Sermon Tone Analysis

Bookmarks & Needs:

B: Galatians 3:1-6

B: 6-14

Housekeeping Stuff & Announcements:

Housekeeping Stuff & Announcements:

Welcome guests to the family gathering, introduce yourself.

Thank the band and Alvin.

Thank Joe for filling in for the past two weeks.

Invite guests to parlor after service.We are hosting two events on back-to-back weekends for women:Aspire Women’s Conference, an evening full of laughter, learning, stories & music.

This is the third year that we have hosted Shine.

Aspire is next Friday, September 13, from 7 to 10 pm.

You can get tickets in the church office, or online at aspirewomensevents.com.

I also believe they will be available at the door.

Flyers are available in the foyer on the Get Connected Table.The REAL Women’s Conference will be held the following weekend, September 20 and 21, from 6-9 on Friday night, and 8:15 to 3 on Saturday.

This two-day conference is intended to encourage, inspire, and equip women to shift their focus from “Why is this happening?”

to “I wonder what God is working through this?”

You can get more information in at getrealwithgod.com,

and cards are also available on the Get Connected Table.Tonight at 6:30 following our evening service in Miller Hall, Carol Smith will be sharing about her missions work in Russia at Adults on Mission.This Tuesday, September 10, the church offices will be closed for our staff calendaring retreat.Next Sunday night at 5:30 will be our bi-monthly business meeting here in the sanctuary.

Members, please plan to be here next Sunday evening.

One thing that we will be voting on will be whether to ordain Chuck Crisler as a deacon.

VIDEO TESTIMONY.

Welcome guests to the family gathering, introduce yourself.

Thank the band.

Invite guests to parlor after service.

The Aspire Women’s Conference that we hosted here on Friday was great, from what I heard.

This coming weekend, there is another opportunity for ladies to engage with each other and grow together.

The REAL Women’s Conference will be held September 20 and 21, from 6-9 on Friday night, and 8:15 to 3 on Saturday.

This two-day conference is intended to encourage, inspire, and equip women to shift their focus from “Why is this happening?”

to “I wonder what God is working through this?”

You can get more information in at getrealwithgod.com,

and cards are also available on the Get Connected Table.

I wanted to let everyone know that next Sunday night, September 22, during our evening service at 5:30, we will be ordaining Curtis Smith as a deacon.

We voted on ordaining Curtis at the March business meeting.

Any ordained men are welcome to come and be a part of Curtis’ examination at 4:00 that afternoon in Miller Hall.

Tonight at 5:30 will be our bi-monthly business meeting here in the sanctuary.

Members, please plan to be here tonight.

Last week, we watched the video testimony of Chuck and Rebecca Crisler.

We will be voting on whether to ordain Chuck as a deacon tonight.

We will also be voting on whether to ordain Wayne Whitlock as a deacon.

VIDEO TESTIMONY.

Aspire Women’s Conference, an evening full of laughter, learning, stories & music.

This is the third year that we have hosted Shine.

Aspire is next Friday, September 13, from 7 to 10 pm.

You can get tickets in the church office, or online at aspirewomensevents.com.

I also believe they will be available at the door.

Flyers are available in the foyer on the Get Connected Table.

The REAL Women’s Conference will be held the following weekend, September 20 and 21, from 6-9 on Friday night, and 8:15 to 3 on Saturday.

This two-day conference is intended to encourage, inspire, and equip women to shift their focus from “Why is this happening?”

to “I wonder what God is working through this?”

You can get more information in at getrealwithgod.com,

and cards are also available on the Get Connected Table.

This Tuesday, September 10, the church offices will be closed for our staff calendaring retreat.Next Sunday night at 5:30 will be our bi-monthly business meeting here in the sanctuary.

Members, please plan to be here next Sunday evening.

One thing that we will be voting on will be whether to ordain Chuck Crisler as a deacon.

VIDEO TESTIMONY.

This Tuesday, September 10, the church offices will be closed for our staff calendaring retreat.Next Sunday night at 5:30 will be our bi-monthly business meeting here in the sanctuary.

Members, please plan to be here next Sunday evening.

One thing that we will be voting on will be whether to ordain Chuck Crisler as a deacon.

VIDEO TESTIMONY.

Opening

Opening

Last week, I ended with verse 6 of in order to finish the sentence as the CSB has it broken down, and verses 1 through 5 were, as I said last week, full of questions of us to ask of ourselves:

How were we saved?

How do we grow?

Is there meaning in suffering for our faith?

How is God working in your life?

This last question was one that I sort of left us hanging on.

I hope that during this past week, you’ve had time to take some stock of your relationship with God as you reflected on these questions.

When Paul asked the questions he asked in verses 1-5, he was building a case for faith over law or faith over flesh.

That it is only through faith in Jesus Christ that we are justified, saved, and grow: we cannot justify ourselves.

We cannot save ourselves.

We cannot spiritually grow ourselves.

This morning, we’re going to continue our series called “Dear Church,” by looking at the beginning of Paul’s argument from Scripture regarding the Galatian Situation: and the place that he chose to start his argument was the “father” of the nation of Israel: Abraham.

Let’s open our Bibles and stand in honor of the Word of the Lord (if you’re able) while we read our focal passage today, , verses 6-14 (reading 5 for sentence context):

Pray

Just to recap, there were a group of Jewish people who claimed to be from the Christian church in Jerusalem who had come into Galatia sometime shortly after Paul and Barnabas went through and founded the Christian churches there.

These people claimed that one needed Jesus PLUS obeying the Jewish law in order to be saved.

They were called Judaizers.

Paul has been arguing against the message of the Judaizers through imagery from his own life, and then from rational question-asking, as I just mentioned.

Now, he is going to take some of their own scriptural reasoning and use it against them.

In this passage, Paul quotes the Old Testament 6 times.

6 times in 8 verses.

Five of those quotes are from the Hebrew Book of the Law, the Torah, which we have as the first five books of our Bibles: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

And masterfully, Paul takes the life of Abraham and builds his argument against the Judaizers’ focus on both earning and working to keep our salvation.

He opens up our focal passage with a quote from :

Rather than assuming that everyone here knows who Abraham was, I’m going to give a quick synopsis of his life.

We see the record of Abraham’s life in the book of Genesis, beginning sort of in chapter 11, but really picking up in chapter 12 (his name was Abram at the time… God changed it later).

When Abraham was 75, God called him out of a land called Ur, and told him to go to a land that God would show him.

Abraham packed up himself, his wife Sarah (Sarai at the time), his nephew Lot, and all of their stuff, and set out at the command of the Lord:

genesis 12:1-4

The Lord promised to Abraham that he would become a great nation (meaning that he would have many generations of offspring), and that He would bless all the nations on earth through Abraham.

Time passes and Abraham and Sarah still don’t have children.

God reminds Abraham that the promise is still in effect, and Abraham asks how that is even possible, given that he is old and doesn’t have children.

God makes the promise again in , and Abraham takes the promise on faith:

genesis 15:4-

Abraham believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

The Lord made a promise, and Abraham believed it.

Ultimately, Abraham does have a son with Sarah in their old age (Abraham was 100 at the time), named Isaac.

God later tested Abraham by telling him to take Isaac and sacrifice him as an offering to God (2), and again, Abraham hears God and believes Him, getting all the way to the point of being moments away from actually sacrificing Isaac, before God intervenes and praises Abraham’s willing obedience.

Isaac went on to have a son named Jacob, and Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, and the twelve tribes of Israel all descended from his sons.