Manchester Church of Christ

So, we’ve come to the end. After six months, our journey through Galatians ends this Sunday and we are left with one question: What are you boasting in? Paul has been writing this letter to a series of churches throughout Galatia who have been dealing with the issue of church unity. How can Gentile and Jewish Christians be one? Enflaming this tension are false teachers proclaiming that the simples...

What would it look like if the way we use our efforts and resources was shaped by the gospel? Not just our beliefs and relationships, but our entire being? In Galatians 6:6-10, Paul begins with a simple principle: whatever you sow, you will reap. I’d wager that this is something we all know instinctively. For example, you don’t plant carrots and expect corn to grow. Rather than providing a farming...

What happens when someone in the church falls into sin? What does it actually look like to help them? And what’s the difference between carrying someone else’s burden and carrying your own? In Galatians 6:1-5, Paul gives the church a surprisingly practical word about how gospel community and relationships in the reality of everyday life. He calls the believers to restore one another, but in a spec...

On this Baccalaureate Sunday, we celebrate our 2026 graduates while addressing a question that life eventually forces us all to ask: “Who are you?” This question often arises during seasons of transition, rejection, or trauma, where our identity and faith are tested. Drawing from Acts 19, we see the city of Ephesus—a place of cultural diversity and deep superstition—where Paul performed extraordin...

In Galatians 5:22-26, Paul is writing to churches who are being pressured to earn their place in God’s family through external markers that can be summed up as walking by the flesh. Instead, Paul calls the Christians then and us today to a new life: that of walking with the Spirit. What exactly does that life look like? Paul describes it from the inside out in the fruit of the Spirit. From root to...

In Galatians 5:13-21, Paul reveals that there are two paths that the community of Christians in Galatia can choose to go down: the way of the flesh, or the way of the Spirit. The question that hangs in the balance is, Which will they choose? Will they walk by the flesh, or will they walk by the Spirit? These questions are before us today. However, before we can answer Paul’s questions, we must fir...

In Galatians 5:7-15, Paul uses the image of a race to describe the Christian life: “You were running a good race” (v. 7). The Galatians had started off well. They had received the gospel with joy and lived out their freedom found in Jesus Christ. Yet, somewhere along the way, they found themselves distracted, slowed down, and pulled off course. The reality is that the same danger exists for us tod...

“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 (Galatians 5:1).” Freedom is not an additional perk of salvation, but is one of the key purposes that Jesus came. Yet, Paul provides a warning too. The Galatian Christians were being tempted to return to a system of law-reliance; to believe that they needed Christ+. Th...

In Galatians 4:27-31, Paul continues to build off his present allegory. Hagar or Sarah? Children of slavery or children of freedom? Law-reliant or grace-reliant? With each expansion, Paul is asking us: which reality are we going to live into and out of? To be a child of slavery and law-reliant means to depend on our own performance or ability for righteousness. In times of uncertainty, when faced...

In Galatians 4:21-26, Paul offers a way of understanding the human condition, one that may be more revealing than we expect. This Sunday’s sermon, “Four Types of People,” invites us to consider not just what we do, but what we rely on. Paul contrasts two ways of living: life under the law and life in the freedom of God’s promise. From this, we can begin to see four broad categories. Some are law-o...