What do we think of when we think about conquering heroes? General MacArthur saying, “I shall return!” John Paul Jones telling the British, “I have not yet begun to fight.”…
The Community of the Free (part 18) | Boasting can get us in all kinds of trouble! That is especially true if we are boasting about spiritual things. As Paul…
The Community of the Free (part 17) | Sooner or later, our real identity becomes obvious to everyone; sooner or later we all get found out and our cover is…
The Community of the Free (part 16) | Paul talks about a kind of fruit that has much greater benefit than fruit we love like apples, plums, kiwi, etc. He…
The Community of the Free (part 15) | Today, as we return to our study of Galatians, we come to the section where Paul explains three ministries of the Holy…
The Community of the Free (part 14) | As we’ve worked our way through the first four chapters of this letter, it has become very clear in our minds that…
The Community of the Free (part 13) | Paul was a great teacher, but he seldom included stories or parables (whereas, that was Jesus’ favorite teaching method). Paul was a…
The Community of the Free (part 12) | As the Christians in Galatia strayed from the grace-way back into legalism, they weren’t becoming more like Christ, they were becoming less…
The Community of the Free (part 11) | The truth of the matter is that neither growing old, nor growing up are guaranteed in life. And even if we age,…
The Community of the Free (part 10) | You might have grown up in a small family or a large family. You might have come from a blended family or…
The Community of the Free (part 9) | Earlier in this letter, Paul recounted an incident that happened at the church in Antioch. The church in Antioch had both Jews and…
The Community of the Free (part 8) | I’m sure that the Judaizers, whom Paul was dueling with in the letter to the Galatians, thought they had Paul in a…
The Community of the Free (part 7) | The theme of this book of Galatians, which is a letter, is that living under the Law enslaves us, but living in Grace…
Christmas 2018 is over! The excitement of Christmas took weeks to build to a crescendo… and then it was over! Life has gotten back to normal. And many people suffer from the…
Destination Bethlehem (part 4) | Perhaps the first person to see clearly that the Son of God was born to die was old Simeon. We know little of the old man,…
Destination Bethlehem (part 3) | If the One whose birth we celebrate was only a great teacher, why should God celebrate through sending angels to announce the birth? If the child…
Destination Bethlehem (part 2) | Humble shepherds deserted their flocks and rushed to Bethlehem in order to verify what their senses told them could not have happened. Though the Son…
Destination Bethlehem (part 1) | God chose the most humble circumstances possible for the entrance of His Son into the world. He did this that we might know His love and…
The Community of the Free (part 6) | In today’s passage Paul deals head-on with the conflict between two alternate roads to righteousness: How does one please God? What makes…
The Community of the Free (part 5) | Compromise is not always a good thing, is it? Certainly, God wants Christians to be peacemakers, but He does not want us to reach…
The Community of the Free (part 4) | 2 Unfortunately, in our Church tradition, we have sometimes been known to be people who fight with each other and divide over too…
NOTE: Due to an extended Open Worship, our congregation operated as the "priesthood of believers" and ministered and prayed for one another. Pastor Rich was unable to present his prepared…