Today we continue with the second of three sermons on our strategic plan. Last week we discussed prayer as this year’s cornerstone, and this week we introduce the importance of Equipping the Church in two ways: through regular Bible reading at home and through participation in a small group of some kind. There are lots of reasons why we chose these two elements, and our hope is that by the end of today, you see its value too. Let’s dive in!

For the next three Sundays, we are going to spend our Sunday mornings casting a vision for where we believe God is leading our congregation. Over the last months, the SRBC church council has spent a significant amount of time working on a strategic plan for the 2023-24 year, and I am excited to share with you the vision of what God has placed on our hearts. The plan is intentionally simple and, at its heart, is a call to return to what makes the church the church. The plan has three parts. This week we discuss part one: Always Start with Prayer.

We are in the final week of our series on Galatians, and Paul is giving his farewell address. Paul points us toward the essence of what he has been trying to say all along: we are meant for “new creation.” Transformation has been the goal all along, and this can only happen if we die to an old way of being and are raised to newness of life in Christ. Let’s dive into Galatians one last time!

Paul returns to a spirit/flesh dichotomy and to an agricultural metaphor in Galatians chapter 6. “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” Simply put, our actions, routines and habits form our character and our destiny. So what about you? What destiny is being formed right here and now through the choices of your life? 

In Galatians 6:1-5, Paul gives two commands. The first is to “bear one another’s burdens.” The second command is the near opposite: everyone must “bear one’s own load”. So which is it? Do we share our burdens or do we go it alone? Paul is getting at a deeper wisdom that recognizes the solution is both/and not either/or. Today our goal is to locate and begin to live out that which we are intended to carry alone and that which we are to bear with one another. 

As we continue our reading through Galatians, we are well into chapter 5, and Paul is now contrasting walking by the “flesh” and being led by the “Spirit.” It can rightly be understood as a battle between two forces, and today we focus on the first of the two forces: what Paul means when he talks about the flesh. If we can understand this enemy combatant, then we can understand how it has already been defeated and therefore how to live in the freedom that Paul talks about throughout Galatians. Let’s dive in!

As Galatians continues, Paul remains concerned for the people of Galatia, that they keep Jesus and only Jesus at the center of their faith. It is not the keeping of the law that leads to union with God, it is Jesus’ righteousness. At this point, he then begins to build out an ethic based on Jesus’ example and the power of the Holy Spirit. Not surprisingly, it is an ethic that sounds exactly like what Jesus preached. The law is summed up in one word: love.

We’ve taken a few months off from our deep-dive into the book of Galatians, but we’re back! Our summer series is going to resume (and finish) the book of Galatians, beginning in chapter 5. Here Paul is reminding us of much of what he has been saying from the beginning. Simply put: Jesus is enough. As the old hymn goes: “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” May we find that Jesus is enough in our lives too.

Continuing the Elijah narrative from last week, this week we see him fulfilling one of God’s charges—namely, Elijah finds Elisha and calls him into ministry with him. In the New Testament passage for this week, we see Jesus doing this exact thing with his own disciples. Jesus even alludes to the calling of Elisha in his response to a would-be disciple. “Calling” is a word that we use often in the church, but there is also a lot of misunderstanding around the topic. Today we will look at what Scripture says about what it means to be called. 

If we simply turn the page from last week’s passage where Elijah was calling down fire from heaven, we arrive at today’s passage in which Elijah is on the run. He fears for his life. The once mighty and confident Elijah is suddenly weakened and afraid. It is in this state of mind that he cries out to God because, according to Elijah, he is all alone. But the truth is otherwise. He is not alone, and neither are you. Elijah has people in his life he could lean on. And more than that, God’s presence is there with him. May we find God’s presence and allow that to be enough.

In today’s passage we read about Elijah, the prophet of Israel, who stood against the false prophets of Baal and called down fire from heaven to demonstrate the power and presence of God. Like CS Lewis said of Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia, the presence of God in Elijah's fire is not safe, but we can know that it is good. Fire, in fact, is a symbol used throughout the Bible—from the flaming swords guarding Eden to the lake of fire in Revelation 20 and any number of places in between. The fire represents many things, but today, on this day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit is poured out on the church, I want to focus on the fire as purification leading to revival. Let’s dive in!

As we continue to think about the hope that we find in Christ’s death and resurrection, we turn today to an important topic for many of us, the topic of suffering. It is in our hardship that our hope is most challenged. We begin to ask why God would allow such difficulty. We sometimes begin to allow doubt to creep in. We might even lose hope and begin to despair that life will never be the same. Today we must address this issue head on and ask what we are to do when suffering strikes and how we can allow our hope to guide us through our hardest times. Let’s dig in.

For our third lesson on hope, we turn to the topic of desire. Scripture teaches us that one thing is necessary and one thing alone is the fountain out of which all desires must spring. The psalmist says it this way: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that I will seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” Jesus says it this way, "Seek first the kingdom of God, and everything else will be added.” What do you desire? For what do you seek? And from what does your hope spring?

Christ Is Risen! Christ Is Risen Indeed! Easter is a day filled with hope and promise. It is the day on which the future hopes that we all await, resurrection and (more importantly) union with God, are made possible. It is the day when death is defeated and sin has been dealt with. It is the day on which history turns because we know how the story ends. Our faith in God’s future is a faith in a future that brings goodness and redemption out of that which is evil and fallen. Christ is risen! Let us rejoice!

This is a Palm Sunday service in which we sing praises to the king. A king who rides a donkey into battle. Who wields his body and blood as the weapon of choice. Who takes the form of a servant though Lord of all. Who sides with the powerless though all-powerful himself. This is king Jesus. The king no one asked for. The king everyone needed. Let us worship the King of kings and Lord of lords.

In the second half of Galatians 4, Paul writes an allegory of the Sarah and Hagar story in which he contrasts competing visions of righteousness. Are we righteous because of what we do? Or are we righteous because of what Jesus has done? Paul reminds us that righteous union with God is already available through Christ’s atoning death, and there is nothing we can do to achieve it other than embracing the gift, the grace, that is being offered.

Continuing our series through the book of Galatians, we now turn to chapter 4. Here Paul continues to beat the drum of “grace" without ever using the word. Righteousness, that is, right relationship with God, is not something earned or deserved. It is not possible through keeping the works of the law or doing enough right things. Right relationship, Paul argues, is only possible because God sent his Son that we might be sons of God too. We are not slaves or outcasts, we are sons and daughters of our “Abba” Father, with all the rights and privileges that come along with that. That is quite a gift, or as we usually call it: Grace.

We are steadily working our way through the entire book of Galatians. In the third chapter, Paul finally turns his attention to a pressing question, one that has been hanging in the air this whole time. Why then did the law exist at all? Paul’s answer to this, in its simplest form, is that it is our instructor or teacher. But what does it teach us? Again, simply put, Paul uses the metaphor of slavery and freedom at this point, and he says that the law teaches us that we are—whether we realize it or not—enslaved. But the good news of the gospel is that we are no longer slaves but free. Through our purchase on Calvary, we have been set free from the law of sin and death! Amen!

We continue with our in-depth study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Today we discuss Gal. 3:1-18 where Paul connects the dots between the pouring out of the Holy Spirit onto the Galatian people with the promises of God to Abraham. The thread that ties it all together is the cross of Christ where an outpouring of God's grace. It is the faith of Jesus at the cross that unlocks the promises of God, and we enter into these promises through faith in Christ.

This week, let us take a second pass at Galatians 2:15-21, especially 2:20, "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.” Today we must take a close look at three interrelated questions that flow directly out of this passage: Why must the messiah die in the first place? What is it that Jesus loves about us that would cause him to give himself for us? And why must we be “crucified with Christ”?