s unearned favor. In fact, Paul says God set him apart from before he was born. Meaning: before Paul ever persecuted the church, before he ever preached Christ, God had already set His grace on him.

Then Paul says something remarkable. Earlier he said the gospel was revealed to him. Here he says Jesus was revealed in him. God doesn’t just reveal Jesus to us, He reveals Jesus in us. This isn’t just a dramatic story. This is proof. The fruit of transformation. The kind only God can produce. And Paul’s point is simple: No human explanation accounts for this kind of contrast. Only God does. That might be your testimony here today. And I thank God for you! How beautiful is the proof of the contrast between who we once were and now who we are today in Christ.

Let’s look at how the gospel was confirmed. After his conversion, Paul says he did not immediately consult “flesh and blood.” That includes the most respected leaders in Jerusalem because they weren’t the source. Paul didn’t need to check his message against theirs, because the gospel had already been revealed to him directly by Jesus.

Now, Paul isn’t saying it’s wrong to hear the gospel from someone else. That’s how most people come to faith, and that salvation is no less real. His point is simply this: the gospel he preached did not originate with man, and that was settled from the beginning. Instead of going straight to Jerusalem, Paul went into Arabia which is likely the desert regions around Damascus.

Then he says something important: after three years, he finally went to Jerusalem. Three years. And when he went, he didn’t go to be examined or approved. He says he went “to see Cephas” (we know that this is Simon Peter). The word literally means to visit, like someone sightseeing. So Paul wasn’t summoned. He wasn’t interrogated. He wasn’t corrected. He spent fifteen days there and only met Peter and James. That’s it.

Paul’s point is clear here: There was no time, no process, and no mechanism by which the apostles could have consulted, constructed, or corrected his message for him. They didn’t give him the gospel. They recognized and confirmed the gospel already at work in him. So any claim that Paul was a second-hand apostle, someone borrowing authority is simply false. The apostles didn’t build Paul’s gospel. They confirmed what God had already revealed. And thank God for that. That gives such weight to the gospel that they all had the same gospel in different places and times without any crossover. It’s like it was the plan from before the beginning of time or something.

Our last “C” of proof is this: the credit. After his conversion, Paul didn’t immediately become a celebrity in the church. In fact, for many years, most Christians didn’t even know him personally. All they really knew was his past and that God had done something unmistakable in his life. Paul was content to live in obscurity, because the goal of the gospel is not recognition, it’s transformation. There was enough contact between Paul and the other apostles to show unity, but not so much that anyone could say Paul got his message from them. His gospel came from God, and his life pointed back to God.

And then Paul gives us the proof in one simple sentence:

“And they glorified God because of me.” (Galatians 1:24)

Not Paul or his platform. God. That’s how you know the gospel is real. When God gets the credit. The great proof of the gospel is that it magnifies the Savior, God is glorified, and He receives His credit.

Conclusion: The Right Diagnosis

Yeah, so we’ve been sick all week. But I keep thinking that when my son was sick, I didn’t need a creative answer. I didn’t need them to be creative. I didn’t need them to tell me something new or exciting. I needed the right diagnosis and the right source, because his life matters.

That’s exactly what Paul is saying to the Galatians. When the gospel is altered, even slightly, it stops healing. When the source is questioned, people are put in danger. And when the message is shaped by man instead of revealed by God—which it is through His word for us now—catch this: it no longer saves.

So What is the gospel? Let me end by saying, the gospel is not advice. It’s not a self-improvement plan. It’s not Jesus plus effort, or grace plus rules, or faith plus performance. The gospel is the announcement that Jesus Christ lived the life we could not live, died the death we deserved to die, and was raised to give us life. That salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone, in Him alone.

That gospel comes from God. That gospel changes lives. And that gospel gives all the credit back to God. Anything less may sound helpful but it’s worthless. Anything more may sound super spiritual and necessary, but it’s just as worthless. Only the good news of Jesus Christ as revealed to us through His word saves.

And church, that’s why Paul fought so hard for it because the gospel, or our theology, it isn’t just important. It’s life; Life eternal for those who believe. Who Do I trust? I trust Jesus with that. Just His words. His word which He gave us here.

Galatians 2:1-11

Sermon: How The Gospel Should Effect Us

Text: Galatians 2:1–11

Intro: Am I Doing This Right?

How many people are back at the gym or their Bible reading plans and it feels a bit more official because more than two weeks has passed now and you are running on close to all cylinders now? Anyone? I’m close to two thirds of the way done with my first Bible reading plan for the year. It’s going well! I’ve been slowly getting over being sick and so lifting will be back on my horizon again soon. I’m meal prepping and my nutrition is slowly getting better. And I got a brand new water bottle and so obviously I’m drinking a ton more water!

Alexis is amazing, marriage is up and to the right. Kids are healthy and life is going pretty well, thanks for the Sunday morning check in, right? There’s this one small area of parenting I’m slowly struggling with. There is a level of peace and quiet happening at the baby’s nap time where our boys are on devices and though it feels good to take a breath and refocus, “I keep thinking, am I doing this right?”

My imagination plays games on me like my kids are going to be glued to these devices now and never want to hunt or fish, or play outside ever again. I’m ruining their brains for the rest of their lives. I’m not setting enough boundaries. Luckily my Nathan the other day in the middle of this just put down the iPad and asked, “Dad, are we going duck hunting this week?” and then David pipes up and says, “Yeah, I got this new bush crafting book and I was hoping we’d be able to go chop a few limbs down and you could help me finish building the ladder I’m building.” And I’m like, YES! I’m a successful boy dad! Are you kidding me?!

Sometimes the scariest thought isn’t that we’re failing, it’s that we might be succeeding at the wrong thing. I was succeeding at maintaining peace in the house. I was succeeding at keeping my kids subdued for a few hours. But I felt that I was failing them in their boyhood and the things I’d like them to learn as they slowly become young men. It’s a bit of a haunting question, isn’t it? “Am I doing this right?” It shows up in our faith often, not just in parenting. Am I actually forming the right things?

Most times you can tell by the effects of what’s being formed. Well, the book of Galatians seems to be doing this also. It is answering the big question: Is Jesus Enough? Last week we answered the question: What is The Gospel? Today, let’s talk about how the gospel should effect us in Galatians 2:1-10. I want to cover 5 effects of the gospel from our text today:

#	The 5 Effects of The Gospel
1	The Gospel Produces Humility and Accountability
2	The Gospel Produces Freedom
3	The Gospel Produces Impartiality
4	The Gospel Produces Grace and Fellowship
5	The Gospel Produces Generosity

Recap: The Story So Far

Let’s recap a little, ok? Paul traveled to these churches in Galatia and shared the gospel with them. He trained them, defended them, set up elders for them back in Acts 14 and committed them to the work of the Lord and moved on. Everything seemed really good, right?

Well, we pick back up in the letter to these churches in Galatia where they are really struggling with answering the question, “is Jesus enough?” Here’s why: Some other teachers have come into the church trying to persuade them that faith in Jesus is good, but you need to add more things to enter into heaven, to be a part of the church, and to be received by God. You need to first be a Jew and obey the old covenant, the law we read about in all of the Old Testament in our Bibles. You need to eat kosher, and circumcise your boys, practice all of the rituals and sabbaths and feasts—all of it to be able to be accepted so that the new covenant with God in Jesus could affect your life.

The way they are doing this is they seeded doubts in this church’s mind about Paul who planted these churches. They asked things like, “is he really an apostle?” and, “Did he really preach the real gospel to you?” So he started in chapter 1 by sharing there is only one gospel. There is no other and don’t let anyone tell you different, not even an angel or me. Then he shared where he got his authority from. And He says it came straight from Jesus, no one else. And then he shares the proof of how Jesus is the source of the gospel and he’s sharing his story: He wasn’t looking for this, Jesus met him with new revelation. The other apostles didn’t give it to him, he didn’t even meet them for the first 3 years he came to know the gospel. He was unknown to the other churches but yet God was glorified through the work of Paul.

Effect 1: Humility and Accountability (v. 1–2)

So today we pick up in chapter 2 verses 1 and 2 as he tells us it has been now 14 years. 14 years later when he goes again to Jerusalem but this time he goes with a gentile named Titus in tow because he was going to take the lid off of this whole can of worms that is unfolding. It seems right to me to mention to you a bit of a timeline: Paul and Barnabas completed their work in Jerusalem in Acts 12, the Holy Spirit sent them off for their work in planting these churches in Galatia in Acts 13, and now, it seems that the Holy Spirit is sending Paul back to Jerusalem here for the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. That’s what he means in verse 2 by saying “I went up because of a revelation”—the Holy Spirit is sending him to Jerusalem.

Paul is going to set before them the gospel he has been preaching for over 17 years now and he says a phrase that will help orient our first gospel effect today: He says the reason he does this is “in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain” (Galatians 2:2).

Do you hear the gospel effect on Paul’s life and ministry here? The Gospel Produces Humility and Accountability. Healthy gospelling produces the effect of self-examination and then allows us to invite others into that process. It keeps us from the thought that Paul could’ve easily had by now. Just totalling the time he’s shared with us here in Galatians he could’ve said, “Well, I’ve walked with Jesus for over 17 years. I’m an Apostle. I’ve been given revelation from Jesus Himself. I’m ok! I’m good. I don’t need any outside help or opinions.”

He’s entertaining a very humble question: “Could I be wrong?” I know God’s not wrong, but could I be wrong in how I’ve approached my life, what I’m saying, how I’m acting, how I’ve approached God and others? That’s self-examination, and that’s humility.

The Bible tells us about humility:

James 4:6: “But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'” * 1 Peter 5:6: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”
John 13:16-17: “Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master… If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”

You can know about humility, but Jesus says you actually have to put it into practice. You have to examine yourself and serve others. But it doesn’t stop at humility; Paul is inviting accountability. Accountability is one of the greatest assets in the Christian life, yet I’ve heard so many incorrect ideas: “Only God can judge me,” or “I’m married, I have all the accountability I need,” or “I don’t need church, my church is in the woods.” What that tells me is you need a healthy understanding of how accountability works.

The Accountability Hierarchy

God & The Scriptures: The Ultimate Judge and revealed standard (Rom 14:10–12; 2 Tim 3:16–17).
Family: Spouse and parents (Eph 5:21–33; 6:1–3).
Authority: Civil Authority (ordained for order) and Church Leadership (ordained for the church) (Rom 13:1–4; 1 Pet 5:1–4).
Community: The Body of Believers (James 5:16; Gal 6:1–2).

We have got to allow ourselves to live in the blessed humility and accountability effect of the gospel.

Effect 2: Freedom (v. 3–5)

Titus isn’t circumcised, false brothers come to spy out their freedom and make them slaves, and Paul doesn’t submit to any of that; instead he preserves the gospel. What is going on here?

Now for a good section of this letter, Paul is going to refer to circumcised and uncircumcised—his reference is to those who are Jews and those who are gentiles. I reserve the right to make at least one joke a week as long as the scriptures keep mentioning it. And for today’s object lesson—no I’m joking! I wouldn’t do an object lesson here…

His point about Titus is he is Greek and certainly uncircumcised and he wasn’t forced to be even though he was in Jerusalem meeting with the Jews. How did they know he wasn’t circumcised? Well, this is obviously the job of the church security team. No! It’s because it wasn’t part of Greek culture to do this. He wasn’t forced to bear the mark of the old covenant yet he is in Christ.

Paul tells us that false brothers were trying to come in. He’s saying that there were people pretending to be Christians and then trying to change what God has said and done. An enemy to the gospel. We know there is an enemy to our souls, his name is Satan. These men were trying to destroy the church. He’d like nothing more than to make you a slave instead of living in the freedom that we have in Christ.

The gospel should have the effect of freedom through Christ Jesus in your life. Paul pits slavery and freedom at odds. Slavery is seen here as the law (trying to earn righteousness) and freedom is walking with Jesus. The effect of the law is slavery because it either leads us to think we can earn our righteousness by performing, or it leads to rebellion. The law requires perfection—and the point Paul is making is that you have it in Jesus, who is the fulfillment of the law.

You are free to finally be able to live in the goodness of God. You are free to tell the truth. You are free to live a sincere life. You are free to love and be loved without hesitation. That’s worth fighting for.

Effect 3: Impartiality (v. 6)

I want to quickly look at verse 6. Paul says those who seemed to be influential added nothing to him. The leaders in Jerusalem didn’t impose restrictions or change his message. But look at what we learn about how God views people: “God shows no partiality” (Galatians 2:6).

One of the great and often misunderstood attributes of God is that He shows no partiality. Scripture says it plainly: “God does not receive faces.” In other words, God is not impressed by appearances, titles, influence, wealth, reputation, or network. The moment we start thinking God favors certain people because of who they are or what they’ve done, we’ve misunderstood grace.

The Gospel Produces Impartiality. If the gospel is at work in us, we stop ranking people the way the world does. Whether people are rich or poor, strong or weak, the gospel should have the effect on us that we love as God loves.

Effect 4: Grace and Fellowship (v. 7–9)

In verses 7 through 9, Paul shares that the leaders saw he had been entrusted with the gospel for the gentiles, just as Peter had been for the Jews. James, Peter, and John saw two things: they “perceived the grace that was given to me” and “gave the right hand of fellowship” (Galatians 2:9).

This is a powerful thing. These leaders were spiritually attentive enough to see God at work in someone whose calling looked different than theirs. And notice how grace perceived leads to hands extended. They didn’t just “tolerate” Paul or keep him at arm’s length. They gave him the right hand of fellowship—it was public, relational, and covenantal.

The Gospel Produces Grace and Fellowship. The gospel trains us to recognize God’s grace in others and respond with shared life. Most division in the church doesn’t start with doctrinal denial; it starts with a failure to perceive grace. Because grace was given to us freely, we learn to recognize grace generously. Grace perceived leads to fellowship extended.

Effect 5: Generosity (v. 10)

In verse 10, we look at our final gospel effect. When they sent Paul and Barnabas off, they gave them one charge: “Remember the poor.” To remember the poor is not just a practical responsibility; it’s a spiritual one. John says if you have the world’s goods and close your heart to a brother in need, the love of God doesn’t abide in you. James says faith without help is empty. The Gospel Produces Generosity. The gospel doesn’t just change what we believe; it changes what we notice and what we’re moved by. Paul was “eager to do” this very thing. When grace has really taken hold of us, generosity feels like alignment with God. Sometimes God allows poverty and hardship not because He is absent, but to display the strength of His grace. As Spurgeon said, you don’t know if a lighthouse is strong on a calm night; you find out when the storm hits. When the church remembers the poor, we’re bearing witness that the grace that saved us is strong enough to sustain us.

Conclusion: Are We Doing This Right?

These gospel effects should help reveal if we are “doing this right.” Remember, sometimes the scariest thought isn’t that we’re failing, it’s that we might be succeeding at the wrong thing. I bet you the churches in Galatia had a lot of good things going for them. But the question isn’t whether the church is “busy.”

It’s got to be built on the effects of the gospel. Where the gospel is at work:

Humility and accountability grow.
Freedom is protected.
People stop being ranked.
Grace is recognized and fellowship is extended.
Generosity flows, especially toward the poor.

That’s how you know you’re running the right race. The question is whether Jesus is actually forming us into the people He’s saved us to be. If you’re asking the question, “Am I doing this right?” I want to encourage you today—that is a big step in the right direction. Because the gospel shapes us into a people who look like Jesus. And when Jesus is enough, the effects of the gospel will show.

Let’s pray.

Galatians 2:12-21

SERIES: THE LETTERS

PART 2: GALATIANS 2:11-21

Speaker: Michael Musilli

I. INTRO: THE COMFORT OF THE TABLE

Because when you don’t feel like you belong at the table… you’re never fully comfortable at the table. And that’s exactly what’s happening in Antioch. Paul tells us a story that proves you belong at the table, without earning the seat.

II. THE ROADMAP

Verses 11–14: The Story
Verses 15–16: The Bottom Line
Verses 17–21: The Explanation

III. THE STORY (V. 11-14)

So here’s what Paul is doing. He pauses his theological argument and says, “Let me tell you a story.” A story about Peter. Super Public. Awkward. Painful. And yet, absolutely necessary. This takes place in Antioch, one of the most important churches in the early Christian movement. And one of the most beautiful things about this church was the way Jews and Gentiles worshiped together.

Part of their life together was a common meal, what they called the love feast. Everyone brought what they had. Rich and poor. Slave and free. Jew and Gentile. For some people, especially slaves, this might have been the best meal they ate all week. But more than food, it was a picture of the gospel: one table, one family, one Lord.

And at first, Peter gets it. He sits with Gentiles. He eats with Gentiles. He treats them like full brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s church, it’s good. Which, by the way, was not a small thing. Because for centuries, Jewish life was built around separation. You didn’t eat with Gentiles. You didn’t travel with Gentiles. You didn’t enter their homes. You certainly didn’t share a table with them.

But Peter had already learned better, right? He had the vision in Acts 10. He saw the Spirit fall on Gentiles. He defended them before the Jerusalem leaders. He knew! Without question, he knew that God saves Gentiles by grace, not by law. And yet, something happens to Peter in this story. “Certain men arrive from James.” And suddenly Peter changes. He slowly pulls his chair away from the Gentile table. He stops eating with them. He creates distance because his fear showed up.

Paul says it plainly: “He was afraid of the circumcision party.” I wasn’t aware we were throwing parties for circumcision, but that’s fine. No, I’m kidding! He means a group of Jews. The point is, Peter knew what was right. He just didn’t have the courage to live it when pressure came. And here’s where this got dangerous. Peter’s a leader. And people watched Peter pull away and they followed him. The Jewish believers withdraw. And then even Barnabas! Good, faithful, gospel-centered Barnabas gets swept up in it. One decision. One leader. One compromise. And suddenly the whole room is divided.

Now let’s be honest, Peter isn’t a villain here. He’s just human. This is the same Peter we’ve always known, right? The Peter who rebuked Jesus for talking about the cross. The Peter who sank when he took his eyes off Jesus. The Peter who swung the sword in the garden. The Peter who denied Jesus when fear took over. And what this reminds us is something really important: Being saved does not mean the flesh disappears. Being filled with the Spirit does not mean you’re suddenly immune to fear. Old patterns don’t die easily. Peter didn’t stop believing the gospel. He just stopped living it in that moment.

And notice what Paul says the real issue is. “They were not walking in step with the truth of the gospel” (Galatians 2:14). That’s the line in the sand! This wasn’t about table manners or leadership style, or just moving his chair; this was about the gospel itself. Because the moment Peter separated from Gentile believers, he was sending a message, even without words: “You may believe in Jesus, but you’re still missing something. You’re still second-class. You still need something more.” And Paul says, “No. That’s not the gospel!” So he confronts Peter to his face. Publicly. Directly. Respectfully kind of, but clearly. Why does he need to do this? Because when the gospel is at stake, when people’s souls are on the chopping block, silence is not humility, it’s cowardice.

Paul teaches us two things here. First, a church stops being the church the moment it starts creating spiritual classes. In Christ, there are no first-tier and second-tier believers. No insider table and outsider table. No clean group and unclean group. No half Christian, and whole Christian. Or how about a common one we deal with: “a super obedient Christian” who is an apostle or prophet or somehow they have this insider track with Jesus and the rest of us are just “less than.”

Oh, I feel like Paul here… I’m getting fired up. And can I tell you why I get so fired up about this? Because it hurts people. I love you, and I love your family, and I love our church enough to warn you about this crazy hyper-spiritual nonsense that is happening right here in our valley. There are people who are using church language, our scriptures, to make themselves look like they are holier than you are. And it’s enticing. It doesn’t sound bad at all at face value. It sounds like this, “I have visions or dreams or I heard from the Lord, or I’m an apostle or prophet or prophetess.” and at first you might think, man, they’ve got this amazing relationship with Jesus. They hear from God, their kids hear from God, what am I missing?

And they throw words around like obedience. I just want to be more obedient. And you know what? If you are sitting there going, man me too! I want what they have! That’s not wrong! But let me tell you, what they are saying is wrong. They do not have 5G LTE service with Jesus. Like they pick up the phone and ask Jesus what they should eat, and Jesus says, “Yeah, tonight cook chicken instead of fish. You’ve earned it.” and so they cook chicken. No! It’s a lie from the pit of hell!

My question is, exactly what Jesus’ question is: Where is it written? And you know what they’ll do? They’ll weave bible verses together to try and prove a point and sound so eloquent. But they won’t give you the full context. A lot of this is pulled from Ephesians 4, the 5-fold ministry! See! God called me to be an apostle or a prophet! No He didn’t. Stop it. If you are spreading this, I’d like to Peter and Paul this thing and oppose you to your face, in love, though I am passionate about protecting the flock of God.

And if you are someone getting caught in the crossfire of this, can I beg and plead with you to come and have a conversation with me? I would love to open the scriptures with you and show you why this thing is so damning for you, but to make it succinct and keep to our task today, I’ll say it this way: Jesus is enough! And let me explain, Jesus is everything—not more of Him, not less of Him. What He offers you and me and everybody is on the same level. There is no hidden knowledge! There are no extra rules that you aren’t following and if you follow them you are more obedient or you are a better Christian! Jesus is enough, as He revealed Himself, in context, in His word.

Second is this: Leadership carries weight. When leaders drift, others drift with them. Peter moves, others move. Barnabas moves, others move. And suddenly the whole church is walking out of step. That’s why Paul acts quickly. Before drift becomes division. Before confusion becomes doctrine. The truth is, and the story shows, every one of us knows what Peter is feeling here. We know what it’s like to believe the right thing, and still choose the wrong thing because of pressure. We know what it’s like to stay quiet when we should speak. To pull back when we should lean in. To protect our reputation instead of protect the truth. And Galatians 2 is showing us something sobering and hopeful at the same time: Strong faith does not mean fear never shows up. But faithful leadership means fear does not get the final word.

IV. THE BOTTOM LINE (V. 15-16)

Paul reveals the whole reason he wrote this, why God inspired him to write this letter. First, in verse 15, he appeals to the fact that he’s a Jew by birth and not a Gentile sinner. What he means is, he understands the requirements of the law and he was raised with them. How to eat, how to wash, all the things. If even for a second you would think that through this verse he is elevating himself or other Jews, then read verse 16:

“Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” – Galatians 2:16

Let that sink in. God, let that sink into my heart and the heart that wants to pretend that we can bring anything to the table. Let’s work through a bit of this together because this is the major proposition of this letter. Because we are going to deal with this word over and over, let me give you its definition.

Justification: The action of showing something to be right or reasonable; the action of declaring or making righteous in the sight of God. The person who is ‘justified’ is the one who gets the verdict in a court of law. Used in our Bible, it means the getting of a favorable verdict before God on judgment day. But this is how I remember it best: Justified means that God looks at me “just-if-I’d” never sinned. Toss that one in your back pocket. Just-if-I’d never sinned.

So what is Paul saying? He’s saying something unbelievably simple and unbelievably offensive. “We already know this. The law doesn’t justify anyone. Only faith in Jesus does.” That’s why we believed in Jesus in the first place. And then notice, Paul says the same thing three times. Why repeat it? Because we don’t believe it. We say we do. We sing about it. We teach it. But our hearts fight this every single day.

Paul is saying: Not by obedience. Not by law keeping. Not by morality. Not by discipline. Not by spiritual performance. Not by your past. Not by your effort. Only by faith in Jesus. And then he drops the final nail in the coffin: “By works of the law… no one will be justified.” That’s Greek for: No one. Not the Pharisee. Not the priest. Not Paul. Not Peter. Not you. Not me. No one. The law has never saved a single human being. The law was never meant to. The law shows you your sin. Jesus saves you from it.

V. THE EXPLANATION (V. 17-21)

Now Paul knows what’s coming, because anytime you preach justified by faith alone, somebody raises their hand and says, “Okay, but isn’t that dangerous? Doesn’t that just encourage people to live however they want? If you take away the law, if you take away rules, if you say people are justified simply by believing, why would anyone bother to be holy?”

Paul answers that objection head-on in verse 17. He says, “If, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves are found to be sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin?” Paul is asking, “If justification by faith leads to sin, does that mean Jesus is responsible for sin?” If believing in Christ apart from the law now makes us sinners, then Christ didn’t save us, He trapped us. He freed us into sin. And Paul is disgusted at the thought. He answers with the strongest language he can possibly use: “Absolutely not. God forbid. May it never be.” No. No. No. Christ is not a promoter of sin.

Then Paul turns the whole argument around in verse 18. “For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.” Here’s what he’s saying: if I preached grace, destroyed legalism, set people free, and then I turn around and rebuild the law as a way to be right with God, the problem is not Christ, the problem is me. Legalism does not make you holy, legalism makes you a hypocrite.

In verse 19 he says, “For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.” This is one of the most important lines in the whole book. Paul says, “As far as the law is concerned, I’m dead.” Now listen carefully, Paul is not saying the law is dead. The law is very much alive. It still condemns sinners, it still exposes guilt, it still demands perfection. But Paul says, “As far as I am concerned, the law cannot touch me anymore. I am beyond its reach, beyond its jurisdiction, beyond its courtroom.” Because when Christ died, I died.

Then we come to verse 20:

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” – Galatians 2:20

This tells us three massive things:

Your old life is dead. “I have been crucified with Christ.” The old me, the law-keeping me, the performance me, the try-to-impress-God me; dead.
Christ now lives in you. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Christianity is not behavior modification, it is not moral improvement, it is union with Christ.
The Christian life is lived by faith, not by feelings. “The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith.” Not by emotions, not by performance, but by faith.

And then Paul lands it personally: “Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Jesus loved me. Jesus died for me. Now verse 21, the closing blow: “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”

VI. CONCLUSION

This is devastating. Paul says if you can earn righteousness, if obedience can save you, if law can justify you, then Jesus died for nothing. The cross becomes unnecessary, grace becomes meaningless, the gospel collapses. Paul is saying to Peter, gently but firmly, “When you withdrew from Gentile believers, when you sided with legalism, you didn’t just hurt people, you undermined the cross. How can I buy for a penny what cost heaven everything?”

Church, this is not some abstract theology, this is your life. Either Jesus is enough or He is not. Either grace saves or works do. Either the cross finished it or you must finish it. And Paul’s answer is crystal clear: Jesus is enough. Not Jesus plus law, not Jesus plus obedience, not Jesus plus discipline. Jesus alone. The Christian life is die, trust, surrender, and let Christ live through you. That is the gospel.

Here’s the good news that should quiet every anxious heart in this room: when God invited you to His table, He didn’t invite you because you were impressive. He invited you because Jesus paid for your seat. And if Christ really paid it all, then you don’t have to earn what He already finished.

Jesus is enough. And that, is the gospel.

Galatians 3:1-14

Is Jesus Enough?

Scripture: Galatians 3:1–14

Introduction: The “How It’s Made” of Justification

Do you remember the show, “how it’s made” that used to air on TV all the time? It started in 2001 and aired for almost 2 decades. And then youtube sort of took over from there in the form of a few youtubers like the primitive technology builder guys, crunch labs, a few other famous ones too. I think “how its made” walked so they could run.

Anyways, what I really loved about the show is how they’d take something like a pencil, and then walk you into the factory that makes them and you’re watching the intricacies of how the wood is cut and the graphite is mixed with clay and spliced and shoved into the conveyor belts; it’s fascinating! Well, our journey here in Galatians is leading us to this same type of place if you will. We are about to get the “how it’s made” full understanding from the Apostle Paul of how we are justified.

Notice how we started broad, and now we are narrowing in and getting in the weeds. Remember, we are ultimately answering one question through our time in Galatians: Is Jesus Enough? And we are breaking the book down into 3 major sections that I showed you when we started this journey:

Galatians Teaches Us:

Chs. 1–2: What is the gospel?
Chs. 3–4: How does it save?
Chs. 5–6: How do we live it out?

We are now in the second section which is, how does it save, and this will feel like the “how it’s made” section if you will. Paul gave us the whole premise for this section earlier in Galatians. Do you remember when he told us in Galatians 2:16 that “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” Maybe you’ve heard that before. That’s his main thought, the question now is, ok how? How does that work? And to do that he gets really granular, he is really thorough about what he’s about to share with us.

And so we’ll take the next few Sundays to break this down into obtainable points. Here’s my goals for us as a church: I want your faith to be strengthened. I want you to be able to answer the question with such strength, “Is Jesus enough?” I want you to know the book of Galatians. I want you to be able to have some real life definitions on some of the bibles best and beautiful topics. And I want you to have some real ways you can apply this to your life like every Christian has been able to since the day it was written. We are going to look at his approach in Galatians 3:1-14 which forms a coherent unit of argumentation in three discernible steps.

How is Jesus Enough?

Verses 1-5: The Spirit Received!
Verses 6-9: The Promise Believed!
Verses 10-14: From the curse, Freed!

I. The Spirit Received (Verses 1–5)

This section answers a crucial question: How did God begin His saving work in you? Paul begins with their lived experience, and he does so with some real emotion. When he says, “O foolish Galatians,” he is not actually calling them names or questioning their intelligence. The word he uses literally means “not-understanding ones.” Paul is not saying they lack information; he is saying they are failing to think rightly about what they already know. This is a confrontation of inconsistency. They have been given the truth, but they are no longer using it.

You see, Paul’s concern is sharpened by the fact that Jesus Christ was “publicly portrayed as crucified” before their eyes. The cross was not hidden from them, and it was not unclear. Christ crucified stood at the center of their conversion. I love that, Paul Keeps pointing them back to Jesus. D. L. Moody once said that the letter to the Galatians shows crucifixion from every angle of the Christian life. You should take note of this:

Crucifixion in Galatians

I have been crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20)
Christ crucified for me (Gal. 3:1)
The flesh crucified in me (Gal. 5:24)
The world crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal. 6:14).

In other words, the entire Christian life flows out of the cross. If we want to understand the “how” of salvation, we must begin at the cross. So Paul presses them with a question that cuts through it all. He says: “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” -Galatians 3:2

This is the first of four rhetorical questions in verses 2–5, and it is devastatingly simple. Paul assumes they do have the Spirit; he is not questioning their salvation. Scripture is clear that anyone who belongs to Christ has His Spirit. The issue, then, is not if they received the Spirit, but how they received Him. Did you work for Him? Did you earn Him through obedience to the law? Of course not. The Spirit is not something we achieve; He is Someone we receive. He is a gift, not a payment.

The Spirit came to dwell in them at the moment they heard the gospel and believed it, not after law-keeping, not after growth, not after spiritual maturity. He came when they placed their faith in Jesus Christ and in His death, burial, and resurrection on their behalf. At this point it’s important to pause and clarify what Paul means when he talks about “faith,” because this is where confusion, and sometimes harm, can creep into the church. In the Greek, the words translated faith and believe come from the same root word. They are not different categories. They are not different levels. They are two sides of the same reality. To have faith is to believe, and to believe is to have faith.

Paul is not talking about a quantity of faith, as if some people have more and others have less in a way that determines whether God will act. He is talking about the object of faith, who or what your trust rests in. This matters because sometimes, even in the church, people will say things like, “You just don’t have enough faith,” and what they often mean is, “You need to do something more,” or to the point of our whole piece, they are saying, “Jesus isn’t enough.” But Paul leaves no room for that thinking here. Faith is not a spiritual substance you measure, grow, or muster up in order to somehow activate God. it’s not rubbing a genie lamp and out pops Jesus to grant your wishes.

Faith is simply trusting in Jesus Christ. I believe in His life, His death, His burial, and His resurrection, on my behalf as recorded in the scriptures. That’s my faith. That’s my trust. There is no “less-than” faith that saves you halfway and no “more-than” faith that finishes the job, or makes you a more elite Christian. Faith does not save because it is strong, like wow, that person has a strong faith. No, faith saves because Jesus is enough. He has completely satisfied it, and we’ll get more into how this happens, but we’ve got to know that and hold on to it today.

So when Paul says the Spirit is received by “hearing with faith,” he means that the Spirit comes when the gospel is heard and believed. It’s not optimized. Not intensified. It’s believed. Faith is not about how hard you believe, how confident you feel, or how unwavering your emotions are. Faith is about where your hope is placed. And when your hope is placed in Christ crucified, faith, real faith, is already present. Anything that adds a requirement beyond believing the gospel subtly shifts the focus away from Jesus and implies, whether intentionally or not, that Jesus is not enough.

Paul’s entire argument is pushing back against that very idea. Paul’s point is unmistakable. Their Christian life began by faith, not effort. And what begins by the Spirit will never be perfected by the flesh. If God began His saving work in them through faith in Christ crucified, why would they now believe it could some how continue by works of the law? That is Paul’s concern, that is his rebuke, and that is his proof.

Application: If your Christian life began by hearing the gospel and trusting in Christ, which it did by the way, then your confidence before God today does not rest on how well you are performing, how consistent you’ve been lately, or how strong you feel spiritually. It rests on Jesus Christ crucified for you. Some of us are exhausted because we’re trying to improve our standing with God by our effort instead of living from the grace that already secured it. So how did God begin His work in you? God began His saving work in you when you heard the good news of Jesus, trusted in Him, and received the Holy Spirit. And He will continue it in this same way.

II. The Promise Believed (Verses 6–9)

Let’s look at verses 6 through 9 quickly together where Paul is going to invite another piece of proof to how the gospel saves and how Jesus is enough. If section 1 today was their lived experience, then this is the proof of Abraham. We are going to spend quite some time in this chapter dealing with Abraham so we’ll lay groundwork today, ok?

Now, if you’re going to talk about faith, you’re going to have to talk about Abraham the father of faith, right? Here are some clear things you have got to understand about Abraham:

Understanding Abraham

Abraham was righteous by what he believed, not by what he did. This is the main argument “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” (Gen 15:6) This happened before he did anything impressive. God justified Abraham because he trusted God’s promise, not because he performed well.
Abraham was justified before circumcision and before the Law. Circumcision comes later (Gen 17). The Law comes much later (430 years later). This proves salvation has always been by faith, not religious markers or obedience.
Abraham believed a promise. Abraham’s faith wasn’t vague optimism; it was trust that God would act when Abraham could not. Faith has always been about dependence, not moral achievement.
Abraham is the father of a multi-ethnic family. God promised: “In you all the nations will be blessed.” Paul says this means Gentiles are included by faith, not by becoming Jewish. God’s family has always been defined by promise, not bloodline.
Abraham’s story proves God’s faithfulness, not human consistency. Abraham failed, doubted, and stumbled, but God never withdrew the promise. His righteousness rested on God’s faithfulness, not Abraham’s perfection.

The point is, If faith was enough for Abraham, it’s enough for us AND everyone else. He believed the promise. We believe the promise. It’s how God’s people, the people of faith, have always lived.

III. From the Curse, Freed (Verses 10–14)

Ok, this next section, verses 10 through 14, has got to be the most nuanced part to understand just by reading it. And if you felt that way, that is ok. I want to take the time to walk you through a few pieces you’ve got to know to really understand this piece.

So if section 1 is the proof of their lived experience, and the second is the proof of Abraham, this last piece has got to be understood as the proof from the Scriptures, the cohesive story of the bible. Paul is showing us something beautiful here by the way. The bible interprets the bible. The more you read it and spend time in it, the more you will realise that God has a cohesive approach to how He has revealed Himself to us. Paul knows that. He has spent so much time in the word of God and in this section it shows.

Old Testament References in Galatians 3:10–14

Deuteronomy 27:26
Habakkuk 2:4
Leviticus 18:5
Deuteronomy 21:22–23
Genesis 12:3

Ok, so let’s see how Paul starts. He makes an intense statement here: For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written: and then he quotes Deuteronomy 27:26. His point is, you’re under a curse because the law is not a “go out and try your best, honey” sort of thing. It requires perfection! And so yes, you’re under the curse because you cannot perform it to perfection! No one has ever been able to do it. So it’s a curse, that’s step one.

Second point he makes is that no one is justified before God by the law and then he quotes Habakkuk 2:4 to clarify why he can even say that. So it’s a curse because you can’t perform it to perfection, but the point was never to be justified by it, the point that God had made to all is that, “the righteous shall live by faith.” your standing before God has always been on the basis of faith.

Ok so if you’re tracking, this third point is where I find a lot of Christians including myself. I too have struggled with this one for years of my Christianity. I’ll tell you the point and then explain it. Paul says, “but the law is not of faith” rather, and then he quotes Levitius 18:5 “the one who does them shall live by them.”

Ok, so here’s the thought. Have you ever said, like I have before in my life, “I’ll do my best, and let God do the rest.” Well, Paul is coming against that very thought, that’s why he says this: faith excludes law, and law by its very nature excludes faith. In other words, you do not mix the two together. They are OPPOSITES, just like OIL AND WATER. You can either come to God by your own righteousness or by the righteousness of Jesus. But, even if you kept all the law, which he’s already said is impossible, the righteousness that you would have would be inferior compared to the righteousness of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So no, I can’t say anymore, “I’m gonna do my best and give God the rest.” It’s that my best would never make it to heaven. Only the righteousness of Jesus was enough. And now, I have access to everything through faith in Jesus. So I guess the better answer is: I stand in the mercy and grace of God by faith in Christ’s righteousness, and “my best” is my response, not my contribution. It’s not nearly as cute and catchy, but it is the truth that scripture teaches. I guess if I took a crack at being catchy while maintaining accuracy to the scriptures it would be: God’s given His best, and in Him I can rest. Well, Paul’s final piece, the 4th and final piece in our “how” conversation through the proof of the Scriptures is the idea Paul opened with. This idea of curses. He says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” and then quotes from Deuteronomy 21.

Galatians 3:10 is bad news for anyone trying to find righteousness through the law. Why? Because the law doesn’t reward effort it pronounces a curse. Anyone who fails to keep it perfectly stands condemned. But Galatians 3:13–14 is astonishingly good news. Jesus becomes the cursed one, hung on a tree, the old rugged cross, for you and for me.

You might ask, how can something good like the law become a source of curse? The answer is simple: the law demands perfect obedience, and the penalty for breaking it is death. The curse of the law is not the law itself, but the judgment it rightly pronounces on lawbreakers, and that includes every one of us. And here’s the heart of the gospel: Christ did not redeem us from the curse of the law merely by obeying it perfectly, though He did. Scripture does not say we are saved because Jesus kept the commandments in our place alone. We are saved because He bore the curse those commandments demanded.

Jesus, who lived a perfectly righteous, sinless life, took the full weight of the law’s curse upon Himself. So how does faith free us from the curse of the law? By uniting us to Christ, who suffered the curse in our place. The curse doesn’t disappear, it is exhausted on Him. And because He bore it fully, those who trust in Him are truly, finally, fully, and forever free.

Conclusion: Coming to the Table

So church, here’s where all of this leaves us today. If Jesus really is enough, and Paul has shown us that He is, then that means something deeply freeing for us right now. It means you don’t walk into this room today trying to prove anything to God. You don’t come to this table carrying a résumé of your spiritual performance from this week. You don’t have to measure whether you prayed enough, read enough, gave enough, or tried hard enough. Because the gospel does not say, “Come if you’ve done well.” The gospel says, “Come because Christ has done it all.”

Some of you are tired, not because you don’t love Jesus, but because you’ve been trying to carry what Jesus already carried for you. You’ve been living as though your standing with God rises and falls with your consistency, instead of resting in Christ’s finished work. And Paul would lovingly say to us what he said to the Galatians: Why would you begin by faith and now try to continue by effort?

Here’s the good news we’re meant to walk out with today:

The same grace that saved you is the grace that sustains you.
The same Christ who redeemed you is the Christ who keeps you.
And the same Spirit you received by faith is still at work in you today.

From the curse—you are freed. From striving—you are released. From fear—you are secured.

And that’s why we come to the table. Communion is not a reward for the spiritually strong; it is nourishment for the spiritually dependent. We come not celebrating our faithfulness, but His. We come not trusting in our righteousness, but resting in His. We come because Jesus became a curse for us, so that we might receive the blessing promised to Abraham, and the Spirit promised to us, by faith, according to the scriptures.

So as we prepare our hearts for communion, let this be your posture: God, You have given Your best in Jesus Christ—and in Him, I rest. Come to the table thankful. Come to the table humbled. Come to the table free. Because Christ was cursed for you, and you are blessed in Him.

Galatians 3:15-29

Is Jesus Enough? | Galatians 3:15–29 Sermon Notes

Introduction: Super Bowl Sunday and Becoming

Intro: Super Bowl Sunday and yall are in church? This is a godly bunch of Christians in America and I’m proud of you! It’s also the halfway point of the book of Galatians. Can you believe that?

I want to share something personal with you this morning, something Alexis and I have been praying through for our boys. We’ve been thinking a lot about how a boy becomes a man. Our culture marks birthdays and graduations, but it rarely marks becoming. And because of that, a lot of young men aren’t sure who they are or when that shift really happened.

So we’re building a long-term plan for our sons.

When they’re young, our focus is simple: we want them to know they are loved and that they belong. As they grow, that love stays constant while responsibility grows with it. At thirteen, we want to mark a clear transition, not into adulthood, but training as young men. At 18, we want to send them out for a season to live with responsibility and discover who they are before God. At the end of that season, we want to gather, speak blessing over them, give them gifts, and send them into the world as men who know who they are and where they belong.

And here’s the line I keep coming back to as I think about all of this this week:

Supervision has a purpose, but it was never meant to be permanent. Keep the faith.

It turns out Paul is describing something similar in Galatians 3. And that’s where we’re headed this morning.

Series Overview: Is Jesus Enough?

By way of reminder, we are in the process of walking through the book of Galatians to answer our overarching question:

Is Jesus Enough?

We looked at what the gospel is in chapters 1 and 2 and now we are looking at how, how it saves, or How is Jesus Enough, right?

Last week we saw Paul’s argument of how faith works through the 3 major areas:

The Galatians own testimony and how the Holy Spirit is revealed
The testimony of Abraham and the promise believed
And finally we looked at how we are, from the curse, freed

Today I want to spend some time still in the business of how, but this time we want to look at how the promise works and why, and how the law works and why.

Galatians 3:15–29 Sermon Outline

How Does the Promise Work? (Galatians 3:15–18)

Why Do We Have the Law? (Galatians 3:19–22)

How Does This Affect Me? (Galatians 3:23–29)

How Does the Promise Work? (Galatians 3:15–18)

V15-18 So Paul starts by giving us an example to help explain his point here. He brings up the understanding of a contract, but even more so for our understanding today, it would be like a will. When someone writes a will, and it is set in motion, you can’t add to it or change it at that point. So keep that thought in mind.

And he says, ok, now that promise was made to Abraham and his offspring. And everyone in Galatia said, “well duh, we know that. That’s why we are all trying to be Jewish now.” but Paul says wait! It’s not about being Jewish. God’s promise was to 1 offspring. Not the whole Jewish people, but the promise was through one, and that One is Jesus Himself.

Ok he tells them this about Jesus, who they already believe in, but now they have depth to why they should hold fast to Him. And then comes back to his contract analogy in verse 17. The commands that God gave Israel 430 years after He made a promise to Abraham do not undo or cancel the promise God made to Abraham. It either comes by the commands God wrote in the law or it comes by the promise, but, Paul’s saying God already made the promise. And God keeps his promises, amen? That’s his reasoning.

Plain Language Summary

How does the promise work?

When you make a promise (Think Will!) it can’t be canceled/changed
The Promise was made to Abraham and his Offspring (That’s Jesus!)
The law doesn’t cancel or change the promise
God keeps His promises

Application

What does this mean for us? What do we do with this? Because Paul isn’t just trying to win a theological argument here. He’s pastoring real people who are anxious, confused, and starting to believe they need to add something to Jesus in order to really belong to God. And if we’re honest, that’s not just a Galatian problem, that’s a human one.

Here’s the first thing we need to hear clearly: God is not a God who changes the terms on you. Some of us live like God is constantly rewriting the will, like there’s fine print we missed, like the promise was real at first but now there are extra requirements we didn’t know about. But Paul says no. When God made His promise, He meant it. And when God made His promise, He tied it to a Person, Jesus. That means your standing with God is not fragile. It’s not hanging by a thread. It’s not dependent on how well you performed this week, or anything else. If the promise was secured in Christ, then it’s as secure as Christ Himself.

Second, this confronts our tendency to drift toward earning instead of trusting. We may not be trying to become Jewish, but we absolutely do this in other ways. We start thinking, “If I read my Bible more, then God will love me more.” Or, “If I clean up this sin first, then I can come back to God.” Or, “If I just do better, try harder, be more disciplined, be more obedient, then I’ll really belong.” And Paul lovingly but firmly says, that’s not how the promise works. Obedience matters, but obedience is not the doorway. The promise came first. Grace came first. Jesus came first. If the inheritance came through the law, Paul says, it wouldn’t be a promise anymore, it would be a paycheck. And God didn’t give Abraham a paycheck; He gave him a promise.

Third, this invites us to rest in the faithfulness of God, not the faithfulness of ourselves. This is where the weight lifts. Because some of you walked in today tired like I did. Maybe not physically tired, but soul tired. Emotional, or mentally tired of wondering if you’re doing enough. Tired of measuring yourself against other believers. Tired of feeling like you’re one bad week away from disqualifying yourself. And Paul says, “God keeps His promises.” Not you keep His promises, God does. Which means the security of your salvation doesn’t rest on your grip on God, but on God’s grip on you.

So here’s the simple application, can I say this in all love and sincerity for you today? Hear God’s heart for you:

Stop trying to add to what God has already finished.
Stop living like the promise can be revoked.
Stop acting like Jesus was the starting point and now it’s up to you to carry it across the finish line.

Why Do We Have the Law? (Galatians 3:19–22)

V19-22 I’m going to try my very best to make this passage something we all can hold on to because it matters so much. So I hear I go:

Paul knows exactly what question is coming next. You can almost hear it forming in the room. If the promise came first, if the promise is unbreakable, if it’s fulfilled in Jesus, then why in the world did God give the law at all? And Paul doesn’t dodge that question. He names it straight out in verse 19: “Why then the law?” -Galatians 3:19

And that’s an honest question. Because for many of us, when we hear about grace and promise, the law can start to feel like a mistake, or at least an unnecessary complication. Like God started simple with Abraham and then later made things hard with Moses. But Paul wants us to see that God isn’t confused, and He’s not changing directions mid-story.

So Paul answers, “It was added because of transgressions.” And that word added really matters. The law wasn’t introduced as something brand new to replace the promise. It was added onto what God was already doing. The promise came first. Grace came first. Relationship came first. The law didn’t replace the promise, it served it.

In other words, the law wasn’t God’s Plan B. It wasn’t God reacting in frustration. It was God responding in wisdom to the reality of sin. As sin multiplied, God gave the law to expose it, to name it, to make it unmistakably clear. Not to save His people, but to show them why they needed saving in the first place.

So right from the start, Paul is helping us reset our categories. The law is not the foundation. The promise is. The law has a role, but it’s not the lead role. And if we get that order wrong, everything else in this passage, and in the Christian life, starts to bend in the wrong direction.

So point 1 in why the law is this: The law was never meant to replace the promise, it was meant to serve the promise by exposing sin and pointing us to our need for grace.

…and I’ll pick up at the exact sentence where this stopped and finish the full SEO formatted manuscript.

So Paul keeps going, and he presses this idea even further. He says the law was added because of transgressions, and then by the time we get to verse 22, he says something really strong:

“The Scripture imprisoned everything under sin.”

That’s heavy language. Paul is saying the law doesn’t just point out a few mistakes here and there, it tells the truth about the human condition.

Here’s another way to say it: the law doesn’t heal the wound, it reveals how deep the wound actually is.

The law functions like a mirror. When you look into it, you don’t see how good you’re doing, well maybe a couple of you do, but the rest of us, we see what’s really there. And mirrors are good things. We want mirrors. But no one looks into a mirror and expects the mirror to fix what it shows. It can diagnose the problem, but it cannot cure it.

And that’s exactly Paul’s point. The law is good, but it is limited.

It can tell you what righteousness looks like, but it cannot make you righteous.
It can name sin clearly, but it cannot break sin’s power.
It can tell you what obedience requires, but it cannot give you the heart to obey.

That’s why Paul says Scripture “imprisoned” everything under sin. The law boxes us in. It leaves us with nowhere to run.

And to clarify, that’s not cruel, it’s God being clear. God isn’t trying to crush us here; He’s trying to tell us the truth. Because as long as we think we’re mostly fine, or just need a little help, or can clean ourselves up enough to earn God’s favor, we’ll never actually run to grace.

And this is where we often misunderstand the law. We think its main job is to help us succeed spiritually. But Paul says its job is first to show us that we cannot save ourselves.

The law doesn’t give life. Verse 21 says that plainly. If a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would come by the law. But it can’t. And it never could.

So the law isn’t broken. We are. The law doesn’t fail. We do. And once we see that clearly, once we stop using the law as a ladder to get to God and start seeing it as a mirror, we’re finally ready to understand why God gave it in the first place.

And then Paul gives us one of the most important words in this whole passage. He says the law was added “until the offspring should come.”

That word until changes everything.

Because it tells us the law was never meant to be permanent. It had a purpose, and it had a timeline.

In other words, the law wasn’t the destination, it was a guardian along the way. God used the law to restrain sin, to define righteousness, and to keep His people from completely losing their way while they waited for the promise to be fulfilled.

The law was doing something real, something good, but it was always pointing forward. Paul wants us to see that the law lived in the tension of waiting. Waiting for the One God promised to Abraham. Waiting for the Offspring, Jesus, who would finally do what the law could never do.

The law could expose sin, but it couldn’t remove it. It could describe obedience, but it couldn’t produce it. It could prepare the way, but it could not complete the work.

So when Paul says “until,” he’s telling us that the arrival of Jesus changes the role of the law. Not because the law was wrong, but because its job was finished. The guard steps aside when the heir arrives.

And this matters deeply for us. Because if we treat the law like it’s ultimate, we miss Christ. And if we ignore the law entirely, we miss why Christ came. The law holds us in place long enough to show us our need, and then it hands us off to Jesus.

That’s what Paul is saying. The law was never meant to save us. It was meant to lead us, to bring us right up to the edge of grace, and then say, “Now look to Him.”

Now Paul knows there’s still an objection hanging in the air. If the law exposes sin, if it can’t give life, and if its role is temporary, then the question almost asks itself:

“Is the law then contrary to the promises of God?”

In other words, did God give two competing systems? One by promise, one by law? One by grace, one by works?

He says, “Certainly not!” Or in plain language, absolutely not! God is not divided against Himself. The promise and the law are not enemies. They are working together, but they are doing different jobs.

Paul explains it this way: if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would come by the law. But it can’t. That doesn’t make the law bad, it just means it was never designed to do what only God can do. The law can tell you what life should look like, but it cannot give you life. Only God can do that. Only grace can do that. Only Christ can do that.

So the problem was never the law. The problem was what people started expecting the law to do. They took something God gave as a guide and turned it into a god. They took something meant to point to grace and tried to make it replace grace.

And Paul is saying, don’t do that. That’s not how God designed this. The law doesn’t compete with the promise, it creates the hunger for it. It presses us into the corner until we realize we need mercy. It shuts every other door so that when grace shows up, we finally see it for what it is: not a nice option, but our only hope.

So no, the law is not contrary to the promise. The law prepares the way for the promise. And once the promise has come, once Jesus has arrived, we don’t go back and try to make the law do what it was never meant to do in the first place.

Before we move on, I want to pause here and say something to us as a church. Because there’s an idea that floats around sometimes, usually unspoken, but very real, that the Old Testament is optional. Like it’s background material. Like once you get to Jesus, you can kind of leave the rest behind.

But church, if we remove the Old Testament, we don’t actually get a clearer picture of Jesus, we get a thinner one. The Old Testament doesn’t compete with the New Testament. It prepares us for it. It gives us the categories we need to understand sin, sacrifice, promise, faith, and grace. Without the Old Testament, words like covenant, redemption, and even salvation start to lose their depth. We still use the language, but we forget the story.

The Old Testament shows us that God has been telling one story all along. A story that leads to Jesus. So I want to encourage you, don’t neglect it. Don’t be afraid of it. Read it slowly. Read it prayerfully. Read it with Jesus in view.

Even though most of us aren’t tempted to keep the Mosaic law, we are still deeply tempted to use obedience as a substitute for dependence. We may say we believe in grace, but we often live like God is most pleased with us when we’re performing well and least pleased when we’re not. We turn the Christian life into a quiet checklist. We start measuring our standing with God by our consistency, our discipline, our progress. And before we know it, we’re doing the very thing Paul is warning the Galatians about, we’re asking the law, or some version of it, to give us what only grace can give.

And Paul is about to make this deeply personal. Because in the next section, he’s going to say that the coming of Christ didn’t just change the role of the law, it changed our relationship to God entirely. Not just how we’re forgiven, but how we belong and how we live.

So the question shifts. It’s no longer just why the law? It becomes, what does this mean for me now?

And that’s exactly where Paul takes us next.

How Does This Affect Me? (Galatians 3:23–29)

So if the law had a purpose, and that purpose has now been fulfilled in Christ, the question becomes, what does this mean for us now? How do we relate to God on this side of Jesus?

And Paul answers that by giving us one last picture. I love this last analogy Paul uses for the law in verses 23 through 25 as he prepares to tell us what this means for us now. He says the law was like a guardian. Some translations say tutor. Others say schoolmaster. But the best way to understand it is something closer to an ancient nanny, though not the modern version we think of today.

In the ancient world, many families would have had a trusted servant who had been with the household for years. This person was older, proven, respected, and responsible for a child’s moral formation. Their job wasn’t to raise the child forever, it was to prepare the child for adulthood. To shape their character, restrain foolishness, and walk them toward maturity.

Paul says, that’s what the law was doing. It guarded us. It restrained us. It taught us right from wrong. But only until Christ came because you don’t need a nanny as an adult. And a guardian is never meant to stay forever. When the child reaches maturity, the role of the guardian changes. You don’t go backward. You don’t rehire the nanny once adulthood arrives.

Paul’s point is simple but profound: once Christ has come, once faith has arrived, we no longer relate to God as minors under supervision, we relate to Him as full sons and daughters. That’s the shift. And everything that follows flows from that.

Paul says, “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” And then he brings up baptism. And at first glance, that can feel confusing, like Paul just changed subjects. But he didn’t. Baptism is Paul’s way of talking about transition. It’s the rite of passage, like a mexican quinceanera, or a Jewish barmitzvah, It’s the public marker that something has come to adulthood.

And here’s the nuance we need to hold carefully. Baptism is not about getting dunked in water. It’s actually a declaration that you are renouncing all else, and clinging to Jesus for your identity and your salvation. It’s a visible way of saying, “I belong to Christ now.” To be baptized is to renounce every other hope of saving yourself and to clothe yourself with Christ alone. Paul says you have put on Christ. That’s identity language. That’s allegiance language. That’s saying, “My life is now wrapped up in Him.” So baptism isn’t magic, but it is meaningful. It marks the move from guarded child to belonging son.

Paul says, “Now that faith has come,” And that phrase is easy to misunderstand if we’re not careful. Paul is not saying faith didn’t exist before. Abraham had faith. Moses had faith. David had faith. What Paul is saying is that faith has now been fully revealed, fully grounded, fully secured, because Jesus came.

We know that faith has come because:

Jesus lived the life we couldn’t live
Jesus died the death we deserved
Jesus rose in victory
The Holy Spirit was poured out

Faith now has an object you can see clearly. A finished work you can rest in fully. A Savior you don’t outgrow. So faith coming means we’re no longer waiting. We’re no longer anticipating. We’re no longer guarded, we’re Christ’s.

And then Paul lands this with one of the most radical statements in the New Testament.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” -Galatians 3:28

Paul is not saying those differences don’t exist. He’s saying they don’t determine access to God.

Your race doesn’t give you a better seat.
Your socioeconomic status doesn’t give you more favor.
Your gender doesn’t move you closer or farther from God.

In Christ, everyone stands on the same ground. Same access. Same inheritance. Same promise.

Paul then gives us the why behind all of it:

“If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

That means the promise didn’t stop with Abraham. It didn’t stop with Israel. It didn’t stop at the law. It landed on Christ, and now it includes you.

So Paul brings us full circle.

The law guarded us.
Christ redeemed us.
Faith unites us.

And now, we don’t live as supervised children, we live as sons and daughters, heirs of a promise God has never broken.

Conclusion: Living as Heirs of God’s Promise

Heirs don’t strive to belong. They live from security, not anxiety. They don’t wake up wondering if they’re still in the family. They live from what’s already been given.

I pray my sons know that they are so beloved at this stage of boyhood. I hope they learn in their training as young men everything I have planned for them. I hope their rite of passage is so memorable that they never have to question in their lifetime if they have their father’s blessing. But, above all, I pray that they keep the faith.

I won’t be here one day. I hope I have a long life, but don’t miss me! Keep the faith. Because the hope of my soul, my trust, my belief, my faith is in the promise. I have everything, all access as an heir of heaven! Don’t miss me! Join me as I walk in glory with Jesus forever.

Living as heirs means:

We stop letting where we came from define our worth.
We stop letting comparison tell us who we are.
And we stop believing that some people stand closer to God than others.

Live this week as a people who know where they belong.

The law guarded us.
Christ redeemed us.
Faith unites us.
And now, by faith, we live as heirs of a promise God has never broken.

That is a God worthy of all our worship.

Galatians 4:1-20

Galatians 4:1-20 ESV—Not Reckless Freedom – Responsible Sonship. Series: Is Jesus Enough?

Intro

My oldest son now lives in Tennessee with his family. This month they’re expecting their second child — a baby girl. I remember when he turned eighteen. We were on a mission trip in Europe. He was about to move out on his own, stepping into adulthood and freedom from the house rules he had lived under for eighteen years.

So I decided to make a point.

In Europe, the legal drinking age is eighteen. I took him to a local pub and bought him his first beer. As we sat there finishing it, I paused and asked him, “Do you feel anything?”

He said he did.

I told him, “That feeling — that buzz — is something many people spend the rest of their lives chasing. And it ruins them. Now that you’re an adult, you’re free. But you’re also responsible. You get to make your own choices — and you will live with them.”

Freedom had come. But it wasn’t freedom to destroy himself. It was freedom to choose wisely.

That’s Paul’s point in Galatians 4. Under the Law, Israel lived under guardians and restrictions. But when Christ came, freedom arrived.

Not reckless freedom — responsible sonship.

Outline

4:1-3 Jewish Slavery
4:4-7 Adoption as Sons
4:8-11 Return to Slavery
4:12-20 Pastoral Encouragement

Study

4:1-3—Jewish Slavery

(Gal. 4:1-3 ESV) 1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.

4:1-2—Cultural Context

When you understand the cultural setting of the Roman world, you can better understand what Paul is explaining to the Galatians. Historians estimate that there were approximately 5–8 million slaves in the Roman Empire, representing roughly 10–15% of the total population. The percentage was higher in major cities. Wealthy households commonly owned slaves to manage domestic affairs, oversee property, educate children, and perform menial labor. As a result, Paul’s instructions address a social reality that would have been immediately familiar to both slaves and masters within the early Christian communities.

A child, even though he was the heir to the entire estate, was subject to guardians and managers who were commonly slaves. Contemporarily, we might describe this relationship as a nanny and a trustee. The nanny, or guardian, is responsible for the child’s day-to-day well-being. The guardian would assure the child was fed, clothed, educated, and even disciplined to ensure proper moral formation. The trustee or manager oversees the assets that the heir will one day have access to.

So in essence, the child was no different than a slave. Even though the estate was legally his, he couldn’t access it. He wasn’t free to do as he pleased with his own property. He was subject to those who were placed over him. His access to the inheritance was limited to the time and conditions established by the father.

4:2—until the date set by his father.

Paul is writing to three distinct cultures in the ancient world that had their own customs for coming of age: Jewish, Greek, and Roman. Each of these cultures had its own rituals concerning the right of passage for a boy reaching manhood.

Jewish: What is now known as Bar Mitzvah, when a Jewish boy would be taken by his father to the Synagogue on the Sabbath following his thirteenth birthday, where the boy would become a Son of the Law. While Zuza and I were in Jerusalem for two weeks teaching at a Bible College, we saw it with our own eyes. On the Sabbath, families filled the streets, singing and celebrating as young boys made their way to the Western Wall. It wasn’t just a party—it was a declaration: this child is now a son of the Law. He has crossed a threshold. He is accountable. He is responsible. He has stepped into manhood.
Greek: In Athens, at the age of eighteen, a boy would attend a festival called the Apatouria, where he would be received as a man into his clan. During the festival, his long hair was cut off and offered to the gods as a ceremonial act.
Roman: Under Roman law, the year at which a boy became a man wasn’t fixed; it was set by the father, but it was usually between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. At a sacred family festival, he took off his distinct childhood toga (praetexta) and put on the adult toga (virilis). His family and friends led him down to the forum and formally introduced him to public life. There was a Roman custom that on the day a boy or girl came of age, the boy offered his ball, and the girl her doll, to Apollo to signify that they had put away childish things. This is probably what Paul was referring to when writing to the Corinthians:

(1 Cor 13:11 ESV) When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

The ancient world to which Paul was writing understood clearly what Paul was saying. Prior to manhood, the heir to the estate had no legal rights. The point Paul is making is that even a slave in a Greek home was given authority over the child to govern him until manhood was reached.

4:3 Jewish Slavery to the Law

4:3—In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.

When Paul says “we,” he is speaking of the Jews. We’ll see that he speaks to two distinct groups of people in this passage. “We,” referring to the Jews, and “you,” referring to the Gentiles.

“We,” the Jews, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.

Paul likens the Law to elementary principles of the world. We all went to elementary school and learned the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Paul is likening the Law to the spiritual ABCs. The Jews were in spiritual elementary school for 1,500 years, preparing them for when Christ would come. Jesus isn’t elementary, the ABCs, Jesus is the Alpha and Omega (Rev. 22:13), the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet. He is the A to Z of our spiritual life.

The Law was only a partial revelation until the full revelation of God was given in Christ Jesus. The writer to the Hebrews declares:

(Heb. 1:1-3 ESV) 1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

The Apostle John puts it this way:

(John 1:17 ESV) For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

In Christ, we do not have fragments of God’s will—we have the full revelation of His heart and His redemptive plan for humanity.

4:4-7 Adoption as Sons

(Gal. 4:4-7 ESV) 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

4:4-5—Redemption from the Law.

4:4—Paul says, “When the fullness of time had come.” This takes us back to what he said in 4:2, “until the date set by his father.” When the time came that the Father set, Jesus came.

4:4-5—Jesus came, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law.

The Greek word translated redeem carries the idea of purchasing a slave with the intention of setting him free. Paul’s point is powerful: Christ stepped into the marketplace of our bondage and bought us out.

For the Jews, that meant redemption from the bondage of the Law — its demands, its condemnation, its curse.
But don’t miss this — the Gentiles were not free either. They weren’t under the Law of Moses, but they were still slaves. Slaves to sin.

Jesus said:

(John 8:34-36 ESV) 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

The Law could supervise a child — but only Christ could liberate a slave.

4:5—So that we might receive adoption as sons.

Again, the “we” is referring to the Jews. The Jews were under the Law; now that Christ has come, they graduated from elementary school, and now they have the freedom to enjoy their inheritance as His children.

I was 18 years old, and my brother was 20 years old, when we found out that my father had adopted him. According to the law, my brother has the same right as I to any inheritance from my parents. It was the same in the ancient world. We are not second-class family members. We are all individually His favorite child!

4:6-7—Sons and Heirs (The believer’s true identity)

4:6—And because you are sons.

Paul changes from “we” to “you.” Paul is referring to the Galatian Gentiles who didn’t live under the Law of Moses. You Gentiles, along with the Jews, have been adopted into the family as sons with the full legal rights of sons.

(John 1:11-13 ESV) 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Because of Jesus’ work, His sacrificial death and resurrection, if you believe and trust what He did, you have a legal right to become God’s children.

Jesus redeemed us from the slave market and took us home as His children.

4:6—God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

Notice the shift — our hearts. Paul is now including both Jews and Gentiles. All who are in Christ share the same Spirit. And that Spirit cries out, “Abba! Father!”

God is not distant. He is not merely Judge or Lawgiver. He is your Father — a loving Father.
Some of you may not have had a loving earthly father. Some of you may not have had a father who was present at all. But in Christ, you now have a perfect heavenly Father — one who is always present, always faithful, and always loves you. (The mystery).

4:7—So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Paul shifts back to “you.” He is now directly exhorting the Galatian Gentiles.

You are no longer a slave.

You are not bound to sin.

You are not under condemnation.

You are a child of God — and if a child, then an heir.

So what exactly have we inherited? To begin with, Paul writes to the Romans:

(Rom. 8:16-17 ESV) 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

We are not merely heirs of God. We are heirs with Christ. Co-heirs.

That means whatever belongs to the Son belongs to us. So what did Christ inherit?

Hebrews tells us that God appointed Christ “heir of all things” (Heb. 1:2).

All things include:

The kingdom of this world — Revelation 11:15
The name above every name—authority and honor—Philippians 2:9
The everlasting Messianic throne—Luke 1:32–33
Everything the Father has given to the Son — we share in Him. This is what it means to be in Christ!

Slaves inherit nothing. Sons inherit everything.

4:8-11 Return to Slavery

(Gal. 4:8-11 ESV) 8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

4:8—Galatian Slavery to False Gods.

The Galatian Gentile believers had come out of paganism. Before Christ, they worshiped the false gods of the Greeks and Romans — gods that could not see, hear, speak, or save.

But now everything had changed. They no longer served lifeless idols. They knew the true and living God — and not merely as Creator or Judge — but as Father.

4:9-10—turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world.

The Galatian believers received the Alpha and Omega in Jesus, but now they were going back to the ABCs of spirituality: the Law. They were going backwards to elementary school!

They had been set free from being slaves to sin, but now were turning back to become slaves to the Law.

4:10—You observe days and months and seasons and years.

These believers began to observe the special times of the Jewish Law. The days refer to the Sabbaths of each week; the months refer to the new moons; the seasons refer to the great annual feasts like Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles; the years are the Sabbatic years that occur every seven years.

There is always a temptation to believe that if we just obey certain rules, God will bless us more. That if we try harder, perform better, and clean ourselves up, we will somehow earn His favor. But you can’t earn what has already been given. In Christ, God has already given you everything. You are a co-heir with Christ.

The Galatians were being led astray by false teachers who told them that spiritual growth required observing the Law — that circumcision and rule-keeping would move them to a higher level. But legalism is not more spiritual. It may look spiritual. It may feel disciplined. It may impress people. But it is a step backward. It is returning to guardians and managers when the Father has declared you an adult son. It is stepping back into chains when Christ has unlocked the prison. And remember the words of Jesus:

(John 8:36 ESV) So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

(Col. 2:16-17 ESV) 16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

4:11—Paul’s fear for the Galatians spiritual well-being.

4:12-20 Pastoral Encouragement

4:12—Become like me.

(Gal. 4:12-20 ESV) 12 Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong.

4:13-15—The Previous Relationship Between Paul and the Galatians.

(Gal. 4:12-20 ESV) 13 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, 14 and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. 15 What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me.

4:16-18—Their Relationship Soured

(Gal. 4:16-18 ESV) 16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. 18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you.

4:19-20—Paul Parental Appeal

(Gal. 4:19-20 ESV) 19 My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! 20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

You cannot read these words without feeling Paul’s heart. “My little children”—this is not the language of a distant theologian; it is the language of a spiritual father. He is not irritated; he is anguished. He says he is “again in the anguish of childbirth” until Christ is formed in them. That is not frustration—it is love under pressure.

Paul is not defending his reputation; he is protecting his children. He knows what legalism does—it robs joy, breeds fear, and replaces sonship with striving. So he does not lash out. He is willing to once again labor selflessly for their souls.

The pastoral care of Paul reflects the Shepherd heart of Christ. The same Savior who redeemed us is the One now yearning for our maturity. Through Paul’s tears, we see the tenderness of Jesus.

Conclusion:

Is Jesus enough?

Enough to free you from slavery?

Enough to make you a son?

Enough to give you an inheritance?

Enough that you do not need rules to secure what grace has already given?

Not reckless freedom. Responsible sonship.
Slaves chase approval. Sons rest in love.
And when the Son sets you free —You are free indeed.

Galatians 4:21-5:1

Intro: I want to be vulnerable with you today. There’s a subtle pressure that creeps into every part of my life. The pressure to measure faithfulness by outcomes, or to put it simpler to measure myself based on what I produce. I feel it in my marriage, wanting to be a good husband and sometimes wondering if I’m doing enough or if I’m good enough. I feel it as a dad, wanting to lead my kids well, to shape their hearts, to get it right, and sometimes carrying the weight of thinking it all depends on me. And I feel it in my calling as a pastor, where it can be easy to look at visible results or expectations and start measuring faithfulness by what I can see instead of by trusting what God is doing.

And if I’m honest, when that pressure builds, there’s a temptation to slip into a mindset that says, “I need to do more,” “I need to prove myself.” To God. To others. Even to myself. It’s subtle. but it turns life with God into something that feels a lot less like living. Maybe you know that feeling too. Maybe it shows up in your work, in your parenting, in your relationships, or in your walk with God. It’s that quiet sense that you have to perform, that you have to make things happen, that somehow it’s all riding on you.

And that’s exactly why this passage matters so much. Because the Galatians were drifting into that same place. They are moving away from trusting the sufficiency of Jesus and back toward trying to secure their standing through effort. So today we’re coming back to this simple but life-altering truth: Jesus is enough. And: If Jesus is enough, then stop living like He isn’t. Here is our outline of the text for today:

Text Outline:

V21-23: A Tale of Two Treaties
V24-29: Rabbi Paul’s Warning
V30 & Ch. 5:1: Freedom!

V21-23 A Tale of Two Treaties

Let me take you into the story: Imagine receiving a promise from God, a clear word. God comes to Abraham and says, “You’re going to have a son, and through that son I’m going to build a people.” There’s just one problem. Abraham is old. Sarah is barren. And years go by, and more years, and more years. You know that feeling, when you believe God has spoken, but the clock keeps ticking and nothing seems to change. When the promise still feels real, but the waiting just feels heavy.

Scripture paints the picture of Abraham in his 70s when God first gives the promise. By the time we move deeper into the story, he’s in his 80s, and Sarah is well past childbearing years. Every passing birthday feels like another reminder that what God promised seems impossible. And this is where the story turns, because people get tired of waiting.

Sarah comes to Abraham with a plan. In essence she says, “Maybe God needs our help.” She offers her servant, Hagar, as a surrogate. Abraham agrees, and Ishmael is born. A child born out of human strategy and desires that might seem good, but were born of the ideas of the flesh. And if we’re honest, this is deeply relatable, because when God’s promises seem slow, we often reach for control, don’t we? We start trying to manufacture outcomes. We start thinking, “Maybe I need to fix this myself.” And Ishmael represents what happens when we try to accomplish in the flesh what must be done in the spirit and what can only be received by faith.

Years later, after all the detours, doubts, and mistakes, God does exactly what He said He would do. Sarah conceives, and Isaac is born. A miracle child. A son not produced by human ability, but by divine promise. So now there are two sons: one born according to the flesh and human effort, human planning, human control, and the other born through promise, God’s power, God’s timing, God’s grace.

And this is the tension Paul is tapping into in Galatians, he’s revealing two ways of living. One way says, “I’ll secure God’s blessing by what I do.” The other says, “I trust God to do what I never could.” Paul is about to say something startling to the Galatians, and to us, that you can live like Ishmael even if you were meant to live like Isaac. You can try to earn what only God gives. You can drift back into performance when you were called into promise. So before we go any further, here’s a question worth holding today: where in your life are you trying to help God instead of trusting Him? Because the story of Abraham’s family is really a mirror, just like a lot of the bible, showing us the difference between living by our own effort and living by grace, and that’s why Paul uses this story to frame his entire piece here.

V24-30 Rabbi Paul’s Warning

So let’s get into Rabbi Paul’s warning in verses 24 through 30. The reason why I’m calling this Rabbi Paul’s warning is because he is communicating here in their language like an ancient rabbi. As we step into this next section, it helps to remember how Scripture was often read in Paul’s day, especially among Jewish teachers and Rabbis. They believed that God’s Word could speak on more than one level. There was the plain, historical meaning, the straightforward story of what actually happened, but they also looked for deeper layers, asking what God might be revealing through the story.

Jewish teachers sometimes spoke about several ways of reading Scripture: the simple meaning, the hinted meaning, the meaning discovered through careful reflection, and the deeper symbolic meaning because they believed God’s Word was rich and full, able to teach on multiple levels. So when Paul comes to the story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac which is a real historical account in Genesis, he’s doing something his audience would recognize. He’s drawing out the deeper spiritual significance of the story to show what it reveals about how we relate to God.

But as we see Paul do this, it’s important to remember who Paul is and why he can speak this way. Paul isn’t just offering a creative interpretation here. He is deeply trained in the Scriptures, a student of the Word from a young age, someone who knew the Law and the Prophets intimately. And as we’ve already learned in Galatians, he is not self-appointed, he is an apostle of Jesus Christ, called and commissioned by the risen Lord Himself. Even more than that, we believe Paul is writing Scripture under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That means these words are not merely Paul’s reflections; they are God’s Word to the church. The Spirit who inspired the Scriptures is guiding Paul as he unfolds their meaning. He isn’t taking liberties with the Bible, he’s being carried along by the Spirit to reveal how this story points to God’s redemptive work.

And that matters for us, because it also reminds us that we don’t get to allegorize our Bibles however we want or make the text say whatever feels meaningful to us. Paul can draw these connections because he is uniquely called and inspired to do so. Our role is to listen, to receive, and to submit to what God has revealed. My point is: We don’t stand over Scripture, Scripture stands over us. So as Paul walks us through this passage, he’s not just retelling a story, he’s showing us that there are two fundamentally different ways to relate to God. And his warning is loving and clear as he pastors the Galatians and us: In these two fundamental ways to relate to God, one leads to slavery, and the other leads to freedom. Let’s look at what he says. I’ll add these next couple slides for your notes:

Hagar = Mount Sinai = Present Jerusalem = Slavery

Here Paul makes a surprising connection. He says Hagar the slave woman, represents Mount Sinai, the place where God gave the law to Israel. Now, Paul isn’t saying the law is bad; he’s saying that when the law becomes the way you try to secure your righteousness before God, it leads to slavery. Why? Because the law tells you what God requires but doesn’t give you the power to fulfill it. It becomes a system of striving, measuring, and never quite arriving.

Then Paul connects this to what he calls the “present Jerusalem,” meaning the religious system of his day and the Jewish people that was centered on law-keeping as the basis for standing with God. His point is sharp but pastoral: when our relationship with God is built on performance, whether ancient law observance or modern spiritual scorekeeping, we end up living like slaves, always trying to do enough, always wondering if we measure up. So Hagar becomes a picture of what happens when we relate to God through effort instead of promise. But then he gives us another picture from this story that will also help shape our understanding.

Sarah = Jerusalem Above = Freedom

Paul turns and says, “But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.” In other words, believers belong to a different reality! Not an earthly system built on performance, but a heavenly family grounded in freedom. Sarah represents the covenant of promise, where our standing before God comes not from what we achieve but from what God has done. The phrase “Jerusalem above” points to God’s kingdom, the reality that our identity is rooted in heaven, in God’s initiative, in His grace toward us in Christ.

And Paul says this leads to freedom. Freedom from the constant pressure to prove ourselves. Freedom from living under the weight of trying to earn God’s approval. Freedom to rest in the finished work of Jesus. So where Hagar represents striving, Sarah represents belonging. Where one produces anxiety, the other produces assurance. And Paul is reminding the Galatians, and us, that if we are in Christ, we are children of the free woman. You are free! Now what does that mean? Let’s look at it together in verses 30 and his concluding statement for this piece in chapter 5 verse 1.

V30 & Chapter 5:1 Freedom

Now I want to spend the rest of our time here today as we talk about what freedom means biblically and then how we can learn to walk in this as a church. Here’s what paul says in Galatians 5:1:

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” -Galatians 5:1

Wait, so, am I reading that correctly—for freedom Christ has set us free? What does that even mean, “for freedom”? For the sake of freedom? Because freedom is good? I feel like this is an easy thing to say or quote but it’s a bit more nuanced than just a bumper sticker.

If we step back and look across the story of Scripture, we see that freedom has always been at the heart of God’s saving work. Think about the Exodus when God rescues Israel from Egypt, He repeatedly says, “Let my people go, that they may serve me” (Exodus 8:1; cf. Exodus 6:6–7). God delivers them with a mighty hand, brings them through the Red Sea, and tells them at Sinai that He has carried them “on eagles’ wings” to Himself (Exodus 19:4). The point is clear: God doesn’t free His people just to remove their suffering, He frees them so they can belong to Him, worship Him, and live in covenant relationship. Biblical freedom is not merely escape; it is restoration.

We see this pattern continue throughout the stories of Israel. Again and again, when God’s people cry out under oppression, the Lord raises up deliverers, judges like Gideon and Samson, and Scripture tells us that the Lord rescued them from the hand of their enemies (Judges 2:16–18). When David reflects on God’s work in his life, he says, “He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me” (2 Samuel 22:20; Psalm 18:19). You’ve got to see that freedom in these stories is pictured as being brought into spaciousness, out of danger, out of constraint, into the wide place of God’s care.

Then the prophets pick up this theme and deepen it, pointing not only to physical deliverance but to spiritual renewal. Isaiah speaks of the coming Servant who will “proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” (Isaiah 61:1). Through Jeremiah, God promises a new covenant where He will write His law on their hearts and remember their sins no more (Jeremiah 31:33–34). And Ezekiel speaks of God giving His people a new heart and a new spirit so they can walk in His ways (Ezekiel 36:26–27). The prophets show us that True freedom is not just external—it is the transformation of the heart.

Then we come to Jesus, and we see these promises embodied. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus reads Isaiah and declares that He has come to proclaim freedom to the captives (Luke 4:18–21). He tells His listeners, like Pastor Rod shared last week, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” -John 8:36. Throughout His ministry, He frees people from sin, from shame, from spiritual oppression, and from the burden of self-righteousness, inviting them into rest, “Come to me, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28–30).

In Jesus, freedom is present. In Acts, we see that freedom continues through the work of the Spirit. The apostles proclaim forgiveness of sins and freedom through Christ, “through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, everyone who believes is free” (Acts 13:38–39). When the Spirit fills the church, fear gives way to boldness (Acts 4:31), prisoners are literally set free (Acts 16:26), and people from every background are brought into the liberating reality of the gospel. Freedom becomes the lived reality of the church.

So when Paul says, “For freedom Christ has set us free,” he is standing in a long line of God’s saving work, from the law, through Israel’s history, through the prophets, fulfilled in Jesus, and proclaimed in the life of the church. Freedom is not an abstract idea here for Paul; it is the consistent testimony of what God does when He saves. He brings His people out of bondage and into life with Himself and that is the freedom Paul calls us to stand firm in. So how? How do we stand firm in freedom?

I want us to look back for just a moment to something Paul said earlier in this passage, in verse 30, where he quotes Genesis and says, “Cast out the slave woman and her son.” -Galatians 4:30. In the immediate context, Paul is speaking about the influence of the Judaizers, those who were pressuring the Galatian believers to go back under the law as a way of securing their standing before God. His point is clear: Get them out! Anything that pulls you away from grace and back into slavery must be decisively rejected.

But while Paul is addressing a specific situation in those churches, there is also a principle here for us. We too must learn to “cast out” whatever seeks to pull us back into spiritual slavery. Whether that’s performance, guilt, shame, fear, or patterns of sin that tug on our hearts and tell us, “You’re still bound.” Paul will elsewhere say it this way: reckon the old man dead. You are done living a life enslaved by anything else that would keep you from Jesus.

And If that’s true, since that’s true, standing firm in freedom then is not passive. It requires a kind of spiritual clarity where we recognize what does not belong to our new identity and we refuse to let it rule us. Part of being honest about this is acknowledging that we still live in a world of temptation. We have desires that aren’t always aligned with God’s heart or the Spirit that dwells within us. Thoughts come into our minds. Old friends and habits resurface. Scripture never denies that reality. But the good news of the gospel is that temptation is not the same as slavery. And because of Christ, we are no longer slaves to sin. We don’t have to obey every impulse or follow every desire.

When those desires or thoughts surface, we can bring them into the presence of God. We can submit them to Him and say, “Lord, you see this, would you meet me here? Would you fulfill in a holy way what my heart is reaching for?” Instead of hiding or giving in, we turn toward Him in trust. That is a very practical way to stand firm in freedom and not return to slavery.

At the deepest level, standing firm means standing by faith. It means trusting the story of God, believing that the same God who delivered His people again and again, who fulfilled His promises through Christ, who raised Jesus from the dead, is faithful in my life right now. I don’t have to prove myself to Him. I don’t have to earn my place. Left to myself, I am not worthy, and I cannot earn my place! But in Christ, everything has changed. Because I am now an heir with Christ, because Jesus has paid the full price, all of it, and now my standing before God is secure. Even when my feelings accuse me, even when my past tries to define me, even when my present feels messy, God sees the whole story and declares that I belong to Him. In Christ, I am welcomed, forgiven, and free.

And it helps to remember this, we have been freed “from” something, and we have been freed “to” something. We have been freed from sin, from death, from the judgment our sin deserved, from the Satan and the power of hell. And we have been saved to Christ, to a life of grace, to communion with God, to hope, to an eternity with Him. Freedom is not just release, it is reorientation toward life with Jesus. So when Paul says, “Stand firm,” he’s inviting us to plant our feet in that reality, to refuse to go back to old chains, and to live each day trusting that Jesus really is enough.

Conclusion: Today I want to do something a little different. I want to share the good news of our salvation in Jesus with you as I often do. But I want you to take it in no matter who you are, where you are, or what you think that means today. I hope this final thought resonates with you: If Jesus is enough, then you are free to stop living like everything depends on you.

If you have placed your faith in Jesus, and you are standing firm today, I want you to hear the gospel and rejoice in your salvation. If you have placed your faith in Jesus, and you are feeling like your head is just barely above water, I want to invite you to take a stand today, by faith, knowing that the Jesus who saved you will sustain you today and always. And if you have not placed your faith in Jesus, I want you to hear me so clearly today in all love and sincerity: It is not a coincidence that you are in church today or listening to us online. It is the gift of God right here and right now. That you are invited into all of this. Do not allow yourself the wiggle room to avoid what God is showing you here today: You need Jesus.

The bible tells us that today, today is the day of salvation. Today your whole life, and I mean your life forever, can be changed by putting your trust, your belief, your faith in Jesus. If you didn’t hear anything else today, or nothing else made sense to you today I’m praying that God opens your ears, your heart, and your mind to Him. My Jesus, King Jesus, knew we had a problem. And that problem is sin. He knew that there is no other solution to this problem than for Him to come down from heaven and be the solution. The good news is that he actually did it. He solved it. He came down from heaven, was born to the virgin Mary. He lived a perfect life to this law, the only One who ever could. And he did it so He could die as the perfect sacrifice for you and me.

And you might be thinking well, people die every day, what’s the big deal? He died as the perfect and final payment for sin. That’s a bold claim, but the proof is that it was accepted. We know it was accepted because 3 days later He rose from the dead. That’s our receipt that the payment went through. We believe that by believing this, you too are accepted. Fully. When you get to heaven, you know what’s going to happen? You’ll stand before the throne of God to give an account for your life. Well, you’ll kneel actually because every knee will bow before the throne of God. and when that happens I imagine a scroll of every single thing you’ve ever done on this earth will fall and roll through this heavenly throne room. And that is awaiting every human being.

But you know what will happen for the believer? Jesus will step in and say, “Hey dad, that person’s with me.” he’ll come pick me up and give me a hug, and say, “Aaron, well done. Enter into my rest.” come be a part of the people of heaven forever. That’s the invitation before you today. Come and be a part of all that God has for you on this earth, and forever with Him in paradise. You can be free today.

more series messages

The Christmas Story Series

November 30, 2025

Paul’s Final Journey

November 16, 2025

Paul’s Journey to Jerusalem & Rome

October 19, 2025