So for those who feel confined, passed over, trapped in a menial place. Be encouraged by David’s example. When God wants to prepare us for bigger things, He teaches to first be faithful in the little things

Are you carrying someone’s burden today? Or are you only watching from a distance? Paul calls us not to isolation, but intervention in love.

In Pastor Phil's final sermon at The Gathering, he explains both the reality and necessity of the Holy Spirit's power in the Christian life. In order to grow in godliness we must learn to walk by the Spirit.

 Now, as we head into chapters 5 and 6, things get very practical. We’re still learning grace and truth—but now we’ll see how that shows up in our actual lives. Paul starts talking about what it looks like to walk in the Spirit, how we deal with temptation, how we love one another, and what real freedom in Christ looks like. 

God alone can take credit for our worthiness before Him--because every time He makes someone part of His family, He performs a miracle, like conceiving a child in the womb of a barren woman. Every time He makes someone a part of His family, they have reason to rejoice as free heirs to an extraordinary gift. Because God alone saves, we can rejoice in Him alone. 

As we move into chapter 4 and beyond, we’ll see that this freedom doesn’t lead to sin—it leads to righteousness. Not a righteousness we boast about, but one that flows from the Holy Spirit who now lives in us. “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25).

We live in a world of extremes. More often than not, we feel pressured into placing our identity in one end of an extreme or the other. The Apostle Paul puts the Law against the Promise to prove to the Galatians, and to us, that our identity should be found in neither. Our identity is to be found in Grace, knowing we are sinners in need of saving who have a Savior in Jesus.

Distortions to the gospel were drawing the Galatians away from the truth of God's grace.  Paul wrote to remind believers that we never move on from the gospel.  We are saved by grace through faith and, we live each day by grace through faith.

The Apostle Paul, with holy urgency, writes to the Galatians as a father pleading with his children (Galatians 4:19). He is bold, even direct at times, because eternity is on the line. He reminds them—and us—that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else.

Christ had paid it all—completely, permanently. But instead of resting in His finished work, the Galatians - the church in Galatia (modern-day Turkey) - were being led to believe they needed to add something to their salvation.