Isaac was a result of God's promise, while Ishmael was a result of Abraham and Sarah trying to help God out, doing it their way. And how easily can't we fall into the same trap? How easily don't we take things into our own hands. It might even be things that we have already given to God, certain areas of our lives where we have given God the control, we have said we just want His way. But then just like Abraham we come to places in our lives where we can't see how God is working, or even if He is even working at all - and we end up taking the control back again.  Read More

Galatians 4:8-20 - Paul's Concern For The Galatians Taken in isolation, we might be forgiven for thinking that Paul is being a bit heavy-handed or bossy with his choice of words in these verses. But lets not forget that verses 8-20, sit within the middle of a letter written to a group of people who Paul has invested huge amounts of time, love and energy into. He’s not just firing shots here, or at...  Read More

My sermon this week is on Galatians 3.26-4.7, and in my talk we looked at 5 awe-striking truths from this text, but in this devotion I've chosen to focus on the last bit of one sentence from Chapter 3 verse 27b; ... put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. If you heard the message you'll have heard me sharing an experience I had recently while praying to salvation with a friend. It was a beautiful moment as any moment of salvation is, but as I mention in the talk, it was also for me a bit of an aha-moment. As we were talking just before she invited Jesus into her life, my friend told me how it felt like she was dressed in a dress that was too small, as she was dressed in wrong clothes.  Read More

Our passage this week is right in the middle of a larger argument Paul is weaving through Galatians 3:1-4:7. Verses 15-25 can feel quite technical at times. But stick with them. Let them fuel your gratitude that God our Father has made us righteous through faith in his perfect son Jesus! Following a longer autobiographical section Paul is consider our relationship to the Law as believers in Christ. In our passage this week Paul emphasising to us the importance of God’s promise to Abraham, and he is exploring the purpose of the Law.  Read More

This week in our sermon on Galatians, I contemplated what it was like to experience the situation through Paul’s (the Apostle) eyes. To feel what he felt when dealing with the Galatians, and mirror that in my own life. It’s the best way to experience the Bible by looking at the context the passage was written in and looking at it from the writer's perspective.  Read More

My sermon this week is on Galatians 2:11-21. I focus most of our time in that message on the Confrontation between Peter and Paul, but today I want to pick out a particular verse in this passage where Paul uses some interesting language to unveil a deep truth about the gospel. In verse 20 Paul says this “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”. On the face of it, this is just an interesting metaphor to show the starkness of the difference of the Christian’s life, but I want to suggest to you that it’s more than that.  Read More