This new sermon series is based on the apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatians. As we walk through this letter over the next eight weeks, we will encounter one of the clearest and most passionate proclamations of the Gospel found anywhere in the New Testament. One of his earliest letters, written between 48 & 49 AD, Galatians was addressed to churches that Paul had planted, and knew personally, through his first missionary journey–places such as Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. However, something had gone seriously wrong. After Paul preached the Gospel in Galatia and people had come to faith in Christ, other teachers arrived and began telling these Gentile Christians that faith in Jesus wasn’t enough. If they truly wanted to belong to the people of God, they needed to observe the Jewish Law, including circumcision. This wasn’t a minor theological disagreement for Paul–it struck at the very heart of the Gospel. If something had to be added to the saving work of Jesus, then grace was no longer truly grace. And so, Paul writes this passionate, sometimes confrontational, but profoundly pastoral letter to call the Galatians back to the Gospel they’d first received: we are made right with God not by what we accomplish for Him, but by what He’s accomplished for us in Jesus Christ.
Galatians is often referred to as a “mini-Romans” because the two letters share many of the same themes: justification by faith, the Law, life in the Spirit, Christian freedom, and salvation through faith rather than works. However, if Romans reads like a carefully constructed theological exposition, Galatians reads like a theological emergency–it’s Romans with “it’s gloves off.” Something has gone horribly wrong in churches Paul knows and loves. The Gospel is being distorted and their freedom in Christ is being threatened. And so, Paul writes with extraordinary urgency–there’s hardly even a customary word of thanksgiving at the beginning of the letter. Instead, he gets straight to the point in verse 6: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.” If Romans tells us what the Gospel is through an extended theological argument; Galatians shows us what happens when the Gospel of grace is threatened in the actual life of the Church.
That’s why Galatians isn’t simply about an ancient controversy between Paul and a group of false teachers two thousand years ago. At the heart of the letter is a question that remains just as relevant for us today: Do Christians merely enter the Kingdom of God by grace, or do we actually learn to live by grace? It’s possible to believe that we’re saved by grace and then spend the rest of our Christian lives trying to prove ourselves to God. It’s possible to preach grace with our lips while living as though everything ultimately depends upon us. Paul will have none of that! Grace isn’t just the doorway through which we enter the Christian life; it’s the context in which the whole Christian life is meant to be lived. We’re called by grace, we’re justified by grace through faith, and we walk in grace by the Spirit. Even our obedience becomes a response to what God has already done for us in Christ.
This is the journey we’re going to take over these next eight weeks–a journey that begins with Paul’s astonishment that the Galatians could so quickly turn away from the grace of Christ and ends with his great declaration in Chapter 6:14: “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
SERMONS
Title: “No Other Gospel”
Preacher: The Rev. Canon Christopher Doering
Date: Sunday, October 4, 2026 ~ The 19th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture: Psalm 19:7-14 Galatians 1:1-24 Mark 1:14-20
Handout: Part 1. HO
Title: “Standing Firm in the Gospel”
Preacher: The Rev. Canon Christopher Doering
Date: Sunday, October 11, 2026 ~ Thanksgiving Sunday
Scripture: Psalm 62:5-12 Galatians 2:1-21 Luke 18:9-14
Handout: Part 2. HO