Union Church

Listen along as we continue our time through the letter of Galatians.

Notes//Quotes:

Listen along as we continue our journey through the letter of Galatians.

Notes//Quotes:

Galatians 2:11-19

“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.” - Brennan Manning

Proverbs 29:25

God's love is a costly love. It never takes the easy path away from relationships. Instead, it plots how to move towards other people. It thinks creatively of ways to surprise them with love. - Ed Welch

“Dikaiosynē and pistis are chief among the qualities which make human associations possible.… For Cicero and others, pistis/fides and dikaiosynē are jointly foundational for any state. Sometimes justice is specified as the foundation of trust, and sometimes trust of justice.… When pistis/fides and dikaiosynē/iustitia come together in Greek and Roman texts, the power of each to forge social relationships, create polities, and change socio-political landscapes is multiplied.” - Teresa Morgan

“Paul’s approach makes all the difference. Paul did not simply say: You’re breaking the rules (even though Peter was), but: You’ve forgotten the gospel: your own gracious welcome in Christ. Paul did not focus so much on the sinful behavior as on the sinful attitude of self-righteousness that lay beneath it. God did not have fellowship with you on the basis of your race and culture (v 15). Though you were good and devout, your race and customs had nothing to do with it (v 16). Therefore, how can you have fellowship on the basis of race and culture (v 14) - Tim Keller

[Pistis] is, first and foremost, neither a body of beliefs nor a function of the heart or mind, but a relationship which creates community.  - Teresa Morgan

To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God's grace means. As Thomas Merton put it, "A saint is not someone who is good but who experiences the goodness of God…My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.” Brennan Manning 

Listen along as we continue our journey through Galatians.

Notes//Quotes:

Galatians 2:1-10 - Faith C. Reading

“It was one thing for the Jerusalem leaders to give their approval to the conversion of the Gentiles, but could they approve of … commitment to the Messiah without inclusion in Judaism? Was their vision big enough to see the gospel of Christ not as a reform movement within Judaism but as good news for the whole world, and the church of Christ … as the international family of God?” - John Stott

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in…15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. 

Hudson Taylor picture?

“Nothing that we despise in other men is inherently absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don't do, and more in light of what they suffer.” 

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” 

Questions:

2. Do I struggle with hypocrisy? What ways am I prone to it?

Listen along as we continue our series through the book of Galatians.

Notes//Quotes:

Galatians 1:11-24 

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” - John 6:37

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.” John 15:16

Genesis 12:1-3

1 Peter 2:9-10

“But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.” - Luke 5:15-16 

“In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God.” - Luke 6:12

Ephesians 2:8-10

Connection Points:

Listen along as we continue our time through Galatians.

Notes//Quotes:

Galatians 1:6-10 - Kim J Reading

That was another reason why local Jewish communities wo“Seen from an outsider’s perspective, Paul had done something totally unacceptable both to the local Jewish community and to the wider Greco-Roman society, the social and civic fabric of the towns in southern Turkey. For the Jews, he had declared that anyone who belonged to Messiah Jesus was part of Abraham’s family, an heir-in-waiting to the worldwide promises of Genesis, Isaiah, and the Psalms. For the local pagan communities, he had, without a by-your-leave, established a network of communities whose members did not worship the local gods, offering as their excuse the strange claim that they were Abraham’s family and thus entitled to the privilege granted to the Jewish communities.That was another reason why the local Jewish Communities would be horrified: If this new group were to claim the same exemption, without in fact being ethnically Jewish, would not the pagan authorities clamp down and maybe attack them all? Paul was upsetting the delicate, and at times fraught, social balance.”

“When the glow of justification is ascribed to another, and a snare is laid for the consciences of men, the Savior no longer occupies his place, and the doctrine of the gospel is utterly ruined.”

“First, it teaches that good works are enough to get to God. If all good people can know God, then Jesus’ death was not necessary; all it takes is virtue. The trouble is, this means bad people have no hope, contradicting the gospel, which invites “both good and bad” to God’s feast (Matthew 22:10). If you say people are saved by being good, then only “the good” can come in to God’s feast. The gospel offer becomes exclusive, not inclusive. Second, it encourages people to think that if they are tolerant and open, they are pleasing to God. They don’t need grace—they get eternal life for themselves. And so “glory for ever” (v 5) goes to them, for being good enough for heaven. The gospel, however, challenges people to see their radical sin. Without that sense of one’s own evil, the knowledge of God’s grace will not be transforming, and we will not understand how much God is glorified by the presence of anyone at all in heaven.”

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” 

Questions:

To whom or what are we really looking to for salvation and to make sense of the world in which we live?

Listen along as we begin our series through the book of Galatians.

Notes//Quotes:

Galatians 1:1-5 - Larry and Jorgen Reading

Galatians 1:1-5

Acts 15:6-11

“Paul was against the legalism of the Judaizers because it usurped the work of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit and forced all converts to become Jews. It was not what was done that rankled Paul; it was why these things were done that produced his quick reaction. The system is one of “addition by subtraction”— adding to the gospel by subtracting the sufficiency of Christ and the Spirit.” - Scot McKnight

“Paul was preaching—and this is what the letter to the Galatians is all about—that whenever anyone believes in the crucified Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and the risen Lord, that is already a sign that such a person is part of God’s true people, no matter what the person’s ethnic or moral background may be. New believers from a gentile background, Paul taught, were full members of God’s people without the demand for circumcision. Nor did they need the other regular signs of Jewish identity, the Sabbath and the food laws.” - NT Wright

”In this short letter, Paul outlines the bombshell truth that the gospel is the A to Z of the Christian life. It is not only the way to enter the kingdom; it is the way to live as part of the kingdom. It is the way Christ transforms people, churches and communities. We’re going to hear him solving their issues not through telling them to “be better Christians”, but by calling them to live out the implications of the gospel. Paul will explain to us that the truths of the gospel changes life from top to bottom; that they transform our hearts, our thinking and our approach to absolutely everything. The gospel—the message that we are more wicked than we ever dared believe, but more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared hope—creates a radical new dynamic for personal growth, for obedience, for love.” - Tim Keller, Galatians For You

1 Cor 3:10-15 

“The church is a community that exists because something has happened that makes the entire process of self-justification irrelevant. God’s truth and mercy have appeared in concrete form in Jesus and, in his death and resurrection, have worked the transformation that only God can perform, told us what only God can tell us: that he has already dealt with the dreaded consequences of our failure, so that we need not labor anxiously to save ourselves and put ourselves right with God.” - Rowan Williams

Values Graphic

“As a country we are turning away from religion, from community involvement, from patriotism, from marriage, from having children. We are turning toward money, toward work, toward politicizing everything, toward fewer interactions with people, toward more time online. How are our choices working for us? We are becoming less happy, more stressed, more depressed.” - Maxwell Anderson

Listen along as we look at the reality and ramifications of the resurrection.

Notes//Quotes:

Galatians 1:1-5

“One could simply dismiss the resurrection as a lie, and declare belief in the risen Jesus to be the product of a deludable mind. However, there is this nagging fact to consider: one after another of those who claimed to have witnessed the risen Jesus went to their own gruesome deaths refusing to recant their testimony. That is not, in itself, unusual. Many zealous Jews died horribly for refusing to deny their beliefs. But these first followers of Jesus were not being asked to reject matters of faith based on events that took place centuries, if not millennia, before. They were being asked to deny something they themselves personally, directly encountered.” - Reza Aslan

“The complaint of the depressive individual, “Nothing is possible,” can only occur in a society that thinks, “Nothing is impossible.” The depressive has been wounded by internalized war. Depression is the sickness of a society that suffers from excessive positivity. It reflects a humanity waging war on itself. The exhausted, depressive achievement-subject grinds itself down, so to speak. It is tired, exhausted by itself, and at war with itself. Entirely incapable of stepping outward, of standing outside itself, of relying on the Other, on the world, it locks its jaws on itself; paradoxically, this leads the self to hollow and empty out. It wears itself out in a rat race it runs against itself.” - Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society

“Paul's point (in writing) is not simply that God is now my Father and I am now His son. God, in Jesus' great work of redemption, was not establishing a series of isolated personal relationships with His individual followers. He was creating a family of sons and daughters—siblings—who are now "all one in Christ Jesus.” The saving work of Christ therefore has a corporate, as well as an individual, dimension. For Paul, the church is a family.” - Joseph Hellerman, When the Church Was A Family

“This isn’t about “going to heaven.” It is about the launch of God’s “age to come” here and now, in the midst of the messy “present evil age.” For Paul the “new age” began, when Jesus of Nazareth came out of the tomb on the first Easter morning. The gospel message is all about something that has happened in Jesus, as a result of which the world is a different place. Jesus-followers are summoned to recognize that they now live in that different world and are to order their lives accordingly.” - N.T. Wright

Our true Good Shepherd

Jon reflects on aspects and angles of the cross in the book of Galatians.

Notes//Quotes:

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” - Galatians 1:3-5

“From beginning to end, the Holy Scriptures testify that the predicament of fallen humanity is so serious, so grave, so irremediable from within, that nothing short of divine intervention can rectify it.” - Fleming Rutledge

“Self-denial is not denying to ourselves luxuries such as chocolates, cakes, cigarettes and cocktails (although it might include this); it is actually denying or disowning ourselves, renouncing our supposed right to go our own way.” - John Stott

 “You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a spell on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.” - Galatians 3:1 - The Message

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought

My sin, not in part, but the whole

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul - It is Well - Horatio Spafford

“But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” - Galatians 6:13-15

Listen along as we wrap up the book of Lamentations.

Notes//Quotes:

Kim J Reading Lamentations 5:16-22

Title: Learning Lament

“Psychological closure for the community remains outside the range of this set of poems. It lay much further ahead and could not be achieved, so dramatic were the experiences they had undergone and were still undergoing. The modern preoccupation with closure impatiently rushes the sufferer to a premature conclusion. Closure must be allowed to take its own time. It is marked by the eventual acceptance that is able to integrate previous suffering into one’s life.”

Psalm Laments:

“…Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.” - Num. 11:4-6

“how long will this people despise Me. How long will they not believe in Me in spite of all the signs I have done among them?” - Num. 14:11

“whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” 

 “I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they” - Num. 14:12

Snowflake: “is someone who has a an inflated sense of uniqueness, an unwarranted sense of entitlement, are over-emotional, easily offended, and unable to deal with opposing opinions.” - Wikipedia

“Here the community is confessing the generational solidarity involved in its sinning.” - Leslie Allen

“The possibility of being beyond redemption is so alarming that many Jews refuse to end their reading of Lamentations with the book’s final verse. To this day, whenever the book is read, it is the custom in many synagogues to repeat verse 21 after verse 22.”

Listen along as we go through Lamentations chapter 4 and see how sin impacted every aspect of society and the hope for God's people then and now.

Notes//Quotes:

Lamentations 4:11-22 - Larry and Jorgen Reading

Lamentations 4 breakdown:

“No English word quite captures it, though the older ‘Alas!’ came close. ‘Oh!’ and ‘Ah!’ are too trivial. The common rendering, ‘How …!’ treats it as an exclamation, but the word also contains an element of questioning: ‘How? Why?’ It stands at the head of the three darkest chapters in the book (1, 2 and 4), and it carries a sense of ‘How come? How can this possibly have happened?’ This is baffled pain, astonished suffering, lament mingled with protest, disbelief and questions.” - Chris Wright

Jeremiah 2:1-3

Jeremiah 2:11-13

"On this rock we can be destroyed: but it is rock, not quicksand. There is the chance to build.” - Derek Kidner

Jeremiah 6:13-15

Rejoice and be glad! That’s the first surprise. Could there be any human being capable of rejoicing in the midst of the horrors described in this whole chapter? The words shock us, until we see to whom they are addressed—Lady Edom. And then we perceive their sharp irony. From the prophet Obadiah and others we know that Edom not only refused to help Judah when Nebuchadnezzar invaded, but rejoiced in the downfall of Jerusalem, took advantage of it to seize some of Judah’s wealth, and assisted in the capture of the fleeing population. ‘Go ahead then,’ says the Poet. ‘Enjoy your treachery while you can, but know that God’s judgment is coming your way soon.’ The cup was a standard metaphor for the wrath of God—metaphorically filled with a wine that would lead to drunkenness and exposure. And then, out of the blue, a single line of assurance to Lady Zion herself. While Edom’s judgment is yet to come, Judah’s is ‘completed’. - Chris Wright

“At their best, the prophets, priests, and kings of the Old Testament foreshadowed Christ’s coming. At their worst, they showed why his coming was so necessary.” - Philip Ryken

“Out of the miry clay