A feedback loop amplifies whatever is fed into it. In Galatians 6, Paul describes a community where the Spirit dwells and grace is produced, ever increasing — but only when the self gets out of the way. Austin Pfeiffer looks at specific ways the self breaks the loop: through self-righteous wish dreams of community, through a la carte theology, and through expecting to be served rather than to serve. The answer isn’t a program or a principle. It’s the cross — where Christ let go of his throne, poured out his blood, and adopted us as sons and daughters of the King.

Small Group Questions:

Where do you find yourself curating your faith — taking what feels comfortable from scripture and leaving the rest — and what might it look like to surrender that to sound teaching and community?

What did this passage reveal about God’s character that challenges the version of Jesus you may have quietly assembled from your own preferences and experiences?

How does this passage demonstrate that the feedback loop of grace is only possible because of justification by faith alone, not because of our own effort or spiritual performance?

Paul tells the Galatians to "walk around in the Spirit" but his point is that the Spirit is more than a means to something better. The Spirit is the source itself. Walking through Galatians 5 we see a life where believers walk about unshackled, out of chaos we receive one fruit, and we are walking toward Eden. Along the way we see the sin we rarely admit: trying to "program our way out of our flesh" through accountability and discipline. But because of Christ's finished work, we don't live in chaos, fear, and self-destruction. We do not need our own self-will. We are free and even better, we are not alone.

SMALL GROUP QUESTIONS

Where do you, or the culture around you, hold the belief that growth is mainly self-improvement and restraint, rather than walking toward the Spirit as the source?

What is your "concrete block" like Kiki the Gorilla? What is it you hold onto in anger, but in the freedom of the Spirit can lay down as a new creation?

How do we see Christ's finished work walking us past Eden into a garden city, the New Heavens and New Earth--to a world being remade?

The French Revolutionary Jacques Hébert called for a system of zealous perfection. Eventually that standard consumed everyone, including himself. For us, we follow Christ's teaching on forgiveness until it is personal. We affirm his ethic on generosity until it costs us something real. Whether it's the legalism of the Galatians or our own selective faith, both confess the same thing: that Christ is not sufficient. This sermon works through Galatians 5:2-15 to show what falling away from grace actually looks like — and how the Spirit frees us to run to him with empty hands.

Paul the apostle tells two stories in parallel: the children with no future and the children of the promise. Contrasting tales of children of a servant with no future security and children of a covenant promise whose future is secure unfold in the history of Israel. Paul maps these on to the lives of the Galatians to remind them of their inheritance in Christ, something they have quickly forgotten. And something we are quick to forget as well.

Discussion Questions for Small Groups:

1. Where do you see yourself returning to futile and temporary things because it is easier than remembering the promise in Christ?

2. What does Paul's appeal to history reveal about God's character?

3. How does this passage show that we are saved by grace alone?

Why did God give the law if his plan was always to save by grace through faith? In this sermon on Galatians 3:15-29, Austin Pfeiffer follows Paul as he steps back and re-explains the covenant from the ground up. From Abraham to Moses to now, God has had one unbroken plan: to redeem his people. The law was never a rival to that promise. It was always a servant of it. And in Christ, the inheritance that promise always pointed to has been purchased and given freely to everyone who belongs to him — no exceptions, no prerequisites.

In this sermon on Galatians 3:1–14, Austin Pfeiffer brings application Paul's ongoing, urgent plea to the Galatians and to us. That plea is to stop trying to earn our own way, when in Christ we have already received what we really need. Looking at Abraham's story in Genesis 15 and the image of a lighthouse guiding ships to harbor, the sermon diagnoses two forms of pride: striving to prove we are enough, and quietly trying to make God conform to what we want him to be. The wage we have actually earned, every one of us, is the same sentence handed to Adam: return to dust. The Gospel answer is not striving, but surrender.

Austin Pfeiffer continues in Galatians 1, posing the question: have you ever tried to describe a place so beautiful that words feel inadequate? That's Paul's challenge in Galatians 1. He's not interested in debating the Gospel. For Paul, it is a reality he is documenting. And more than that, it is a reality that seized him and turned his entire life upside down. Galatians 1 explores what it looks like when the Gospel stops being an idea you hold and becomes a power that holds you.