Yeah. Pray with me. Father, we declare that you are the only one who is worthy. You're the only one who never fails. You're the only one who we can bank our lives on because your faithfulness has been proven a thousand generations. God, you're worthy to be praised. And so now I pray that you would meet all of us here. There are some of us here, God, who, uh, who have experienced your rich grace and mercy and power and freedom that, that we have because of Jesus and what he has done. And then God, there are some of us who have joined, uh, whether it is, uh, here in this place or in in overflow, in the hub at all of our campuses, Fenton, mid Rivers, grants trailed, those who are watching online. God, there are people who've just been showing up since Christmas. And God, I know they have questions. Maybe for starters, just does this place ever talk about anything other than Jesus? Here we are altogether. Father, I pray that you would meet us in this moment. Speak to us through your word. Holy Spirit, come move now in this place, in all these places. In Jesus' name we all pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Alright, you guys can go ahead and have a seat wherever you are. I'll let the bands and musicians head on out. Thank you guys so much. Um, everybody doing okay? It's been quite a week, huh? Kind of feels good to just get out, doesn't it? Yeah. For those of you who are watching this online, uh, you may not know this, but we, we've had quite a week here in St. Louis with a lot of snow and ice, and some of us have been kind of, uh, holed up in our houses and miss school and work and all that kinda stuff. How many of you, lemme just ask you, how many of you enjoyed a little winter hibernation this week? Yeah. Some of you get a kick out of that. Just get a chance to drink some hot cocoa and get outside and play in the snow is good, right? How many of you over time were like, okay, I'm starting to get a little cabin fever. Yeah. Yeah. Where you're like, look, I love the people in my house, but not this much. Right? Or maybe you were like, there's only so much nineties television I can binge. Uh, like the walls are starting to close in on me and I'm starting to feel a little bit claustrophobic and I'm ready to get out right now. That word claustrophobia, we kind of use that word jokingly, but that's like a real thing, isn't it? Claustrophobic? Does anybody know what that is? It's the fear of Yeah. Enclosed spaces. Anybody ever actually experience that for real? Like this, this, this moment where you're kind of closed in and it's like scary and you kinda start to get anxious? Anybody been there? Yeah. You guys with me? Hello? Alright. Alright. Good? Yeah. Yeah. A couple of you nodding your heads. So I'm like nine years old, a little. I'm like, I'm a kid. And, um, and, uh, me and another kid, uh, from a family friend, we went to the Magic House. You guys know what the Magic House is, okay? Some of you, if you're not from here and you haven't heard of it, uh, just imagine it's, um, it's, it's a rickety old house that somebody put a bunch of, uh, games and science experiments and, and toys and things like that where kids could learn and they could come and play. And it was kind of hodgepodge. Each room is different. And then it kind of caught on and people actually pay money to take their kids in the magic house. And so then they started to expand. And it's just, it like, like there wasn't a master plan. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and more, uh, scattered. Am I getting it? Is that about right? It's educational, but entertaining. It's edutaining, I think is the technical word for that. Okay. Magic house. So, um, I am at the Magic House. I'm a little kid, and at that time there was this, um, exhibit called the touch Tunnel. Anybody remember the touch tunnel? Okay. It's like this room where they had completely covered it in this eighties shag carpet. And, um, and you, it's like a maze and you have to go under things and over things and around things and through things, and you have to find your way through the touchstone. There's just, there's a catch. It's pitch black, the lights are out, you can't see a thing. And so, uh, I didn't really want to go in the touch tunnel, but this other kid was going. So I followed him in and kids are running around and screaming and having a ball and not me. I am like, I want to get through this thing. Where do I go? And so I'm navigating my way around and finally I end up in this corner. I can't see a thing. And now every place I touch is shag carpet. And I'm like, I'm stuck. Like I'm trapped in here. And I started to get really, really anxious. I was claustrophobic. I started to like cry out for help. Like, help somebody get me out of this place. I started to cry, uh, eventually this old guy, I think he was like a custodian for the Magic House, he found me and kinda led me out. I mean, I made it out of the touch tunnel eventually. I'm here with you now, so that's the good news. But, um, but I, it was like scary. And, uh, and there was a minute there where I just, I, I felt stuck. You ever been there? Yes. Yeah. Now, sometimes it's not just, uh, uh, like a literal kind of stuck, but we use this language when we're talking about being stuck, like in our lives. Sometimes we get stuck in a bad career, a bad job, or a a a where we get stuck in a relationship or we get stuck in an addiction, this ongoing bad habit that we, we can't seem to kick. Um, here's what I want to ask you guys. When it comes to being stuck, what are the feelings that we associate with this idea of being stuck? Um, can you help me with this? I would love for you guys to actually even talk to some of the people that you're sitting around and just come up with like words that describe what it feels like. Not in a literal sense, but like, when we're stuck in life, what are the words that we feel that we associate with being stuck? Okay? And if you would, grab your phones, go into the app and tell us what words you would use to describe that feeling. 'cause we're gonna have a conversation about this later, and you can help me with that. But go ahead, talk to each other. What's it like to be stuck? Okay, we'll come back to this later. Um, we, we will talk about this some more, but let me just, let me, let me tell you guys why I wanted to start our conversation today around this idea of being stuck. Because for the next few weeks, we're gonna go into a conversation together where we're gonna open up God's word and we're gonna study the book of Galatians. Now, this is a letter that Paul wrote. It's a small letter that we find in our New Testaments. And we'll, he wrote it to some churches in a region. We'll get to all of that here in just a little bit. But, um, but what we're calling this conversation on Galatians is we're calling it Unleashed. And to be honest with you, I can't think of a better word to describe the main message in this letter that Paul wrote to the Galatians, but I also can't think of a better word. Like for us here at the beginning of a new year, as we head into this next stage of life, um, this, this word unleashed matters. And let me tell you why I think that is. I want you to just for a minute, imagine with me that you're living in an uncertain time where peace and human flourishing feels like it could be hanging by a thread. Can you get there in your imagination? Are you with me? Okay. Um, now just imagine that there's different disagreement between different groups of people about what's going on in this world and what right living should look like. There's different disagreement about what's wrong with the world and who's responsible for it and what needs to be done. And occasionally tempers will flare up and people will get really upset. And misinformation seems to keep spreading among the community so that nobody knows quite what's true and what isn't. Now, does any of that sound familiar? Now here's what's interesting. What I just described for you is what it was like in the first century in this region of Galatia that Paul's writing to. But of course the joke is it could just as easily be for today, right? So here's the thing. The truth is, today there are all kinds of big issues in this world that we're facing and we're trying to figure out what to make of it. And a lot of us have really strong opinions about what's going on in the world, but in reality, we, it, it gets really personal too, because some of you have really big ideas and dreams and goals and desires and things that you want to accomplish in this life. And sometimes it seems to go along really smoothly. But every once in a while, all of us get stuck. And so we start searching for answers. We start searching for ways to get ahead. We might consult like, like all kinds of self-help books or listen to podcasts or experts or life coaches. We've gone through all of these kinds of things and some of us, we get to a place where at the end of all of that, we still feel stuck, whether it's, uh, trying to build a business or raise a family, or maybe we're just asking like, what's wrong with me? Why do I not feel okay? Some of us, if we're honest, we just wish we could not be lonely anymore. If I could just find meaningful relationships and, and, and community in a way in which I felt like I was loved and I belonged and, and that would fill my tank if, why am I stuck in these relationships? Now, here's what I know. There's some of you, first of all, all of us feel this way at some time or another. Some of you are feeling it right now, but I also know that there are some of you who would never admit this stuff out loud. That's okay. I'm just saying this is a part of the human experience. All of us get to this place at times where we feel stuck and we don't know where else to turn. And it leads us to these deeper questions, doesn't it? Questions like, what's the meaning of all of this? Why am I even here? What am I supposed to be pursuing? We might even get to questions about like, is there a God? And if there is a God, what does it look like for me to be right with him or whatever that looks like? I I have questions about the meaning of life and why we go through all of this suffering at times and stuckness. And sometimes we get trapped. We get trapped in the empty promises that are made by things like religion and politics and philosophies, consumerism, idolatry. Sometimes it's even more personal than that. We're stuck in our own guilt or shame or depression or anxiety. All of this. Well, listen, this is exactly why we're gonna study this letter to the Galatians together. I mean, it, it, it's gonna be so helpful to us because Paul says some things that just, I want you to hear some words that Paul writes in the letter to the Galatians. And I just as I read these to you, I want you to do me a favor. Just listen and ask yourself if there isn't something deep within you that resonates with these words, if there isn't something down inside that just kind of breathes deeply and goes, yes, that's what my soul belongs for. That's what I want. Here's what Paul says in Galatians chapter five. He says, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free stand firm then. And do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery freedom. I think that's what we want. Now, that's a complicated word, and it's gonna take some time for us to unpack all that Paul means by that kind of freedom. But at the same time, don't you sense that this is a part, part of what we were made for. We wanna live our lives unhindered. We wanna live our lives in a way that isn't constrained by somebody else's opinions or somebody else's ideas about how we should live or some set of rules that we're not sure we signed up for. We want to be free. We want to live our lives unleashed. See? So that's where we're going now, um, ultimately this kind of a life that Galatians is pointing us to this kind of freedom that we were, we were called to, or that we were created for. Uh, it it, it all begins with coming to terms with the lavish, unfathomable gift that God has given us that we, uh, receive through Jesus Christ. We called that word, um, grace. So a big part of what we're gonna be talking about in the weeks to come is this grace unleashed in our lives. See, we're invited to receive a kind of gift from God that is God's size. It is so big, it is so incomprehensible, it's so beautiful and so uncalled for. It's so shocking. But when this gift of grace finds its way into the corners of our lives, what you'll find over and over again is it never runs out. It only runs over. And then it begins to run over into our relationships and into the lives that we're living. And this is the next thing that we start to experience in this life, is that this God's grace invites us to experience a love from him that is so big that we are compelled to share that love with other people. Paul says, this is what happens when you have faith in what God has done. He says that we don't use our freedom that God's given us to fulfill our own selfish desires, to indulge the flesh, but rather he says we serve one another humbly in love. Now, that's not a commandment Paul's giving us here. He's saying it's just the natural result of what happens when we realize how much we've been loved by God. And it changes us. It changes our relationships, it changes our communities. And yes, it even has the power to change the world. Indeed, that is what God had in mind with all of this. And so what happens is we start to see that God's love is unleashed in our lives and in our world and in our communities. Now, quick side note about love unleashed. You guys need to know that this is a church that lives this out in really practical, beautiful ways like all the time. In fact, a lot of you who have been following the news this week about these wildfires that are happening in Southern California, and it's just devastating to see the loss of homes, the loss of communities, all of this stuff that is happening there. And and there are many of you that are going, well, what do we do? Like, how do we help in these moments? Now, I don't know if you have like followed this in social media and started to read some of the really ugly things that people say about this, where they get political or they get, uh, judgemental or all that kind of stuff. This is an opportunity, I think for the church to step forward and say, we will be the people of Jesus and we will simply love and serve. And so I love that some of you're asking what can we do to help? Well, our partner in these kinds of moments always is going to be convoy of hope. This is an amazing organization. This are already on the ground in southern California doing really, really good work. And uh, you guys need to know that as a church, we have already, uh, donated to Convoy of Hope to help support the stuff that they are doing. But if you'd like to be a part of that with us, you can go to our website, you can go to the Crossing Church slash Disaster Relief, and you can contribute to Convoy of Hope so that they can continue to serve the people in, uh, Southern California with everything that they're dealing with there. This is what it looks like for us to love the way we have been loved. It's a way for us to serve humbly in love as Paul was talking about, and I love that we get to do this together. When you love this kind of way, a kind of joy starts to bubble up in your lives and it teaches us to be like more patient with one another. And there's a goodness and a kindness and a gentleness and a faithfulness. But we'll have to come back to all of these words before we're done studying Galatians. The point is, we only get to live this kind of life together when we realize that the o only way this happens is when we accept something that God offers us that couldn't be more personal, it couldn't be more powerful, but it couldn't be more real and more intimate. One of the things Paul tells us is that when we trust in what Jesus has done by faith, he says, we receive the promise of the Spirit. The very spirit of God Paul says is unleashed in our lives. And it changes everything now in his church and in his people. God begins to move and this, this, this is how we flourish. It's how we live the life we were created for. It's how we move forward together and it's how we live, uh, uh, into God's good plans and purposes for this creation that he hasn't given up on all of this. All of this is what we have in store for us in this little letter to the Galatians. How about that? But now, in order for us to understand it and really get our minds around, uh, just everything that's going on in all of this message, well, we've gotta start to understand the circumstances of this letter. We need to understand who Paul is, who he's writing to, what the circumstances are, what he's talking about. All of that's gonna be important for us to get this message. And so one of the things I love is that as we go through this, we're going to like be sharing some really practical Bible study tools along the way. Can I tell you why I'm excited about that? Because I know there's a bunch of you who've been studying God's word these days and you want to understand it better and you want to pick it apart and you wanna be able to read it for yourselves. And you've asked us like, what are ways that I can understand it? How can I dig into scripture on my own? Well, we're gonna give you some really practical ways you can do that along the way as we go through this series, okay? But all of that is gonna help us get to this really big message that Paul has for us. So with all of that, um, are you ready? No. But like, are you sure? 'cause I'm gonna tell you what Galatians you, I you'll see it's a wild ride. It's gonna be so much fun. And I don't even know what to say right now, except, uh, is it like giddy up? Buckle up. Uh, let's go on your mark. Get set. Galatians chapter one verse one. Here we go. Paul, an apostle sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the father who raised him from the, from the dead and all the brothers and sisters with me to the churches in Galatia. That's Paul's beginning of his letter, to be honest with you. That's a pretty standard intro. It's kind of like our dear so and so, okay? Um, but uh, Paul includes a little detail in here that we'll probably need to come back to maybe later, maybe like next week or something. But I wanna keep reading. Verse three. He says, grace and peace to you from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself four our sins to rescue us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Now, Paul is barely getting started and he's already preaching here and there's so much in these few sentences that we could unpack. But I'll tell you what, if we slowed down and unpacked every profound thing Paul says in this letter, we would never get through it. So we gotta keep moving. There's something I want you to see in verse six. Paul goes on to say, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Alright, now we're getting into it. So let's stop here for just a second. Now, did you guys notice anything about Paul's language at the beginning of this letter? He uses this word astonished. Now, technically, uh, Paul's writing in Greek. And so the word that he uses in the Greek is the word falso. And uh, the truth is, uh, different. Um, translations, we'll use different words here. They'll say he's shocked, he's amazed. Uh, he's marveling at, um, my, one of my favorites is the voice translation translates this sentence. Paul says, frankly, I am stunned. Isn't that good? Paul is stunned, shocked, astonished at what is happening in this circumstance. Now, that is not a normal way for Paul to start off a letter. In fact, usually there there's a, there's kind of a, a, a pattern. There's a, a way in which Paul greets the people that he's writing to. I wanna just show you some of the other letters Paul wrote and how he starts off his conversation with them. So just like Romans one, he says, first I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you. One Corinthians one, I always thank my God for you because of his grace. Philippians one, I thank my God every time I remember you. And then Colossians, we always thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we pray for you, I could keep going with some of the letters that Paul has in his, in, in, in our New Testament. But are you picking up on a pattern here? Galatians is a little different. Now, this is an easy one. One of these things is not like the other, but I want you to turn to the people around you again, the ones you were just talking to, and just what are you noticing here? What stands out to you? What do you think is going on in Galatians that's a little different from these other letters? Can you just kinda speculate a little bit? Go ahead. All right. Did you guys figure it out? What do you notice in Paul's intro to Galatians? What, what, what, what would you say about this? What do you notice? It's blunt. It's blunt. Like he gets right to it, doesn't he? Yeah. Anything else? He's angry. He's angry. Yeah. Something crawled up Paul Tunic. He is not Okay. Right? That's it. That's good. So when you look at what a different people say about this, everyone agrees Paul is really upset about something. In fact, Eugene Peterson, I love the way he puts this. He says, Paul is angry. He's not just mildly indignant, he is furious. Now my version of this is that part of why I think this letter is so much fun and it's so engaging is, is Paul is passionate. One of the reasons that it's gonna be so fun for us to go through this together is because really one of the themes in this letter is that it is Paul who is unleashed. Unhinged is a little bit more like it. I mean he is upset. And you see this over and over and over in this letter. Now, just to make the point, let me show you a few other little verses that come out of Galatians. This is just, you'll see the theme. Um, Paul says things like those people let them be under God's curse. I opposed him to his face. That's a fun one. And we'll come back to that. You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, I am perplexed about you. And then one of my favorites. See what large letters I write to you in my own hand. Paul's mad. I mean, he is like, he is fired up in this letter. I haven't even showed you the harshest thing. He says in this letter, you can go look it up for yourselves this week. Galatians chapter five, you won't believe it's in your Bibles, but it's there and we'll talk about it. We're gonna have to 'cause it comes into the conversation. But Paul is just super angry. The question is why? Well, we saw it in the intro that we looked at, because he says, you are quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ. And you are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Paul has spent his life suffered, in fact to try to share the good news about Jesus. Now that word gospel is the word Paul uses. It just simply means good news. And what Paul is saying is that he is upset that he has shared this good news with people. And as soon as he left, somebody else crept in and began to say to these people, Paul didn't give you the whole truth, because the truth is that there's something more that you have to do. In other words, Paul shared with these people in Galatia the good news about the freedom that they have in Jesus. And then somebody comes along behind, uh, Paul and takes that freedom away from them and it makes Paul so angry. Uh, so what's going on here? Well, listen. In order to understand the message of this letter, we've gotta now layer it with different pieces of context, right? We, we, we need to understand what's going on. And so we're gonna kind of, in order to get more specific, we're gonna kind of zoom out here a little bit. See, there's an old, old way of looking at, at, at, at studying scripture that Bible scholars use. I first learned it from a scholar named, uh, Joel Green outta Fuller Seminary. But I think it goes way before him. It goes way back. But the idea is you gotta read scripture looking through three worlds. This is your first kind of practical Bible study tool, okay? You gotta look through three worlds. The first world is the world in front of the text. Now, that's today. That's all the things that you bring with you when you come to scripture. It's all the questions we have, all of the things we're searching for in scripture. It's all of the assumptions we make, things we think we already know about what the Bible says. It's our worldview. It's all of that stuff. So like, um, you know, today the questions we might ask of Shishi, uh, you might have questions about identity or about what it means to be human in light of the technological age that we live in today. These are fairly new questions that we might ask when we come to the text. That's the world in front of the text. Does that make sense? Now there's actually even more to it because, uh, we've had like 2000 years of history since this letter was written. And so some of the things we might bring to the text are like, um, our thoughts about, uh, the industrial Revolution or the Enlightenment or the Protestant Reformation. All of that plays into the worldviews and assumptions that we have that we bring to scripture. So we have to be aware of those. If we're going to understand what the Bible is saying to us, we have to have the world in front of the text. But here's the thing, we don't start there before we look at the world in front of the text. We need to talk about the world within the text, which this world is literally just looking at the words on the page and trying to understand what we're seeing in front of us. Like what's, what kind of writing is this? Is the author being, uh, poetic or are they being literal? Is this metaphor or is this, uh, some kind of historical account? Or is this like it is in this case? Is this a letter that somebody's writing somebody else? That's all the world within the text. Just a minute ago when we looked at some of the other letters that Paul wrote, and we saw how he kicked off all of those letters in comparison to Galatians, we were looking at the world within the text. But where most Bible scholars usually start is not in front of the world, in front of the text, not the world within, but it's the world behind the text. What's going on in Paul's day? What's the history? What's the culture? Who's he writing to? What's going on with them? What are some things that we know about Paul? Who is this guy? What, what's he saying in light of what has just happened in history? All of that is the world behind the text. And that's where bible scholars start when they're trying to understand what scripture says. It's also where you history buffs get so excited. 'cause now we're gonna talk about the Roman Empire and we're probably gonna look at a couple of maps along the way. In fact, some of you might feel a map coming on right about now. This is where Galatia is according to, um, to, to the map. So this would be like, um, modern day Turkey. Uh, in those days it would've been called Asia Minor and Galatia was right there smack in the middle. Now, for centuries when people were studying scripture, they believed that Paul was writing to a region in Northern Galacia. And the main reason that they believed that was because it was the only Galatia they really knew of. This was a region where, uh, a a bunch of people had migrated from France around 300 bc they were called the Galls. That's where the, the word Galatia comes from. And now they've settled into this northern region. And so when people were interpreting scripture, they were interpreting it through that lens. This is who Paul was writing to. He's writing to the northern region of Galatia. The only problem is there's not a lot of information in the Bible about what Paul experienced in that northern region. So in 1893, a fellow by the name of Sir William Ramsey was studying scripture. He was a scientist, he was an archeologist. Um, he was looking at scripture and he became fascinated in particular with the book of of Acts. Now, the Book of Acts is just a book that comes right after the four gospels in your New Testament. And it tells the history of the, the beginning of the church. And it also covers Paul's missionary journeys, all of the places that Paul went. Now in acts, there are all these little details like certain towns that Paul visited, certain things that happened, certain moments in history. And Sir William Ramsey was amazed that every time he put one of those details and acts to the check to the test, he would find that it was true. And so he began to do some archeological discovery and some, some research. And what he found is there were these towns in the southern region of Galatia that nobody ever thought actually existed. But the Bible talks about them. And what Ramsey discovered is that these towns absolutely existed. So it it's all historically accurate, accurate. It actually proved that what Luke was saying in acts was true. It's amazing stuff. So ever since then, ever since he made that discovery, most bible scholars, there's, there's still some debate today, but most of the scholars would agree that when Paul wrote Galatians, he wasn't writing it to the northern region, he was actually writing it to the southern region. Now, can I just tell you how much I love it when I get to share those kinds of details with you? And I just watch your eyes just glaze over. So fun, so fun. There's a whole bunch of you right now that are going, Tim, who cares? Can I just give you a couple of reasons why I think this is so significant and important for our study together? First one is this, for those of you who have questions about the Bible and whether or not this book can be trusted, whether or not it's true, whether or not it stands up to scrutiny in our skepticism, this is another, just another example of how it does. You can trust what the Bible says time and time again when people have set out to disprove what scripture says. Uh, using histor, uh, history and that kind of thing, the Bible has stood up to the test. It's amazing stuff. So that's the first thing. The second reason this is so important is because when we read this letter through the lens of Paul writing to Southern Galatia, now we have all kinds of stories and details and everything just springs to life. You know why? Because we have an account of Paul's visit to Southern Galatia in Acts chapters 13 and 14. So now we know he knows these people. He preached to gospel to them. Many of them came to accept who Jesus is because of Paul's preaching to them. We also know that these towns like Lira and Derby and I Iconium that Paul was actually there, that in Lira, he was almost stoned to death and kicked out of the town, but he marched right back in so that he could keep telling people about Jesus. We know that Paul cared about these people so much that at the end of his journey when he was getting ready to head back home, he retraced his steps through these towns just to check on him, see how they were doing, and making sure that they had gotten the message. Paul loves these people. It adds all kinds of color and nuance and beauty to the letter that we're going to be looking at. Now, there's one more reason why I think it's so important that it's the southern region. And I won't go into as much detail here, but I will just tell you that what that means is you can put the dating of this letter somewhere around 48 or 49 ad again, some of you're like, who cares? 48, 49 ad that's like, you know what that means? That means this is one of the earliest books we have in our New Testament. It was, it could have been Paul's first letter, but even more than that, it means that what Paul is writing in this letter was written within 20 years of the resurrection of Jesus. 20 years. Now, you just gotta think about that. 20 years is not a lot of time at all. I mean, how many of you, just by show of hands, just here in Chesterfield anywhere, raise your hand. How many of you have been around for at least 20 years? Yeah, I'd say like most of us. Okay, so, so it's not that long ago. I I I was married just a little over 21 years ago. Nine 11 happened a little over 23 years ago. If you go back exactly 20 uh, years to let's just say 2004 'cause we're just kicking off 2025. Uh, do you know what was going on in 20, uh, 2004? Well, the Facebook was launched. That's not a typo, that's what it was called. The Facebook was launched in 2004. Tom Brady won his second Super Bowl in 2004, uh, uh, that year at the Oscars Lord of the Rings return of the King won best picture as well. It should. And if none of those details matter to you, there was a little couple, uh, Ross and Rachel got back together in 2004. That wasn't that long ago. Some of us, all of those details are like still fresh in our heads. We remember some of those kinds of things. Okay? So if Paul wrote this letter to the Galatians 20 years, within 20 years of the resurrection, do you know what that means when he says things like Jesus is the Messiah who rose from the dead? Jesus is Lord. There would've been plenty of people around who would've remembered and would've been able to say to Paul, Paul, that's a, that's a conspiracy theory about Jesus. It's been debunked. You're crazy. Let it go. But that's not what happened. What happened? You start to see this message start to spread and now there are churches popping up all over the Mediterranean region. People are coming to Jesus and trusting him is their risen Lord and Savior. And what's more, this letter becomes so important that they start to distribute it to churches in this region. It starts to get circulated around to a whole bunch of different places. And it becomes so popular that we now have it in our bibles for us to read today. Apparently Paul's message to the Galatians was that significant. It was that trustworthy and it was that important. And that is what we are now going to spend the next few weeks unpacking together. I'm so excited. It's so rich, it's complicated. It's gonna take a lot of heavy lifting, but it's gonna be so fun. And for now, before we leave today, I just wanna look at it from one angle, alright? And then come back next week, we'll dig deeper. We're gonna keep looking at this. It's gonna be so good, powerful stuff. But what's happening here is there are a group of Jewish people who claim to follow Jesus. Now, it was not that uncommon for Jewish people to follow Jesus in those days. Paul himself was Jewish. But these people are just claiming to follow Jesus. And they're coming into these towns after Paul has left and they're going to the Gentile people who are following Jesus. Gentile just means they're not Jewish. And they're now trusting this message about Jesus as they're, they're, they're accepting him as their Lord and Savior. And these people are saying to those non-Jewish people. Paul left out a ton because in order to be a Christian, you have to be circumcised as a Jew first. There's more you have to do. Now that means in order to really understand this message, next weekend we're gonna have to talk about circumcision. So if you didn't, weren't convinced to come back next week, you are now, right? Like we get to talk about that. Can't wait. Alright? The point is that, that, that Paul is so frustrated by these people, he calls them agitators because they're contradicting his gospel message. In fact, look at what he says. He says, evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. See, part of what's happening here is these people that are saying you have to be circumcised in order to be a Christian, are stirring up so much confusion in these towns that there's division that's beginning to form between people who have claimed Jesus as Messiah and they're supposed to be a part of the same family of God. That's a part of what's making Paul so upset here, is it's dividing people up. And it's not what he preached to him when, to them when he was there. Now, how do we know what Paul preached to these people when he was there? We have it. It's in Acts 13. Remember Paul visited these towns and Luke made a, a historical account of it. And so in Acts chapter 13, we can actually read what Paul preached in these communities when he was there. So just starting in verse 32, this is one of Paul's sermons, uh, in Galatia. He says, we tell you the good news, what God promised our ancestors, he has fulfilled for us, their children by raising up Jesus. Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through the, through Jesus, the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you through him. Everyone who believes is set free from every sin. A justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses. This is the gospel. This is the good news that Paul preached. It was the good news that Jesus himself commissioned Paul to preach to these people in the beginning of the letter that he writes, we, we glossed right over it. But when he says grace and peace to you, we, we, we, we see an echo of this sermon right there in that verse when Paul says that Jesus gave himself to rescue us from the present evil age. And what I want to tell you now today is that this same good news that Paul preached 2000 years ago is available to you. Now, today, I really believe this is true. And this gets us back to this idea of being stuck. If you're stuck because of some empty religion or some philosophy understanding about the world, or you're stuck because of a, of a poor decision you've made or something that's happened in your life or something that is happening to you now, you don't have to stay stuck. Now, I know you remember I asked you guys to share what are some words, some feelings that we have when it comes to this idea of being stuck. Can we just put those up there and look at what you all shared with us? I'm just gonna let you look these over. It is scary, suffocating, alone, frozen, fearful, desperate, anguished, trapped, hopeless. The truth is that that's where some of you are right now. And what I'd like to do as we kind of wrap things up is just stop for a minute and I think we should pray for each other. I'll kick us off and then we're just gonna make our rooms quiet and we're gonna do everything we can to, to kind of protect this moment. We'll ask that you just kind of help us with that. But I'll give you some time to just pray on your own. Now, I realize there's some of you who have never prayed, uh uh, uh, in your life. What you need to know is that there is a God who loves you and he's not in some distant, far off place through his Holy Spirit. He is as close as your next breath. And he loves hearing our prayers. So whatever it is that you have to bring to him, whatever it is you feel like you need to say, God will hear it and he will love you in the midst of it. God, I need help. God, I need answers. God, I'm thankful. God, I'm frustrated. God, where are you? He will hear your prayers. So heavenly Father, we, we acknowledge that you are with us even now. And Father, I know that there are people who are in this conversation with us now who are stuck, who feel lost, alone, paralyzed, helpless, hopeless. Give us the courage to tell you what's really on our hearts right now. God. Lord, hear our prayers. Holy Spirit, you tell us in your word that when we don't even know what to pray, that you pray on our behalf. So I'm praying now for those who are reeling from bad news, whether that's something relational or something with a job financial, something with their health, God, would you meet them in it? Would you be the God of peace? Would you show them the hope that they may have even in this circumstance because of you and what you've done? Father, I pray for people who are in the midst of new opportunity, new horizons, new growth, something they're looking forward to God, but associated with that is just the fear of messing it up. The fear that we don't have what it takes, that we're not enough. God, would you remind each of us that you are enough and that you love us and that you're paying attention? And God, for those who feel stuck, maybe lost, maybe they're in a situation where they're saying, this is not what I signed up for. This did not go the way I thought it was gonna go. I have more questions now than answers. I'm frustrated. I'm stuck. Would you take us by the hand and lead us towards the freedom that you have for us, whatever it might be. Father, we are giving this to you now And we pray all of this in the strong, the faithful, the risen name of Jesus our Lord. Amen. Amen. Here's the good news. Humans were stuck at the time Paul was writing this letter. The Jewish people had tried to bring about God's kingdom by observing the law. But what they found over and over again was no matter how hard they tried, they kept coming up short. The Gentiles, non-Jewish people, they had it even worse. Not only were they trapped in their own sin and their own idolatry, they kept bowing down to little g gods who disappointed them over and over and over again. But in the midst of all of that, God sent his Messiah just as he promised he would do. And Jesus came and by dying on the cross, he broke through the curse of our sin and came out alive on the other side. He defeated the enemies of death and sin once and for all. And so now it doesn't matter if you're a Jew or Gentile or male or female or slave or free, you are invited to receive this cosmic God-sized gift of grace to enter into the family of God where you belong. And see, this is way more than just getting to heaven when we die. This is eternal life that begins now. It's a promise that God is indeed making everything new again, starting with us. It's a promise from God that when the philosophies and religions and politics of this world fail to come through for us as they always will, you don't have to stay stuck because Jesus, our risen Lord, has rescued us from this present evil age. And now by putting your faith and your trust in him, he covers over us like a banner of victory and you can be free. And I guess what I'm trying to say is that as we look at this beautiful, complicated, profound, passionate, amazing, shocking letter that Paul wrote to the churches in Galatia, what we will find is that a big theme, what this is really all about is you unleashed now, wouldn't that be something? So I can't wait to keep going through this with you. Come back next weekend and we'll keep talking. But for now, let's stop there. This is gonna be fun. I'll see ya.