Become Like Me

In one paragraph

The pastor preached from Galatians 4:12-20, the next passage in First B's ongoing study through Galatians. He used a personal plea from Paul to the Galatian church to press on the same question that has driven the whole letter: why would anyone who has received the freedom of the gospel trade it for something smaller? The letter to the Galatians has been building a case from the start, and the...

Read together

1. Psalm 145:3 opening verse shared before singing: 'Great is the Lord, He is most worthy of praise, no one can measure his greatness'
2. Jeremiah 29:11 charge to graduates: 'For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, they are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope'
3. Galatians 1:3-4 review of Paul's opening gospel summary: grace and peace from God the Father, Christ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age
4. Galatians 1:8 review of warning against any other gospel, even from an angel
5. Galatians 1:9 Paul repeats the curse on anyone preaching a different gospel
6. Galatians 2:20 review: 'I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me, the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me'
7. Galatians 3:1 review of Paul calling the Galatians foolish and asking who had bewitched them
8. Galatians 4:1-7 review of the heir-as-child illustration, bondage under elementary principles, and adoption as sons crying Abba Father
9. Galatians 4:8-11 review of turning back to weak and beggarly elements after knowing God, observing days and months and seasons
10. Galatians 4:12-20 main sermon passage: Paul's personal plea to become like him, his physical infirmity, their former blessing, the Judaizers making much of them, and his labor like childbirth until Christ is formed in them
11. 2 Corinthians 6:18 closing: 'I will be your father and you will be my sons and my daughters, thus says the Lord almighty'

Talk about it

1. Paul says the Galatians had genuinely received the Holy Spirit and trusted the gospel, yet they were drifting toward legalism. Have you ever found yourself sliding back toward earning God's approval after already trusting His grace? What did that look like?
2. Pastor Nathan described two ditches on either side of the gospel: legalism on one side and license on the other. Which ditch do you think is the bigger temptation for you personally, and why?
3. Paul writes that God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying 'Abba, Father.' How does thinking of God as a father rather than a distant judge actually change the way you live day to day?
4. Pastor Nathan talked about Dave Brunk and said he was made much of for a good purpose because he lived his whole life after Jesus. What does it look like practically to make much of someone for a good purpose rather than feeding their pride?
5. Paul says he is in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in the Galatians, and Pastor Nathan connected that to the next generation seeing the gospel flow out of us naturally. What does it mean to you for Christ to be formed in you, and what gets in the way of that?