West U:
We continue to make progress on the Pathways projects on our West U Baptist campus. Construction on the Milton Street parking lot is expected to begin June 15 and should be completed in 10-12 weeks. Permitting process is underway for work on the Amherst Street parking lot and preschool playground. If you haven't yet joined us, you still can! This three-year campaign is an opportunity to invest in kingdom work that will impact generations to come through the ministries at CityRise. Communicate your commitment to Pathways at cityrise.org/pathways. You can also make your donation during our time of offering or visit cityrise.org/give to click the give button in the CityRise app.

Dear Church Family,
 
Household rhythms have a way of changing each summer, don’t they? School lets out, vacations begin, time either slows or speeds up, and even the best routines can get rearranged. Some of that is a gift. Slower mornings, extra time with family, and a different pace can be a welcome change.
 
One of the small encouragements I have is to make spiritual connection a part of your summer plan.
 
That may look different for every family. For some, it may mean pinpointing now which Sundays you will be in town for worship. For others, it may mean finally signing up for VBS or VBX, joining us for VBS+, serving as a volunteer, or inviting a neighbor to come with you. For others still, it may simply mean looking at the calendar together and choosing a few intentional ways to stay connected to worship and community over the next couple of months.
 
This is one of the reasons why we created cityrise.org/summer. It's a simple place to see what is happening across our church family, to find opportunities for kids, students, adults, senior adults, and mission involvement. Take a few minutes this week to visit the Summer at CityRise page, look through the opportunities, and make a plan for how your family can be part of what God is doing even through fun activities this summer.
 
Moreover, when I say “family,” that can also mean our whole church family. We need one another across generations. Psalm 133 says, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.” That is part of what makes a church family so beautiful—we belong to one another across generations. Children and students need adults who will teach and encourage them; senior adults need places of fellowship and support; neighbors need invitations. And all of us need the steady reminder that following Jesus was never meant to be done alone.
 
So as summer begins, let’s enjoy the change of pace without drifting from the people and practices God uses to strengthen our faith. I am praying this will be a summer of deepened relationships, joyful service, and fresh opportunities to help people rise to new life in Christ.
 
We’ll see you on Sunday, Church Family!
 
 
Expecting Greater,
Pastor Roger

You promised last Monday this would be the week. Cut the habit. Stop the sin. Be different. By Wednesday night, the cycle had won again, and the shame piled on top of the failure.

If that pattern sounds familiar, you are not alone. The struggle to stop sinning is one of the most exhausting battles a Christian faces, and the worst part is the lie layered on top: try harder, want it more, white-knuckle through it, and eventually you will get it right.

Paul's letter to the Galatians says something very different. In Galatians 5:16-25, he names the war happening inside every believer and points to the only power strong enough to win it. Willpower is not on the list. The Holy Spirit is.

Why Willpower Loses Every Time
Paul writes, "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do" (Galatians 5:16-17).

That last line is worth sitting with. The flesh and the Spirit are not just different. They are at war, and that war is the reason you cannot do the things you want to do. You sit down to pray and your mind drifts. You decide to be patient with your kids and snap within the hour. You commit to purity and lose within the week.

Jesus said it plainly: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Your willpower is not enough. You do not have the horsepower in your own resolve to overcome a sin nature that has been with you since birth. The Christian who tries to muscle through holiness by sheer determination has misread the problem.

The flesh, in Paul's writing, is not the human body. The body is neutral. If the Holy Spirit controls it, you walk in the Spirit. If the flesh controls it, you walk in the desires of the flesh. The two have different appetites, and the appetites are what create the conflict.

What "the Flesh" Actually Means
When Paul talks about the flesh, he is describing the fallen sin nature every human inherits. He lists fourteen works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21: "sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these."

Bible commentator Donald Campbell groups these into four categories. There are sexual sins like adultery, fornication, and pornography. There are religious sins like idolatry and witchcraft. There are societal sins, eight of them, ranging from hatred and strife all the way down to envy. And there are alcohol-related sins, drunkenness and orgies.

Paul attaches a solemn warning to this list: "those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." That sentence has rattled honest Christians for two thousand years, so it is worth slowing down on what it does and does not mean.

Does Losing to Sin Mean I'm Not Saved?
Campbell puts the answer plainly. A Christian does not lose salvation by lapsing into a sin of the flesh. But a person who lives continually at that level of moral corruption, who habitually indulges fleshly sins as a pattern of life, is giving evidence of not being a child of God. The fruit of a life is the evidence of its root.

Notice the difference. Paul is not talking about the believer who stumbled this week and is grieving over it. He is talking about the person who is comfortable in unbroken sin, who feels no friction, who has no struggle.

That is the tell. Unbelievers have no internal war over this list. They do not feel the tension Paul describes, because their spirit is dead. But every follower of Jesus knows the friction firsthand. The fact that you fight is itself evidence the Holy Spirit is in you.

Paul described his own version of this in Romans 7:18-25: "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." He ends the passage almost desperate: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

The believer's struggle is real. It is daily. And it is not a sign of failure. It is a sign that two natures are alive inside you, and the new one is fighting.

Two Natures, Two Appetites
Pastor Warren Wiersbe captures the dynamic with a picture worth holding onto. Just as Isaac and Ishmael could not get along, the Spirit and the flesh are at war inside the believer. The two have opposite appetites, and Scripture illustrates that contrast in subtle ways.
The sheep is a clean animal and avoids garbage. The pig is an unclean animal and enjoys wallowing in filth. After the rain stopped and the ark settled, Noah released a raven, and the raven never came back. A raven eats carrion and found plenty to feed on outside the ark. Then Noah released a dove, a clean bird, and it returned. The final time he released the dove, it did not come back. It had found a clean place to settle, and Noah knew the waters had receded.

Your old nature is the pig and the raven, always looking for something unclean to feed on. Your new nature is the sheep and the dove, yearning for what is clean and holy. The question is which appetite you are feeding.

Three Things the Spirit Asks of You
Paul does not leave us with the diagnosis. Inside this same passage, he gives three calls to action that together describe the life of a Spirit-filled believer.

Walk by the Spirit
"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). To walk is to live, to behave in a sustained pattern. It is aligning heart and mind with Jesus on a daily basis, not a one-time decision. Notice the declaration of victory: when you walk by the Spirit, you will not gratify the flesh. Walking by the Spirit is the daily exercise that rescues you from the life of license, the counterfeit version of freedom that ends in bondage to sin.

Be Led by the Spirit
"But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law" (Galatians 5:18). Being led by the Spirit frees you from the system that demands perfection. Religious systems often whisper the opposite message: you do not measure up, you never will, and God's acceptance of you depends on your performance.

I recently sat with a woman who is wrestling with these very things. As we talked, she said she struggles to feel free because she never could measure up to her dad's standards. She never learned how to walk well before God, because her father would not let her make a mistake. That is what legalism does. It binds people into a mindset where they always walk in fear and never in confidence, because they cannot imagine pleasing the Father any more than they could please the father they grew up with.

If that is your story, hear this carefully. To be led by the Spirit is to be released from that oppressive law mindset. You taste grace fresh and new. The Spirit produces in your life a grace you could never manufacture for yourself.

Keep in Step With the Spirit
"If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25). The image here is military. Keeping in step is marching in a precise line, soldiers on parade, taking great care to follow the one directly in front of them, mastering every turn and every movement so the unit moves as one.

That is the picture of a Spirit-led life. You have been born again and given a new nature, but the daily call is to keep marching with the One who leads you. Take the next step in His direction. Then the next.

The New Nature You Did Not Manufacture
The reason any of this is possible is what Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:3-4: "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire."

Read that again. He has given you everything you need for life and godliness. He has given you precious and great promises. He has given you the Holy Spirit. He has given you a divine nature. When you came to Christ, you were born of the Spirit, given the mind of Christ, raised from spiritual death to spiritual life.

You have a responsibility to participate. The Spirit will not steamroll your will. But the resources for victory are not waiting to be earned. They are already deposited inside you. The question is whether you will walk in step with them.

You Are No Longer a Slave
So, here is what is true. You have a battle with the sin nature. The flesh is real, and it does not surrender easily. But you are no longer enslaved to it. That changed the moment you came to Christ.

If you walk by the Spirit, are led by the Spirit, and keep in step with the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. You will not be bound in legalism. Victory is not a possibility. It is available.

The cycle of trying harder and failing was never the answer. The Holy Spirit is. Take the next step with Him today.



This blog is based on the message shared by Senior Pastor Dr. Roger Patterson at our CityRise West U Baptist campus on Sunday, May 24, 2026. Check out the full message below!

Remember, Galatians 5 opens with these words:

Galatians 5:1
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

I asked Colonel Robert Glazener about this fight for freedom. He said…
You know, having a nation that is free…political freedom…freedom to vote as you wish…choose what career you will be involved in…having religious freedom…these are great gifts.

Then he said, “But guys, the even greater gift is being free from sin and death, and knowing Jesus Christ. His freedom is even greater.”

As we stop and remember those who have laid down their lives for us in our nation, let us also remember Christ, who has laid down His life for an even greater freedom that we enjoy.

Let us recognize the call to freedom in Christ, and the great responsibility we have to steward this freedom well.

I have heard my entire life a call to steward the freedom we have been given in this nation:

• It’s a call to not give up our freedom,
• to not lose sight of what has been secured for us through others sacrifices.
• It’s a call to be active by voting and serving and doing our civic duty,
• and it’s a call to leave our nation better than we found it.

As we read Galatians 5, we see that the church all over the world is called to walk in freedom. We see that there is a freedom in Christ that is available to anyone, anywhere, in any governmental system.

And we also see that there is a bondage that both legalism and license both lead to.
Look with me briefly at this call to freedom in Galatians 5:13.

Galatians 5:13
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

• We are called to freedom…this is what is available to us.
• And it is through love we are to serve one another.
• It’s here in Galatians that Paul introduces the idea of living a life of license.

Remember, we have been studying a lot about legalism … the man-made rules that are placed upon us to properly live out faith. And Paul has been battling this in the letter.
But here, he moves to the other end of the spectrum… a life of License…where you think you are free to do anything you want.

• It’s liberty without a sense of responsibility.
• It’s the idea that I have been forgiven, so I will do what I want. I am under grace.

But the call…the call is to liberty. It’s not legalism. It’s not license…It’s liberty.

Did you know that Legalism and License both lead to the same place?

• Legalism and License both lead to bondage. 
• Sin enslaves…Rules enslaves. 
• But the Spirit…the Spirit sets us free.

Today, we are going to recognize the fight for freedom in the life of the believer. Let’s look at our passage today in Galatians 5:16-26.

Galatians 5:16-26
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Our Outline today…
The Spirit Enables Us to Overcome the Flesh
The Spirit Enables Us to Produce Fruit
The Spirit Enables Us to Overcome the Flesh

Notice Galatians 5:16-21, 24

Galatians 5:16-21, 24
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Notice the Conflict: The Flesh is against the Spirit. The Spirit is against the Flesh…
 
v. 17 - And notice it says, “…for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”

Warren Wiersbe states…
Just as Isaac and Ishmael were unable to get along, so the Spirit and the flesh (the old nature) are at war with each other. By “the flesh,” of course, Paul does not mean “the body.” The human body is not sinful; it is neutral. If the Holy Spirit controls the body, then we walk in the Spirit; but if the flesh controls the body, then we walk in the lusts (desires) of the flesh. The Spirit and the flesh have different appetites, and this is what creates the conflict.[1]

The first thing we need to note here is this:
The Christian cannot simply will to overcome the flesh.

The flesh is powerful. And we are unable to conquer it in our own strength.

Now, when we talk about the flesh here, we need to keep in mind, here, in Paul’s writings, it has to do with our sin nature.

It’s not the flesh that has to do with the:
Actual body
Human existence
But our human nature of fallen sinfulness.

And then the Apostle Paul lists 14 different “works of the flesh” – these are deeds or acts of sinful humanity.

Notice verses 19-21.

Galatians 5:19-21
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Warren Wiersbe says that this list in Galatians can be divided into three major categories:
The sensual sins
The superstitious sins
The social sins

D.K. Campbell says that this list can be divided into four categories:
1. Sexual Sin – Adultery, Fornication, Impure and filthy lives
2. Religious Sins – Idolatry and Witchcraft
3. Societal Sins – there are 8 listed here from Hatred all the way to Dissensions and Factions, and Envy.
4. Alcohol Related Sins – Drunkenness and Orgies

Campbell states:
The apostle then solemnly warned the Galatians, as he had done when he was in their midst, that those who live like this, who habitually indulge in these fleshly sins will not inherit the future kingdom of God. This does not say that a Christian loses his salvation if he lapses into a sin of the flesh, but that a person who lives continually on such a level of moral corruption gives evidence of not being a child of God.[2]

Unbelievers have no struggle with things on this list. The more that they give way to and dominion to their sin nature, the deeper into this list their lives go.

But in Romans 7, The Apostle Paul talks about the believer’s struggle between the flesh and the Spirit.

Romans 7:18-25
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

D.K. Campbell states:
“…Each Christian has two natures, a sinful nature received at birth, inherited from fallen Adam, and a new nature received at regeneration when said Christian became a participant in the divine nature (cf. 2 Peter 1:4).

 Both natures have desires, the one for evil and the other for holiness. Thus they are in conflict with each other, and the result can be that they keep a believer from doing what he otherwise would. In other words the Holy Spirit blocks, when He is allowed to do so, the evil cravings of the flesh.”[3]

Can you relate?

This is the struggle that each of us has – the battle within between my sin nature and my life in Christ.

Warren Wiersbe says…
“These opposite appetites are illustrated in the Bible in different ways. For example, the sheep is a clean animal and avoids garbage, while the pig is an unclean animal and enjoys wallowing in filth (2 Peter 2:19–22). After the rain ceased and the ark settled, Noah released a raven which never came back (Gen. 8:6–7). The raven is a carrion-eating bird and found plenty to feed on. But when Noah released the dove (a clean bird), it came back (Gen. 8:8–12). The last time he released the dove and it did not return, he knew that it had found a clean place to settle down; therefore the waters had receded.
Our old nature is like the pig and the raven, always looking for something unclean on which to feed. Our new nature is like the sheep and the dove, yearning for that which is clean and holy.”[4]

So, if this is our reality, what are we to do?

The task for the believer is three proactive decisions in relationship to the Holy Spirit.
to walk by…
be lead by…
and live by and keep in step with the Holy Spirit.

Notice the declaration of victory in verse 16.

Galatians 5:16
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
 
Walk – to live or behave in a specific manner.

In walking by the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Walking by the Spirit is aligning your heart and mind with the Lord. This daily exercise will save you from a life of license. It keeps you from fulfilling the desires that come from this life in the body.

Galatians 5:18
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
 
Led – To be led is to be “Directed by the Spirit.” literally – to be “WILLINGLY LED.”

Being directed by the Spirit, you are going to live in such a way as to not be placed under the legalists, and the “legal system” that seeks to earn God’s favor by perfect obedience to the law. Instead, the Holy Spirit writes the law of God on your heart, so that our desire is to obey Him in love.

Galatians 5:25
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
 
Live – to live or become alive in a transcendent manner; especially as characteristic of resurrected life, or life without sin or with sin subjugated.

keep in step – Marching in a precise line – military on parade…there is great concern and care in how they march…following the one in front, mastering the way they turn, being in precise uniform.

We are to live in such a way as to set ourselves apart for a Godly life that marches in line following the Spirt of God.

You and I have been given a new nature.

2 Peter 1:3-5
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

We have been given a divine nature and we possess the Holy Spirit. We have been given the Mind of Christ. Our spirit has been brought from a state of death and condemnation to life.

So, it’s important for us to be active in participating with God the Holy Spirit’s leading in our life.

Here is what is true…
You and I, though we have battles with the sinful nature, we are no longer enslaved to it. If we walk by and are led by, and keep in step with the Holy Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

D. K. Campbell states,
Again Paul reminded the Galatians that in addition to a divine judgment of the sinful nature there is a divine enablement in the person of the Holy Spirit. He made the believer alive by regeneration (cf. John 3:5–6), so each believer is exhorted to keep in step (stoichōmen, trans. “follow” in Gal. 6:16) with the Spirit. Step by step one’s Christian walk should conform to the Spirit’s direction and enablement, lest believers become conceited, provoking and envying each other.[5]

The Spirit Enables Us to Overcome the Flesh! We are no longer slaves, but have victory available to us. That’s the first thing we see today.

Second…we see that The Holy Spirit Enables Us to Produce Fruit.

Our Outline today…
The Spirit Enables Us to Overcome the Flesh
The Spirit Enables Us to Produce Fruit
The Spirit Enables Us to Overcome the Flesh

If you have ever driven the famous Hwy. 1 that goes along the ocean side from Seattle to San Diego, you have driven one of the most scenic routes in our nation. It is a beautiful, awe inspiring ride.

From the Napa and Sonoma Valleys to Monterrey, Carmel and Big Sur you pass through some of the most amazing vineyards and crops of strawberries, peaches, apples you will ever lay eyes on.  As a matter of fact, there is a town called Castroville. Do you know what Castroville is known for? It is the artichoke capital of the world.

This is one of the most fruitful regions in the world.  It is amazing, nourishing, beautiful and bountiful.

It is set between the ocean and the mountains. It is like heaven on earth!

Now what a tragedy it would be if we drove that beautiful coastal highway and same to fields designed for fruitfulness but we only found barrenness.

As clearly as those fields were designed to be fruitful, so you and I as followers of Christ were designed to be fruitful.  

            Let’s consider: What is the fruit of the Spirit?
            What is the freedom that comes to our lives because we bear this fruit?
And
How we bear the fruit of the Spirit?

A.  What is the Fruit of the Spirit?

Look  again at Galatians 5:22-23.

Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love,  joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

There are 9 qualities of virtue or Grace here that are to be produced in the life of the believer if we walk in a relationship of dependence on God the Holy Spirit.

The qualities are to be produced in us through God’s Spirit. You see the Bible teaches us that our lives are intended to bear fruit.

In John 15:16 Jesus commissions His disciples to go and bear fruit.

Instead of the works of the flesh that lead to chaos and destruction, we are to produce the fruit of the spirit which leads to freedom.

Let’s examine each one briefly.

Love:
This is the dominant product of the Holy Spirit.  

One writer says, “In a very real sense, all other dimensions of the fruit flow from this quality.”

The word love is Agape in the Greek.  We have discussed this word at length before today, so allow me to remind you briefly what Agape love is.

Agape is the love that always seeks the highest welfare of another. It is a sacrificial, unconditional love that always keeps the covenant.

Now look with me at Romans 5:5 as we ask, where do we get this kind of love that might produce it in our lives.

Slide: Romans 5:5
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

The Spirit gives us this love that seeks the highest welfare of another.

Joy:
Joy is an internal experience of Grace.  It comes from the word Chara – that shares the same root as the word grace – Charis.

All too often, we identify joy with happiness.  But it is so much more than happiness. Happiness is often just an emotional experience, Joy goes deeper.

Bob Beltz, in his book, Becoming a Man of the Spirit, says,
“Joy is a spiritual reality.  It is the product of being in the proper relationship with God.  Joy transcends circumstances.  It is possible to have joy even when circumstances are quite difficult.”

Joy is an internal experience of Grace!

Peace:
Peace is a state of inner well-being. It is more, than the absence of strife.  Peace is the Shalom of God – the total state of well-being that includes physical, emotional, spiritual and relationship dimensions of life.

In the Old Testament, this reality was intimately related to God’s blessing. When God blessed a person, the result was peace.

Beltz states:
“When you are experiencing God’s peace, it will be manifested by the sense of serenity, tranquility, and contentment that only the Spirit of god can produce in your life.”

Patience:
Patience is an endurance and forbearance in the midst of provocation and injury from others. In a number of other languages, patience is translated as “enduring troubles” or “remaining quiet when persecuted.”

It is a spirit of long-suffering.  To be patient with another is to look beyond the surface to the heart of who they are as people loved by God.

Many scholars will lump the next two words kindness and goodness together.

Kindness and Goodness:
They both come from the same word in the Greek and they both refer to one’s favorable disposition toward his neighbor.  These two words together give a picture who aggressively seeks care for others.

Kindness fanatically avoids inflicting pain on another and then seeks to express tenderness and compassion by doing something good for the person.

Goodness seeks to express the love of God in acts of generosity.

These are acts of grace – gifts given, not to repay someone for something else, but simply to bless them.
 
My wife is remarkably good at acts of generosity.  When Cooper was in 3rd grade, it was Cooper’s teacher’s birthday.  Julee wanted to express her gratitude to the teacher for the job that she is doing so she decided to buy her a couple of movie passes.

Once she realized that it would be just a ho-hum gift, she decided to jazz it up.

Now, Coopers teacher was a big LSU fan. So, Julee decided to make her a birthday wreath and insert the movie tickets.

Once Julee got this in her heart and mind to do this, she got after it. Then she got up early, went to the donut store and bought 30 donuts so the class could celebrate their teacher’s birthday together.

This kindness and goodness aggressively seeks to express care to others.
 
Faithfulness:
The quality that causes people to be trustworthy. Faithfulness is the cultivation of loyalty through time.

A person who bears this dimension of the Spirit’s fruit is a man whose help we can rely on, whose loyalty we can count on, and upon whose word we can depend.
 
Gentleness:
The Greek word here literally means strength under control.

The word gives the picture of a wild horse that has been tamed and domesticated so that all of its strength is now at the disposal of the master.

Thus, gentleness is the characteristic of the Spirit’s influence that both motivates and enables us to bring:

• all of our gifts,
• abilities,
• talents,
• strengths
• and resources to God and then give Him control over them.

Gentleness is the quality that leads to a submitted life.
 
Self-Control:
If gentleness is strength under control, then self-control describes our egos under the dominant influence of the Holy Spirit.

Self-control is the ability to control impulse and passion, which is vital to living the Christian life and maintaining our witness.

These 9 virtues or qualities make up the fruit of the Spirit.

Now let’s quickly answer our 2nd and 3rd questions.

B. Why is there the freedom that comes to our lives when we bear the fruit of the Spirit?
            The Apostle Paul answers this question fairly simply for us in verse 23b.

He states, “Against such things there is no law.”

Have you ever had the thought, “Oh to be a kid again?” “Wouldn’t it be great to go back to being a kid?”

What are we wishing for?  A life free from all of the Rules, Regulations, and Responsibilities.
It is a wish to simply be free from all the burdens that come along with being an adult.
It is funny – when we were kids, we wanted to be adults – “When I grow up . . .”

Now that we are adults, we want to go back to being kids!

Why?

Because kids can have messy rooms, and can get dirty, they have fun, and get to build tree houses or sand castles.

Little kids are free!

Right? They get to live a life without a care in the world. They are free.

In a very similar vein, when we bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, we experience freedom from the bondage of sin or the bondage of religious performance and we can really enjoy what God has done for us. You see, there is no law, no restraint against the kind of behavior that blesses and encourages and builds up. Laws are for things that tear down and destroy.

Bob Beltz says,
“When we are actively bearing the fruit of the Spirit, we really don’t need the Law.  There is no need for an external standard when the internal reality of our lives looks like this.”

So let’s get to our final question then:

C. How do we bear the fruit of the Spirit?

Let’s look at verses 24 & 25 again

Galatians 5:24-25
24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 since we live by the Spirit let us keep in step with the Spirit.

How do we bear the fruit of the Spirit?

First, there is a Death involved. – Crucify the sinful nature – We are called to take up our cross on a daily basis and follow Christ. So, it’s a daily death. A daily surrender. A daily choice to submit my will to His.

The result is what I’ll call Spiritual Will-Power.

• Will Power usually speaks only of shat we can accomplish by the sheer force of our own resources.
• Spiritual will power involves a partnership of a person’s will and God’s power.

Philippians 2:12-13
12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Do you see the balance here of God’s part and our part?

We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

In other words, we are to submit our wills to God, position ourselves to receive instruction and do the work of spiritual formation:

• Prayer
• Scripture Memory
• Service to the Church
• Take the Gospel to the World

We have to obey and do our part.

God then does His part.  His presence in our pursuit of spiritual formation is there to shape and form us and produce a fruit through us that will glorify the Father.

Did you know that every dimension of the fruit of the Spirit is a quality about which some other part of the New Testament instructs or commands us to take action.

Jesus said in John 13:35: “love one another.”

That is our part.

His part is to make it possible in our inner being. We step out in his enabling power, dependent upon Him.

This is also thru of Joy, Peace and the like.

To bear joy, we are called to Rejoice.

Paul says, - Rejoice in the Lord always.

Joy is a spiritual reality that requires an act of the will on our part.

Peace is a product of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives.

We are also called to cultivate Peace.

Colossians 3:15 states, “Let the Peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”

We could do this exercise for each dimension of the fruit of the Spirit.

Be kind to all
Let your gentleness be evident to all
Be faithful
Do good to all.

Beltz states,
“Over and over we are instructed to initiate these behaviors.  We are to depend on God to be at work within us to transform our hearts and give us the ability to take these actions, but we have to step out in faith and obey what God has already said.“

So let me ask you something as we close today…

What would happen if, this week, instead of merely trying harder to be a better Christian, you intentionally walked with the Holy Spirit?

Because that’s Paul’s language all throughout this passage:

• walk by the Spirit,
• be led by the Spirit,
• keep in step with the Spirit.

This is not about perfection.
This is about direction.

The fruit of the Spirit is not produced through frantic striving.

Fruit grows through abiding relationship.

Jesus said in John 15:
“Abide in me.”

Stay connected.
Stay near.
Stay surrendered.

And maybe that’s the practical step some of us need to take this week.

Not ten steps.
Not twenty.
One.

Before your feet hit the floor each morning this week, simply pause and pray:
“Holy Spirit, lead me today.
Shape my responses.
Guide my words.
Form my desires.
Produce Your fruit in me.”

And then throughout the day:

• when irritation rises,
• when temptation comes,
• when anxiety surfaces,
• when selfishness creeps in,
  instead of simply reacting in the flesh, stop and ask:
  “What would it look like right now to keep in step with the Spirit?”

Because walking in the Spirit is not merely a Sunday experience.
It is moment-by-moment surrender.

It is:

• responding differently,
• loving sacrificially,
• speaking gently,
• forgiving quickly,
• choosing peace,
• practicing self-control,
• rejoicing in difficulty,
• and trusting God when your flesh wants control.

And here is the encouragement:
You are not fighting FOR victory.
In Christ, you are fighting FROM victory.

The Spirit of God already lives within you.

You are no longer enslaved to the flesh.

You are no longer who you used to be.

You belong to Christ.

So walk with Him.

Yield to Him.

Keep in step with Him.

And over time…

you will look back and realize:
the Spirit has been producing in you what you could never manufacture on your own.

That…
is the freedom of the Christian life.

[1] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 718). Victor Books.
[2] Campbell, D. K. (1985). Galatians. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 608). Victor Books.
[3] Campbell, D. K. (1985). Galatians. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 607). Victor Books.
[4] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 718). Victor Books.
[5] Campbell, D. K. (1985). Galatians. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 609). Victor Books.



This blog is based on the message shared by Senior Pastor Dr. Roger Patterson on Sunday, May 24, 2026, at our CityRise West U Baptist campus. Check out the full message below!

Because you give, Discipleship U at CityRise saw over 100 people attend one of six classes this spring. The ministry is designed to help people grow deeper in their understanding of God's Word and strengthen their walk with Christ as well as equip believers to navigate life's challenges with wisdom and Biblical truth. If you’d like to give toward work like this and so much more, please make a physical donation during our time of offering, visit cityrise.org/give or click the give button in the CityRise app.

Church Family,

This past Sunday, we shared an important Pathways update: Phase 1 is almost here! Progress is about to become visible at our CityRise West U Baptist campus because next month on Monday, June 15, construction will begin on the Milton St. parking lot!

We know this will require some flexibility from our church family—the lot will be closed for approximately 10 to 12 weeks—and I want to thank you in advance for your patience, hospitality, and willingness to make room for one another. Even something as practical as parking can become an opportunity to serve others well, welcome guests warmly, and remember the larger mission and future behind this season of work.

You can view the full Pathways update (including our other campuses and about the campaign) which includes a parking map here. Parking information is also visible below and available at cityrise.org/pathways.

Thankfully, this parking change will begin after VBS at the West U Baptist campus has wrapped up, and we are excited for a full summer of ministry to kids and students across CityRise.

VBS’s theme this year is “Illumination Station.” Kids will shine a light on who Jesus really is through energetic worship, creative crafts, Bible stories, games, meaningful biblical teaching, and friendship-building opportunities. It will be a bright week of learning, laughter, and growth!

And better yet is that VBS will happen in multiple places throughout June!

at CityRise West U Baptist
6218 Auden
June 8–12, 9A–12P

at CityRise Missouri City Español — EBV, “Estación Iluminación”
2106 5th St
June 15–17, 6:30–8:30P

at CityRise Missouri City
2106 5th St
June 22–26, 9A–12P

We are also excited for VBX for our middle school students. VBX is an exciting way to kick off the summer as students grow closer to God, build friendships, enjoy fun games, participate in small group Bible study, gather for worship, and take part in outdoor recreation.

VBX
CityRise Bellaire • 4601 Bellaire Blvd
June 8–12, 9A–12P • $60

You can register for VBS and VBX and find more information at cityrise.org/summer.

Let’s continue praying that the Lord uses this summer to reach children, students, families, and neighbors with the hope of Jesus. Thank you for being a church family willing to make room, serve joyfully, and keep the mission in front of us.

We’ll see you on Sunday, Church Family!


Expecting Greater,
Pastor Roger

You did not drift on purpose. Nobody does. You started out running well, clear on what mattered, settled in your faith, awake to the difference between what is true and what is convenient. Then something shifted. A small concession here. A subtle adjustment there. A new voice you let stay a little too long. And one day you looked up and the picture had changed. The water was a different color and you could not say exactly when it turned.

Paul saw this same pattern in a church he loved. The Galatians had received the gospel of grace, embraced it, and started to live in it. Then teachers showed up with a few additions, a few rules, a few small requirements layered onto what Christ had already finished. Paul writes in Galatians 5:7, "You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?" Two verses later, he names the mechanism: "A little leaven leavens the whole lump" (Galatians 5:9).

That is the principle worth slowing down for. A small presence can make a big difference.

How Drift Actually Happens
Drift does not announce itself. Nobody wakes up and decides to compromise their convictions or trade the gospel for something less. The way it works is quieter and more patient than that.

Leaven is yeast, the small agent that causes dough to rise. Think of those cheddar biscuits at Red Lobster, or the rolls at Texas Roadhouse. Yeast is what gives them their lift. The way yeast works is instructive. It is small. It moves quietly. It spreads invisibly. And it works thoroughly until the whole batch has changed.

Picture a pitcher of clear water. Drop in two drops of blue food coloring. It is not a hostile takeover. There is no explosion, no sudden reversal. The color just begins to swirl, slowly, almost lazily. Look back in a few moments and the entire jar has gone blue. You cannot point to the second it happened. You only know it happened.

This is how influence works. Not by force. By permeation.

In chemistry, a catalyst is a substance present in a very small amount that dramatically begins a reaction and transforms what it touches. Influence behaves the same way in a life or a church. A small input, given time, redefines the whole environment.

Why False Teaching Rarely Looks Dangerous at First
False teachers almost never arrive with a loud, hostile takeover. In Galatia, they did not stand up and announce a new religion. They added one rule. Then another. They invited the Galatian believers to keep part of the old law alongside their faith in Jesus. Just a little adjustment. Just a small refinement. Just enough to drift the whole community off course.

Jesus had already warned about this exact pattern. In Luke 12:1 He told His disciples, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees." He said it more than once. The Pharisees were the law keepers, the rule keepers, the ones teaching that righteousness comes through merit and performance and walking the line. Jesus did not say their teaching was loud or obvious. He said it was leaven. Quiet. Spreading. Sufficient to ruin the whole loaf if left unchecked.

Paul is making the same point to the Galatians. Legalism never stays small. What begins as one extra rule eventually replaces Christ and the gospel altogether. A little leaven does not improve the gospel. It consumes it. It nullifies it.

Martin Luther put it bluntly: "This little leaven is nothing else than the doctrine of righteousness of works, which, if it be admitted, soon defiles and overthrows all other Christian doctrine." Luther saw no middle ground between Christ's righteousness and works righteousness. One eventually swallows the other.

The Sharp Edge of Paul's Argument
In Galatians 5:10-12, Paul gets pointed. He says the person stirring up this trouble, whoever he is, will bear the penalty. Then in verse twelve he reaches for hyperbole that gets attention. He wishes those teachers pushing circumcision would go further and emasculate themselves.

The line is jarring. It is also theological. Paul is exposing the absurdity of the logic. If a little cutting brings you closer to God, why stop where they stopped? Why not more? The point is that there is no coherent endpoint on the works-righteousness road. Every step further is still a step further from the cross. The slope keeps sloping.

That is what makes the leaven principle so serious. The error is not just wrong. It is self-multiplying.

Beyond Legalism: Why This Principle Reaches Everywhere
Paul uses the same leaven analogy in 1 Corinthians 5, but applied to a different problem. The Corinthian church had sexual sin running unchecked, and Paul writes, "Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?" (1 Corinthians 5:6). His instruction in verse seven is direct: "Cleanse out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened, for Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."

So, the principle is not narrow. It applies to doctrine. It applies to legalism. It applies to sin. It is the way influence works, full stop. A small presence, allowed to stay, will reshape the whole batch. Bitterness spreads this way. Compromise spreads this way. So does grace, by the way, and truth, and faithfulness. The principle cuts both directions. What you tolerate, you eventually become.

How to Catch the Drift Before It Costs You
If a little leaven leavens the whole lump, then a few honest questions are worth asking on a regular basis.

What have you started tolerating that you used to refuse? What teaching have you started absorbing without testing it? What relationship is quietly pulling your convictions sideways? Where were you running well a year ago, and where are you now?

The drift itself is a warning, not a failure. The failure is leaving the leaven in.

Paul's counsel to the Galatians is the same counsel for the rest of us. Notice what is permeating. Name it. Cleanse it out. Run back to the gospel of grace through faith, the same one you started with. The same Jesus who paid for everything is the same Jesus who is enough today. There is nothing to add. There is nothing to earn. There is only Him.

That is good news for everyone who has drifted. The water can be poured out. The dough can be made new. Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. The lump He calls clean stays clean.



This blog is based on the message shared by Campus Pastor Ben Hays at our CityRise West U Baptist campus on Sunday, May 17, 2026. Check out the full message below!

Because you give, our A Children's Village Preschool proudly celebrates the graduation of 30 children this school year, heading off to 15 different schools. The school community includes 165 students, ranging from infants through Pre-K 4, across 13 nurturing classrooms. In addition to a core curriculum, ACV enriches the students’ experiences with three ancillary programs: Spanish, Science, and Music. ACV is especially proud of its diverse and global community, with families representing 10 different countries, creating a vibrant, multicultural environment where children learn from one another every day. If you’d like to give toward work like this and so much more, please make a physical donation during our time of offering, visit cityrise.org/give or click the give button in the CityRise app.

If you have ever felt tired in your faith, not from doing too much but from never feeling like you have done enough, you are not alone. Many believers carry a quiet exhaustion that does not come from a lack of activity. It comes from the slow grind of trying to measure up.
You hear a sermon, and it feels like a list of where you are falling short. You sit down for a quiet time, and you start measuring whether you are doing it right. A bad week rolls in, and you wonder whether God is disappointed in you again. You believe in grace as a doctrine, but emotionally, you live as if you are still under the law. So, you keep performing, and the soul keeps shrinking.

The Apostle Paul saw this exact pattern in his own day, and he wrote one of the most pointed passages in the New Testament to address it. In Galatians 4:24-26, he draws a sharp line between two ways to relate to God, two covenants represented by two mothers and two mountains. One produces slavery. The other produces freedom. And the difference between them is the difference between a life of striving and a life of rest.

Why Spiritual Exhaustion Has a Real Source
Paul is doing something striking in this passage. He takes the story of Hagar and Sarah and uses it allegorically, which is normally a dangerous way to read Scripture. Allegory means assigning meaning to a story beyond what the text plainly says, and trained interpreters are taught to avoid it. Paul gets to break the rule because the Holy Spirit is inspiring his teaching. He says, in effect, "I am going to make an allegorical point here, and this is what I want you to see."

Hagar, he says, corresponds to Mount Sinai. That would have stopped his Jewish readers in their tracks. Sinai was sacred ground. It was where God gave the law to Moses, where Israel became a covenant people, where the mountain trembled and the voice of God shook the air. If you go back to Exodus 19, the scene is terrifying. The people beg Moses to make the voice stop. The boundaries are drawn. Even an animal that touches the mountain is to be stoned. The holiness of God is so overwhelming that the people stand at a distance and tremble.

Paul is not saying the law is evil. The law was holy. It revealed God's character. It exposed our sinfulness. It gave Israel a moral, ceremonial, and civic structure as God's covenant people. But here is what the law could not do. The law could not give life.

The law could reveal sin, but it could not remove sin. The law could expose the standard of righteousness, but it could not produce righteousness within us. The law could command obedience, but it could not transform desire. The law could diagnose the disease, but it could not heal the heart. And because of that, any system built on law-keeping as the basis of acceptance before God will eventually crush the people inside it.

That is why Paul says Sinai bears children for slavery. Some of us know that feeling all too well. We have been around church for years, but our souls are tired. Every sermon lands like a shame statement. Every quiet time becomes another measurement. Every bad week reopens the question of whether God is still pleased with us. The result is a spiritual fatigue full of fear, comparison, insecurity, and shame. It creates people who know the right answers but cannot rest in what Jesus has already done.

Paul's word to those people is direct. You do not belong there anymore.

The Two Mountains: Sinai and Zion
Look at verse 26. "But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother." Paul is not talking about the earthly city. He is lifting our eyes to a heavenly reality, the eternal city whose builder and maker is God.

The writer of Hebrews makes the same contrast in Hebrews 12:18-24. "For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, 'If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.' Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, 'I tremble with fear.'"

That is Sinai. That is Exodus 19. But then Hebrews turns. "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel."

In Christ, you have not ultimately come to the mountain of terror. You have come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. There is an old covenant that says, "Obey, and you may live." And there is a new covenant where God says, "I will change your heart."

The Difference Between Performance and Promise
The old covenant is a covenant of performance. The new covenant is a covenant of promise. Jeremiah saw it coming long before Paul wrote Galatians. In Jeremiah 31:31-34, God says, "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."

Count the "I will" statements. I will make a new covenant. I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God. I will forgive their iniquity. I will remember their sin no more. That is the language of promise, not performance.

The old covenant exposed the problem. The new covenant provides the Savior. The old covenant revealed sin. The new covenant brings forgiveness. The old covenant was written on tablets of stone. The new covenant is written on the human heart by the Spirit of God Himself. The old covenant says, "Stay back." The new covenant says, "Come near. Come boldly to the throne of grace, and find help in your time of need, because of the blood of Christ."

Why Jesus Changes Everything
This is where you have to see Jesus clearly. He is not merely the teacher of the new covenant. He is the mediator of it. He is the fulfillment of the law. He is the true son of promise, the offspring of Abraham through whom the nations are blessed. He is the one who obeyed when Israel failed. He is the one who bore the curse of the law on the cross.
Paul makes this explicit in Galatians 3. "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles."

So, when Paul says, "Jerusalem above is free," he is not talking about vague spiritual optimism. He is talking about a freedom purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. The one who fulfilled the law that we could not keep. The one who became the curse and bore it for us. The one who secured the promise that we could not earn. And He has poured out His Spirit, so the life of God would be written, not merely on tablets, but within us.

A Word for the Barren Place
Paul ends this section by quoting Isaiah, in Galatians 4:27. "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor. For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband."

Why can the barren rejoice? Because God brings life where human ability has come to an end. Why can the desolate sing? Because God creates a people by grace. Why can sinners come near? Because Jesus has carried our sin, removed our shame, and secured our place in the family of God.

For some readers, that word "barren" is not theoretical. It is painful. Some have walked through infertility, or are walking through it now. Some have lost children. Some have watched motherhood unfold in a way they never hoped or imagined. Some are watching their children struggle spiritually, emotionally, or relationally, and there is a barren place in the soul that no encouragement seems to reach.

The Bible does not minimize that pain. It does not offer a simplistic answer. But it does speak a better word over the place that feels empty and impossible. God sees what feels empty. He sees the place where your strength has come to an end. And the God of Sarah, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is still the God who brings life by promise, not by human striving.

Where Real Freedom Begins
Human striving may produce activity. Only grace produces life.

If you are exhausted from trying to be good enough, the answer is not to try harder. The answer is to look honestly at the kind of covenant you have been living under and to come back to the one Jesus secured for you. You were never meant to live at Sinai. You were brought to Zion. You were never meant to earn your place. You were given it.

The Spirit of God is not waiting for you to perform your way back into favor. He is waiting to write the life of God within you, because Jesus has already kept the promise on your behalf.



This blog is based on the message shared by Senior Pastor Dr. Roger Patterson at our CityRise West U Baptist campus on Sunday, May 10, 2026. Check out the full message below!

Happy Mother’s Day, CityRise Church.

Before we open the text today, I want to pause and say something with deep gratitude. We would not be the church we are without the mothers, grandmothers, spiritual mothers, foster mothers, adoptive mothers, single mothers, and women of faith who have shaped so many of us.

Some of you got children dressed this morning, found shoes that were somehow missing, packed bags, broke up arguments in the car, and still made it to church with a smile on your face. Some of you are still mothering grown children through prayer, counsel, encouragement, and quiet tears. Some of you are carrying joy today. Some of you are carrying grief. Some of you are celebrating. Some of you are aching.

And I want you to know this: God sees you. Your church loves you. And the work you are doing matters for eternity.

Now, Mother’s Day can also be dangerous territory for husbands and children if we are not careful. I read about some of the worst Mother’s Day gifts people have ever given: cleaning supplies, dieting books, vacuum cleaners, leftover holiday candy, and gas station flowers. But my favorite was the man who gave his wife an iron for Mother’s Day. He got the message a month later when she gave him an ironing board for Father’s Day.

Fellas, if you have anything in a gift bag today that plugs into the wall and removes wrinkles, you may want to reconsider before lunch.

But today, as we come to Galatians 4, Paul actually gives us what we might call a Mother’s Day message. Not a sentimental one. Not a Hallmark one. But a deeply theological one.
Paul takes us back to Genesis, and he tells us the story of two mothers.

Hagar and Sarah.

Two women. Two sons. Two covenants. Two mountains. Two cities. Two spiritual realities. And ultimately, two completely different ways to relate to God.

One way leads to slavery.

The other leads to freedom.

And the whole passage builds toward Galatians 5:1.

Galatians 5:1
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Church, that verse is not merely a theological statement. It is an invitation. It is a warning. It is a summons.

Christ has set you free.

Stand firm.

Do not go back.

Let’s read Galatians 4:21–31.

Galatians 4:21–31
Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia;[e] she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written,
“Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;
break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!
For the children of the desolate one will be more
than those of the one who has a husband.”
28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

Before we jump into Galatians 4:21, it is important to remember where Paul has taken us through this letter.

• Galatians is not merely a theological debate; it is a pastoral rescue mission.

Paul is writing to churches that had begun in the freedom of the gospel but were now being tempted to return to a system of religious performance.

• False teachers had entered the churches and were telling Gentile believers that faith in Jesus was not enough.
• They needed Christ, yes — but they also needed circumcision, the Mosaic Law, and Jewish religious practices in order to truly belong to the people of God.

Paul sees this as nothing less than a distortion of the gospel itself. And so, through the first four chapters, he has been patiently and passionately building his case.

What Has Paul Been Teaching in Galatians 1–4?
• The Gospel comes from divine revelation, not human invention (Galatians 1)
• Salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone — not by works of the law (Galatians 2)
• Abraham himself was justified by faith before the law was ever given (Galatians 3)
• The Law was never meant to save; it was a guardian pointing us to Christ (Galatians 3)
• In Christ, believers are adopted as sons and daughters of God (Galatians 4)
• To return to law-based righteousness after receiving grace is to return to slavery (Galatians 4)

Paul has been moving toward one central burden all along:

• if righteousness could come through human effort, then Christ died for no purpose.
• But Christ did die.
• Christ was crucified.
• Christ was raised.

And therefore our standing before God rests not on our ability to perform, but on Jesus’ finished work on our behalf.

Now, as we come to the end of chapter 4, Paul reaches back into the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar to illustrate the difference between:

• slavery and freedom,
• flesh and promise,
• law and grace.

Let’s dive right in. Here we have…Two mothers and a question:

Two Mothers: Which House Are You Living In?

Paul begins with a confrontation.

Galatians 4:21
Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?

That is a sharp question. Paul is saying:
 “You say you want to live under the law. You say you want to take on this system of religious performance. But have you actually listened to what the law says?”

Then he takes them all the way back to Abraham.

Abraham had two sons. One was Ishmael, born to Hagar. The other was Isaac, born to Sarah.

Now, to really understand what Paul is doing, we need to slow down and go back into the Genesis story.

• God had called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans and made him a promise.
• God told him that He would make him into a great nation,
• and that He would bless him,
• and that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed.

That promise was never merely about Abraham having a better life. It was about the plan of redemption.

• Through Abraham would come Isaac.
• Through Isaac would come Jacob.
• Through Jacob would come the tribes of Israel.
• Through Judah would come David.
• And through David’s line would come Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world.

So, when God promised Abraham a son, this was not merely about Abraham and Sarah becoming parents in old age. This was about the unfolding promise of God to rescue the nations.

But there was a problem…Sarah was barren.

And not only was Sarah barren, but year after year went by and the promise seemed more impossible.

• Abraham got older.
• Sarah got older.
• Their circumstances seemed to be moving in the opposite direction of God’s promise.

Have you ever been there?

• Have you ever had a word from God,
• a promise from God,
• a prayer before God,
• and everything in your circumstances seemed to be moving in the wrong direction?

That is where Abraham and Sarah were.
 
And in that long waiting, they did what we are often tempted to do.

They tried to help God out. - Sarah gave Hagar, her Egyptian servant, to Abraham. Hagar conceived, and Ishmael was born.

But Paul says Ishmael was “born according to the flesh.”

Now, that does not mean Ishmael was not a real child, or that God did not care about him.

• If you read Genesis, you will see that God saw Hagar in her suffering.
• God heard Ishmael’s cry.
• God showed mercy to them.
• This is not a passage about God being cruel to Hagar or Ishmael.

Paul’s point is that Ishmael came through human effort, human strategy, human impatience, and human control.

Hagar became the human solution to a divine promise.

But Isaac…Isaac came differently.

• Isaac was born when Abraham was as good as dead and Sarah’s womb was closed.
• Isaac was born when there was no human explanation left.
• Isaac was not born because Abraham and Sarah finally developed a better plan.
• Isaac was born because God keeps His promises.

That is the contrast Paul is drawing.

• Hagar represents what human effort can produce.
• Sarah represents what only divine promise can produce.

And Paul is saying to the Galatians…

“If you want to understand what is happening in your own soul, go back and look at these two mothers.”

Because every person in this room will relate to God in one of two ways.

• One way is the way of the flesh:
• of performance,
• striving,
• proving,
• controlling,
• achieving,
• and trying to produce righteousness through human effort.

The other way is the way of promise.

• It is the way of grace.
• It is the way of receiving from God what only God can give.

The performance way says,
“I must do better so God will accept me.”

The promise way says,
“In Christ, I am accepted, and now grace is changing me.”

Those two statements may sound similar, but they produce very different lives.

The performance way produces:

• anxiety, because you never know if you have done enough;
• pride, when you think you are doing better than others;
• despair, when you know you are not;
• and distance from God, because you are always measuring instead of resting.

But the promise way produces a different life.

• It produces humility because you know you did not save yourself.
• It produces gratitude because you know Christ has done for you what you could never do for yourself.
• It produces obedience, not as a payment to earn God’s love, but as the fruit of having already received it.

And this is where many believers struggle. We know how to say salvation is by grace, but we often live as though God’s daily posture toward us is determined by our latest performance.

• If we prayed enough, we feel accepted.
• If we served enough, we feel useful.
• If we had a good week, we feel close to God.

But if we failed, if we sinned, if we were impatient, if we were inconsistent, we pull back from God as if the Father’s love rises and falls with our record.

That is not freedom. That is slavery dressed in religious language.

Paul is pressing this because the false teachers in Galatia were telling Gentile believers that faith in Jesus was not enough.

• They needed Jesus, but they also needed circumcision.
• They needed Jesus, but they also needed to come under the Mosaic law.
• They needed Jesus, but they also needed religious performance to complete their standing before God.

And Paul says,
“No. If you add anything to Christ as the basis of your acceptance before God, you have not strengthened the gospel. You have lost it.”

This is why the story of Hagar and Sarah matters.

Friends, walking in faith is not Abraham and Sarah figuring out how to make God’s promise happen.

Walking in faith is God doing what only God can do.

• The gospel is not humanity climbing up to God.
• The gospel is God coming down to us in Jesus Christ.

And on this Mother’s Day, there is a tender word here for parents, and especially for mothers who are carrying heavy burdens for their children.

• Some of you have a child who is wandering.
• Some of you have a son or daughter who has walked away from the Lord.
• Some of you have prayed and cried and wondered what you could have done differently. 

You wonder whether you were too strict or not strict enough, too protective or not protective enough. And the enemy loves to come in and accuse.

Now, parents, we do have responsibility. We teach. We train. We model.

But hear me carefully: you cannot perform your child into the kingdom.

• You cannot manipulate a heart into regeneration.
• or control what only the Spirit of God can produce.
• Your calling is not to be your child’s Savior.
• But it is to keep trusting the Savior.

Monica, the mother of Augustine, understood this. Her son was brilliant, gifted, restless, and running from God. He chased ambition, pleasure, false religion, and worldly philosophy. Monica did not have the power to convert him.

• But she prayed.
• She wept.
• She pursued God on behalf of her son.

And eventually Augustine was converted and became one of the most influential theologians in the history of the church.

Augustine later wrote that his mother had labored more for his spiritual birth than she had for his physical birth.

That is a picture of promise.

Promise does not mean passivity. It does not mean we do nothing. It means we do not confuse our role with God’s role.

We pray. We love. We speak. We wait. We trust.

And we remember that the same God who opened Sarah’s barren womb can open a prodigal’s hardened heart.

So, Paul begins with two mothers. But then he moves from mothers to mountains. He wants the Galatians to see that these two mothers represent two covenants, two spiritual systems, and two ways of standing before God.

Two Covenants: Which Mountain Are You Living Under?

Look again at verses 24-26.
 
Galatians 4:24–26
Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

Paul says these women are two covenants.

Now, when Paul uses the word “allegorically,” he does not mean that Genesis did not actually happen. He is not denying the historical reality of Hagar, Sarah, Ishmael, and Isaac.
He is saying that the historical events themselves point beyond themselves.

And Paul says Hagar corresponds to Mount Sinai.

That would have been shocking to his Jewish readers.

Mount Sinai was sacred ground in Israel’s history.

That is where:

•  God gave the law to Moses.
• where Israel became constituted as a people through the covenant.
• where the mountain trembled, thunder rolled, lightning flashed, smoke rose, and the voice of God spoke.

If you go back to Exodus 19, the scene is terrifying.

• The people are told not to touch the mountain.
• Boundaries are set.
• The holiness of God is so overwhelming that the people stand at a distance.
• They tremble before the sound of the trumpet and the thunder of the presence of God.

Now, we need to be very careful here. Paul is not saying the law was evil. The law was holy, revealed God’s character, and exposed sin. The law gave Israel a moral, ceremonial, and civic structure as God’s covenant people.

But the law could not give life.

And that is the point.

The law could:

• reveal sin, but it could not remove sin;
• expose the standard of righteousness, but it could not produce righteousness within us;
• command obedience, but it could not transform desire;
• diagnose the disease, but it could not heal the heart.

And because of that, any system of religion built on law-keeping as the basis of acceptance before God will eventually crush people under its weight.

That is why Paul says Sinai bears children for slavery.

And some of you know exactly what that feels like.

• You have been around church for years, but deep down your soul is exhausted.
• Every sermon becomes another reminder of where you are failing.
• Every quiet time becomes another measurement.
• Every bad week makes you wonder whether God is disappointed in you again.

You believe in grace doctrinally, but emotionally you still live under law.

And that produces a particular kind of spiritual fatigue… A fatigue full of:

• fear,
• comparison,
•  insecurity,
• and shame.

It creates people who may know the right answers but cannot rest in the finished work of Jesus. That is Sinai.

And Paul says, “You do not belong there anymore.”

But then he says there is another city.

Galatians 4:26
But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

The Jerusalem above is not the earthly city of Jerusalem. Paul is lifting our eyes to the heavenly reality, the eternal city, the city whose builder and maker is God.

Hebrews 12 helps us here.

Hebrews 12:18–24
18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Hebrews says that in Christ, we have not ultimately come to Sinai, the mountain of terror. We have come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.

That is what Paul is saying in Galatians.

There is a covenant that stands outside of you and says, “Obey and live.”

But there is a new covenant in which God says, “I will change your heart.”

Jeremiah prophesied this long before Paul wrote Galatians.

Jeremiah 31:31-34
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Notice how much of the new covenant depends on God’s “I will.”

God says:

• I will make a new covenant.
• I will put my law within them.
• I will write it on their hearts.
• I will be their God.
• I will forgive their iniquity.
• I will remember their sin no more.

That is promise language.

• The old covenant exposed the problem. The new covenant provides the Savior.
• The old covenant revealed sin. The new covenant brings forgiveness.
• The old covenant was written on tablets of stone. The new covenant is written on human hearts by the Spirit of God.
• The old covenant said, “Stay back.” The new covenant says, “Come near through the blood of Jesus.”

And this is where we must see Christ clearly.

Jesus is not merely the teacher of the new covenant. He is:

• the mediator of the new covenant.
• He is the fulfiller of the law.
• He is the true Son of promise.
• He is the offspring of Abraham through whom the nations are blessed.
• He is the One who obeyed where Israel failed.
• He is the One who bore the curse of the law on the cross.

That is what Paul already told us in Galatians 3.

Galatians 3:13–14
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us… so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles.

So, when Paul says the Jerusalem above is free, he is not talking about vague spiritual optimism. He is talking about a freedom purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ.

• Christ fulfilled the law we could not keep.
• Christ bore the curse we deserved.
• Christ secured the promise we could not earn.

And Christ poured out the Spirit so that the life of God would be written not merely before us, but within us.

This is why Paul quotes Isaiah 54 in verse 27.

Galatians 4:27
For it is written,
“Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;
break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!
For the children of the desolate one will be more
than those of the one who has a husband.”

Why can the barren rejoice?

• Because God brings life where human ability has come to an end.

Why can the desolate sing?

• Because God creates a people by grace.

Why can sinners come near?

• Because Jesus has carried our sin, removed our shame, and secured our place in the family of God.

And I want to be tender here, especially on Mother’s Day.

For some of you, the word “barren” is not theoretical. It is painful.

• Some have walked through infertility.
• Some have lost children.
• Some wanted motherhood and that story has not unfolded as you hoped.
•  Some are watching children struggle spiritually, emotionally, or relationally, and there is a barren place in your soul.

This text does not minimize that pain. It does not offer simplistic answers. But it does speak a better word over barren places.

• God sees what feels empty, what feels impossible.
• God sees the place where your strength has come to an end.
• And the God of Sarah, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is still the God who brings life by promise.

Human striving may produce activity, but only grace produces life.

So, here Paul has shown us two mothers and two covenants. Now he brings us to the point of decision. If Christ has set us free, then we must not allow slavery to remain in the house.

One Choice: Cast it Out and Stand Firm

Look at verse 28.

Galatians 4:28
Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.
 
Paul is not merely telling them what to do. He is reminding them who they are.
That is so important.

The Christian life does not begin with behavior modification. It begins with identity transformation.

Paul says, “You are like Isaac.”

• You are children of promise.
• You are not children of religious achievement.
• You are not children of your moral résumé.
• You are not children of your church attendance, your consistency, your giving record, your Bible knowledge, or your ability to keep all the plates spinning.

You are children of promise because God has done for you in Christ what you could never do for yourself.

But then Paul says something very honest.

Galatians 4:29
But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.
 
In Genesis, Ishmael mocked Isaac. The child born according to the flesh opposed the child born according to promise.

Paul says that same pattern continues.

Just as the flesh always resists the Spirit, performance always resists grace.

• Legalism always resists freedom.

And sometimes the strongest resistance to grace comes from religious people who cannot stand the idea that Jesus really is enough.

But let’s be honest. The resistance is not only outside of us. It is also inside of us.

There is something in the human heart that keeps wanting to contribute to our own salvation.

• We want to bring something to the table.
• We want to maintain some measure of control.
• We want to believe that we are better than others because we have performed better than others.

Grace offends the pride of the human heart because grace removes boasting.

And that brings Paul to the sharp command in verse 30.

Galatians 4:30
But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.”
 
That sounds severe because Paul intends it to sound severe.

He is quoting Genesis 21, when Sarah sees Ishmael mocking Isaac and says to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son.”

Now, in the Genesis narrative, that is a painful family moment.

• It involves real people,
• real pain,
• real consequences,
• and God’s mercy toward Hagar and Ishmael.

But Paul is drawing out the theological meaning. He is saying that law-based righteousness and promise-based righteousness cannot coexist as the foundation of your standing before God.

• You cannot build your life on Christ and performance.
• You cannot trust Jesus and also trust your résumé.
• You cannot say, “Christ is sufficient,” and then live as if He needs supplementation.

So, Paul says, “Cast it out.”

Whatever system tells you that your standing before God depends on your performance must be cast out.

Whatever pride tells you that your obedience makes you superior to others must be cast out.

Not because obedience does not matter. It does matter.

Grace is not opposed to obedience.

Grace is opposed to earning.

You see, Paul is calling the Galatians to a decisive break with any version of Christianity that makes Jesus a partial Savior.

And that brings us to verse 31 and then Galatians 5:1.

Galatians 4:31
So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.
 
I love verse 31 here. It’s a declaration of whose we are! It’s our identity. And once again, from our identity, there is a call to Action.

That call to action is to stand firm.

Look at Galatians 5:1. This is one of the great sentences in the New Testament.

Galatians 5:1
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

“For freedom…”

That is the purpose.

Christ did not set you free so you could live the rest of your life afraid of God’s rejection. He did not break the chains of condemnation so you could polish them and put them back on.
“Christ has set us free…”

That is the agent. Not you…but Christ! His blood purchased your freedom. His cross secured it. His resurrection confirmed it. His Spirit applies it.

“Stand firm therefore…”

That is the command. The Christian life requires resistance. There are moments when you have to plant your feet on the finished work of Jesus and refuse to move.

• When shame accuses you, stand firm.
• When legalism pressures you, stand firm.
• When your own heart tells you that you need to earn your way back into God’s favor, stand firm.

And then Paul gives the warning:
“Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

That word “again” is important. These Galatians had already tasted grace.

• They had already received Christ and been declared sons and daughters of God through faith.

And now they were being tempted to go back.

So let me ask you:
Is there a yoke you have been carrying that Christ never asked you to pick up?

• Some of you are carrying the yoke of perfectionism. You can never rest because nothing is ever enough.
• Some are carrying the yoke of people-pleasing. You are exhausted because you have made the approval of others your functional god.
• Some are carrying the yoke of parental guilt. You are replaying years of decisions, wishing you could go back and fix what only God can redeem.
• Some are carrying the yoke of religious performance. You know the language of grace, but your soul still lives by law.
• Some are carrying the yoke of secret shame. You believe Christ forgives sin in general, but you struggle to believe He has fully forgiven yours.

Paul says, “Stand firm.”

Not because you are strong in yourself.

Stand firm because Christ has set you free.

• Live as people who are not trying to become loved, but who are already loved in Christ.

This blog is based on the message shared by Senior Pastor Dr. Roger Patterson on Sunday, May 10, 2026, at our CityRise West U Baptist campus. Check out the full message below!

Because you give, we can provide community, fellowship, and support to moms. For 20 years at CityRise, MomCo (formerly known as MOPS) has given moms in all seasons of life the chance to fellowship and learn from a featured speaker. One mom said she was attracted to MomCo because, as a stay-at-home mom, MomCo allows her to connect with other moms, schedule playdates, and find support and community. If you’d like to give toward work like this and so much more, please make a physical donation during our time of offering, visit cityrise.org/give or click the give button in the CityRise app.

Dear Church Family,

This past Sunday, we had the joy of recognizing and praying over our graduating high school seniors. Moments like Senior Recognition Sunday are always meaningful because they remind us that the next generation is the future of the church but also very much a part of it right now. As these students step into a new season, we are asking the Lord to continue shaping their faith, guiding their decisions, surrounding them with godly community, and helping them remain rooted in Christ wherever He leads them next.

For a few weeks now, you’ve been encouraged to stay connected as summer begins and schedules shift. That encouragement is especially fitting for our seniors and their families. Whether they are heading to college, beginning work, serving, or discerning what comes next, our prayer is that they would continue walking with Jesus, leaning into the church, and remembering that they are deeply loved by their CityRise family. Be sure to enjoy the pictures from Sunday below and take a moment this week to pray for these students and their families.

And while we’re thinking of the future and those attending undergraduate higher education soon, remember that CityRise scholarship applications for the 2026–2027 academic year are open, but the deadline to apply is this coming Monday, May 11, at 4P. If you have a graduating senior or undergraduate student who may qualify, please visit cityrise.org/scholarship to review the requirements, download the application, and submit the required materials online or in person.

Finally, we are grateful to have officially installed Pastor Tim Yeager as the new CityRise Bellaire Campus Pastor. Many of you know Tim from his years serving our students, which made this season especially meaningful as we celebrated seniors he has personally invested in and shepherded. Some of you may have missed the Bellaire Campus Pastor Selection Committee video we shared, so we’ve included it here along with a few pictures below.

We also look forward to honoring the moms, grandmothers, and faithful women who have loved, prayed, and helped point so many of us to Jesus this Sunday for Mother’s Day! We know this day can carry joy for many and tenderness for others, so our prayer is that the Lord would meet each of us with His grace and presence where we are, as He is always faithful to do.

From graduating seniors stepping into what is next, to pastors stepping into new leadership, or to a church family walking forward together in faith, we are thankful for the Lord’s goodness in every season. We’ll see you on Sunday for Mother’s Day, Church Family!


Expecting Greater,
Pastor Roger

If you have spent most of your life trying to be good enough, you already know how exhausting it is. Good enough for your parents, good enough for your friends, good enough for God. The striving never lets up. You wake up under it, you carry it through the day, and you fall asleep wondering whether anything you did actually counted.

There is another way. The Apostle Paul writes about it in Galatians 3, and the change he describes is total. When you put your faith in the work Jesus did for you, your identity changes. You move from death to life. You move from striving to standing. Everything that used to define you starts to lose its grip.

When Faith Comes, Identity Changes
Paul puts it plainly. "Now that this faith has come," your identity is no longer what it was. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:27-29 closes the thought: "And if you are in Christ, you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise."

Notice the language Paul uses. It is union language. "In Christ Jesus." Your identity is no longer something you have to manufacture or maintain on your own. It is derived from Him.
John Calvin said it this way: "Faith unites us to Christ, and in Him we are accounted sons of God."

If you have never put your faith in the work of Christ, your identity has not changed. You are still striving. Still trying to earn approval, from people, from God, from yourself. Still asking, "Is my behavior good enough?" But when you cry out in faith for salvation, when you put your trust in what Jesus already did, you become a son or daughter of the King. You move from death to life.

Why Striving Never Saves You
The Bible says you were born again because you were dead in your trespasses. That is not religious language for shame. It is a diagnosis. Every time the law was broken, it further condemned. Break one part of it, and you are guilty of breaking all of it. This is why Paul wrote that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

In the early years of preaching, my dad sent me a note. He has always loved to encourage. The note said this: "If you are going to be effective in this, you have to get them lost before you can get them found."

So, let it be said plainly. We are all sinners. Every one of us. The law cannot save you because the law was never built to save you. It was built to expose what only Christ can heal.

That is why Christ came. The Anointed One. The Messiah took on flesh, dwelt among us, and laid down His life. When faith in His work comes, something changes that nothing else can change.

What It Means to Be "In Christ"
Paul writes that as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. This is identity language at its most concrete. Your standing before God is no longer independent. It is derived. If you are in Christ, you are clothed in His righteousness, and that is what God sees when He looks at you.

The phrase "sons of God" matters here. It is not gendered. It is legal. In Roman culture, a slave could be redeemed and made an heir. Adoption carried more legal weight than natural birth. An adopted son had full rights, full access, and full inheritance. Paul is using a Roman legal picture every Galatian would have understood, and he is applying it to you.

Warren Wiersbe puts it like this: "When a sinner trusts Christ and is saved, as far as his condition is concerned, he is a spiritual babe who needs to grow. But as far as his position is concerned, he is an adult son who can draw on the Father's wealth and exercise all the wonderful privileges of sonship."

Position and condition are different. Your behavior may not yet match what Christ has accomplished in you. But your position is settled. You are a son. You are a daughter. You are an heir.

Putting On Christ: A Change of Garments
When Paul says you have put on Christ, he is drawing on imagery the Galatians would have recognized immediately.

Wiersbe again: "The phrase 'put on Christ' refers to a change of garments. The believer has laid aside the dirty garments of sin, and by faith received the robes of righteousness in Christ. But to the Galatians, this idea of changing clothes would have an additional meaning. When the Roman child came of age, he took off the childhood garments and put on the toga of the adult citizen. The believer in Christ is not just a child of God. He is a son of God. The believer stands as an adult before God."

This is why returning to the law makes no sense after Christ. Why go back into the childhood garments when the adult toga has been given to you? Why crawl when you have been given the right to walk in fully?

The Walls That Came Down
The law creates separations. The court of men, the court of women, the clean and the unclean, the inside and the outside. The whole religious system was built on dividing lines.
Christ tore them down. "All are one in Christ Jesus." Ephesians says that through Christ, the walls of division have been torn down. We are in Him. We are followers of Him. The old categories have lost their authority.

This was glorious news for the Galatian church. In their world, slaves were treated as property. Women were confined and disrespected. Gentiles were sneered at. A Pharisee's morning prayer went something like this: "I thank You, God, that I am a Jew, not a Gentile, a man, not a woman, a free man, not a slave."

The Christian's prayer is different. "I thank You, God, that I am in Christ." Everything the world erects to separate, define, and rank, all of it is removed in Him.

The Labels That No Longer Define You
The world has its own systems for telling you who you are. Education, income, church attendance, report cards, SAT scores. The way your parents see you. The way your peers see you. The way you see yourself on your worst days.

That is not how it works with God. Your identity is not built on your race, your background, your performance, your parents' approval, or even your feelings. Every category the world uses to limit you has been removed by Christ. You are simply in Him.

That is the difference faith makes. Striving ends because the work is done. The toga has been handed to you. The walls are torn down. The Father has spoken your name and called you His own.

Where to Go from Here
If you have never put your faith in the work Jesus did for you, this is the invitation. Not a moral upgrade. Not a religious resolution. A new identity. You move from death to life.

If you have already placed your faith in Christ, the call is to live like the toga is real. Stop performing as if your acceptance still depends on you. It does not. Stop letting the world's labels define you. They cannot. You are in Christ. That is the only identity that lasts.



This blog is based on the message shared by Senior Pastor Dr. Roger Patterson at our CityRise Bellaire campus on Sunday, May 3, 2026. Check out the full message below!

I recently had a chance to play golf at Bluejack National Golf Course. One of our members invited me out there. He has a friend who recently lost his wife and he wanted me to connect with him.

It was the prettiest golf course I have ever played. Wow!

This guy is a professional counselor and it was amazing to me how deep our conversations went. He began to ask me about my view of mental health and how tied to faith it is.

We talked about it from two perspectives…

• …Where there is a chemical imbalance in our brains that needs addressing. And we discussed this aspect and just how significant it really is.
• …Identity – this is the second part of our discussion – how misunderstanding our identity can lead us into challenging seasons – seasons of despair and depression; seasons of anxiety, and constant fretting.

I said, “I see this aspect of mental health the most – where there is a misplaced identity and it leads to struggle in the life of the believer.”

Now, what might this misplaced identity look like?

• where there should be joy, there is struggle…
• where there should be a deep satisfaction, we find one constantly striving for more…
• where there should be confidence and a settled heart, there is a tremendous lack of peace.

I’m not a Psychiatrist who can help you with your brain chemistry.

But I am a pastor, and I can help you with your identity. This is actually what the Apostle Paul is doing as he is trying to lead the Galatian Churches away from the captivity of a life placed once again under the law. Instead, Paul is saying, “Remember who you are and how that changes everything.”

You see, until we understand our identity, we risk power being placed over our lives. Sometimes that is the power of our emotions that keeps us from getting out of bed. Sometimes it’s more sinister than that. Sometimes it’s a manipulation of someone by another party, whether that be in business, in marriage, or in school.

When we fail to understand who we truly are because of Jesus Christ, we risk being on the other side of a power play that holds us captive.

But when our identity is clear, and when we walk in the Liberty of the Spirit, we can live out God’s call upon our lives and make an impact where we feel useful to Him.

Today, we are going to discover, or be reminded of, our identity as a child of God.

Galatians 3:23-4:7
23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
 
4 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
 
Here is what we are going to learn today: In Christ, you are not a spiritual slave trying to earn your place—you are a fully adopted son or daughter who already belongs.

And here is the flow of the message…

In Christ…
1. Your Identity Has Changed (3:26–29)
2. Your Status Has Been Secured (4:1–7)

Let’s dig in to this one at a time.

In Christ, your identity has changed.

Galatians 3:23-29
23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
 
Now, there is a reason that I moved back to verses 23-25 a bit earlier. Last week, as Tim preached his first sermon as our campus pastor, he mentioned the idea of the Law of God being a Tutor or Guardian that trains us. But there is also other imagery of the Law of God.
Notice it in verse 23.

Galatians 3:23
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.
 
One of the primary purposes of the Law is that it is given to us to “imprison” us.

Warren Wiersbe says…
“The Law separated Israel from the Gentile nations (Eph. 2:12–18); it governed every aspect of their lives. During the centuries of Jewish history, the Law was preparing for the coming of Christ. The demands of the Law reminded the people that they needed a Saviour.”[1]

The law of God put an expectation of holiness – living a separate life—on the people. It called them a love God and their neighbor. Yet they were unable to fulfill this. As Paul has argued, this didn’t make the law inadequate, it actually served a purpose… and that purpose was to:

• Expose their enslavement to sin…
• Reveal their need for a Messiah…

So, notice what he now says, which leads us to our point about identity.

Galatians 3:25-26
But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
 
Notice the movement in these verses.

“We were held captive…imprisoned.” – The identity there is one of a Prisoner.

Then, in chapter 4:3, we are going to see that “we…were enslaved.” – That’s the identity of a slave.

The picture is of ones who have:

• no rights,
• no freedom,
• no seat at the table.

Instead, before Christ came, it was an existence of bondage.

Warren Wiersbe states,
“The Law could reveal sin and, to a certain extent, control behavior, but the Law could not do for the sinner what Jesus Christ can do.”[2]

But the movement – “But now that faith has come…”

What does that mean, “faith has come?”

Keep in mind, Paul is writing to churches he planted when he was on his first missionary journey. He and Barnabas were taking faith to the Jews and Gentiles of the region of Galatia.

And “faith” arrived there through the preaching of their message. And that faith was a message of an opportunity of a new identity in Jesus Christ.

And the message that they proclaimed to them was simple: By putting your faith – your belief that the sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth on the Cross and his resurrection from the dead, was sufficient for your salvation and standing before God – By putting your faith in the work that he did for you, you are now sons of God.

Your identity has changed!

Remember, in Christ, your identity has changed!

Friend, if you have never put your faith in the work that Christ did for you, your identity hasn’t changed. You are still striving. You are still striving for others’ acceptance. You are still striving for others’ approval. You are still striving to please God and be good enough for God.

But when faith comes…and you put your faith in Christ, you become sons and daughters of God, through faith – Not your behavior, not your heritage, and not by observing the law.

Notice what this looks like:

Galatians 3:27-29
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

John Calvin:
“Faith unites us to Christ, and in Him we are accounted sons of God.”

This is all union language.

“in Christ Jesus”

• Union language—your identity is not independent, but derived from Christ
• Everything changes because you are in Him

“sons of God”

• Legal standing (Roman inheritance)
• Not about gender—about status and access

Warren Wiersbe states…
“When a sinner trusts Chrsit and is saved, as far as his condition is concerned, he is a ‘spiritual babe’ who needs to grow; but as far as his position is concerned, he is an adult son who can draw on the Father’s wealth and who can exercise all the wonderful privileges of sonship.”
 
“put on Christ”

• Clothing imagery → identity covering
• You now stand before God in Christ’s righteousness

I love this imagery.

Wiersbe gives us great help here. He states:
“The phrase put on Christ (Gal. 3:27) refers to a change of garments. The believer has laid aside the dirty garments of sin (Isa. 64:6) and, by faith, received the robes of righteousness in Christ (see Col. 3:8–15). But to the Galatians, this idea of “changing clothes” would have an additional meaning. When the Roman child came of age, he took off the childhood garments and put on the toga of the adult citizen. The believer in Christ is not just a “child of God”; he is also a “son of God.” The believer has an adult status before God—so why go back into the childhood of the Law?”[3]

Then it says, “we are one in Christ Jesus.”

“All one in Christ Jesus”—what a tremendous claim!

• The Law created differences and distinctions, not only between individuals and nations, but also between various kinds of foods and animals. Jesus Christ came, not to divide, but to unite.
• This must have been glorious news for the Galatian Christians, for in their society slaves were considered to be only pieces of property; women were kept confined and disrespected; and Gentiles were constantly sneered at by the Jews.

The Pharisee would pray each morning…

“I thank Thee, God, that I am a Jew, not a Gentile; a man, not a woman; and a freeman, and not a slave.” Yet all these distinctions are removed “in Christ.”[4]

So, imagine how transforming this message of Jesus was to these people and this culture.

What else do we see here?

Let’s look at this second point today…

In Christ…
1. Your Identity Has Changed (3:26–29)
2. Your Status Has Been Secured (4:1–7)

In Christ, Your Status Has Been Secured

Did you know that God is never late? He is always on time. He knows the right time, to do the right thing, in just the right way.

This message is being spread during what history calls the Pax Romana – the Peace of Rome.

From the historical point of view, the Roman Empire itself helped prepare the world for the birth of the Saviour. Roads connected city with city, and all cities ultimately with Rome. Roman laws protected the rights of citizens, and Roman soldiers guarded the peace. Thanks to both the Greek and Roman conquests, Latin and Greek were known across the empire.

Historians tell us that the Roman world was in great expectation, waiting for a Deliverer, at the time when Jesus was born.

• The old religions were dying;
• the old philosophies were empty and powerless to change men’s lives.
• Strange new mystery religions were invading the empire.
• Religious bankruptcy and spiritual hunger were everywhere.

God was preparing the world for the arrival of His Son.

Galatians 4:1-7
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
 
In the fullness of time means at just the right time.

Isn’t this amazing to learn more about the heart of God?

• The Peace of Rome created a road system that connected all roads back to Rome.
• The Pax Romana created a common language.
• This time in history set up a message that could go to the ends of the earth, so that everyone could learn about Jesus.

Now, as chapter 4 opens, Paul is still talking about the difference between a slave and a son. But here, he brings us into one’s home and draws our attention to a child being raised by a slave.

You see, it was quite customary for a wealthy Roman citizen to have an educated slave that would rear the children. There were an estimated 60 million slaves in the Roman Empire.

And it’s interesting to note, the son and the slave had a similar position.

• The slave was under the master,
• and the child was under the slave.

That is until the child grew up.

• You see, though the child’s identity was one of a son of the father,
• he couldn’t access his wealth or his rights.
• He was reared by the slave who was charged to prepare and teach him.

But there was a moment when he put on the toga and was no longer under the slave. It happened at just the right time.

And here, Paul tells us why Jesus came…He came, “to redeem those under the law.”

The word redeem means, “to purchase out of slavery,” “to set free by paying a price.”

One writer states…
A man could purchase a slave in any Roman city either to keep the slave for himself or to set him free. Jesus came to set us free.

So, to go back into the Law is to undo the very work of Christ on the cross.

He did not purchase us to make us slaves, but sons!
 
Now, here are a few facts about sons…
1. The son has the same nature as the father, but the servant does not.
 
When we trust Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live within us; and this means we are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

• The Law could never give a person God’s nature within.
• All it could do was reveal to the person his desperate need for God’s nature.
• So, when the believer goes back into Law, he is denying the very divine nature within, and he is giving the old nature (the flesh) opportunity to go to work.

2. The son has a father, while the servant has a master.
 
No servant could ever say “Father” to his master.
 
Wiersbe says,
“When the sinner trusts Christ, he receives the Holy Spirit within, and the Spirit tells him that he is a child of the Father (Rom. 8:15–16)…When the Spirit enters the heart, He says, “Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6); and, in response, the believer cries, “Abba, Father!” (Rom. 8:15)…This shows the closeness of the child to the Father. No servant has this.”

I love how J.I. Packer puts an exclamation on this.

J.I. Packer states…
“To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater.”
 
In Christ…
1. Your Identity Has Changed (3:26–29)
2. Your Status Has Been Secured (4:1–7)
 
We all need to be reminded of that truth, don’t we?  And the truth is that many of us today are struggling to accept our identity as a child of God. So, I want to look at a couple of things that may be preventing us from realizing our identity as a child of God:
 
1. We forget who we are and who we belong to. We suffer from spiritual amnesia. We have an identity crisis.

There is a story of girl who kept a notebook and would often write her thoughts. On one occasion, she drew a picture of her father and wrote his name and address below the picture. Someone saw this and asked her why she did this. She had just watched a movie called Amnesia. She said, “If I ever forget who I am, I want everybody to know who I belong to.”

This may be a bit extreme, but it is an all-too-often experience in our spiritual lives. Guilt from our past. Shame over our sin. We have stuff come into our lives…worries, fears, anxieties, and difficulties…that causes spiritual amnesia.

A Pastor once said…”trust in your permanent identity, not your temporary insecurity.”
 
Maybe because of the insecurity in your life, you feel unworthy of God’s love. You don’t see how God could care about you.

I want to remind you today: if Christ lives in you, you are His child! Listen, we will not be who we can be if we don’t know who we are…if we don’t settle the identity crisis, we will not live out God’s purposes.

Transition: For some here today, your problem is not forgetfulness but it is a deeper problem. It is your perception of God. This leads to the second thing that may prevent us from realizing our identity as a child of God.

2. We have a false perception of God. We can have a false perception of God because we project onto God the unloving characteristics of people we look up to.

A Christian psychologist did a study in this area and said that people too often develop their image of God, not just from God’s Word (as we should), but also from relationships. And here is what the psychologist said; “No child arrives at the ‘house of God’ without his pet God under his arm.” In other words, our image or perception of God is affected by the relationships you have with those closest to you.

Let’s use our Fathers as an example of what we’re talking about. It could be an uncle, coach, mother, sibling, etc. So, apply the analogy to your circumstances.

If your father was distant and uncaring…you may see God as distant and uncaring.
If your father was critical…you struggle to believe God loves and accepts you as you are.
If your father was weak…you may not believe God will protect and support you.
If your father left you…you think God will abandon you and you struggle trusting Him.
If your father abused you…you feel unworthy and too defiled for God’s love.

We could go on, but here’s the point: you struggle to accept your identity in Christ because these relationships have caused you to have a false perception of God.

The challenge for us is this: We must let God’s word inform our image of God.
 
And here is what it says:

1 John 3:1
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

• We are Called Children of God, because that is what we are!  That is what the second sentence of this verse says – “And that is what we are!”  

Once I understand my identity as a child of God through what Christ has done for me, I can begin to live into it.

Listen to these words in the book, Abba’s Child, by Brennan Manning:
“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. God’s love for you and his choice of you constitute your worth. Accept that, and let it become the most important thing in your life…the basis for my personal worth is not my possessions, my talents, not esteem of others, reputation…not kudos or applause and everyone telling you how important you are…our worth is anchored in God who tells me “You are my son, my beloved one.”

He goes on to say: “Being the beloved is our identity—our core existence.”

Are you consistently receiving the love of God?

• Be who He says you are! 
• Be who you have been called to be. 
• Because that is Who He already sees you being.
• 
  

Today, live into this truth—you are God’s child, the Beloved. Be Who You Already Are!

[1] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 703). Victor Books.
[2] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 704). Victor Books.
[3] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 704). Victor Books.
[4] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 704). Victor Books.



This blog is based on the message shared by Senior Pastor Dr. Roger Patterson on Sunday, May 3, 2026, at our CityRise Bellaire campus. Check out the full message below!

Because you give, CityRise can produce meaningful worship gatherings for our church family each week. Across three campuses and seven services,  over 200 minister-musicians work diligently to lead our congregation. With a mixture of volunteers and some professional musicians, your generosity enables us to train, equip, and resource the people of God to craft meaningful opportunities for our entire church family to glorify our Savior. If you’d like to give toward work like this and so much more, please make a physical donation during our time of offering, visit cityrise.org/give or click the give button in the CityRise app.

Dear Church Family,
 
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve encouraged you to stay connected, especially as we move into summer, and to make the most of the opportunities for worship, community, missions, and spiritual growth. With school ending soon (and college around the corner), travel gearing up, and schedules shifting, I know many of us will be in and out over the next few months.
 
That is why I want to take a moment to remind you about some of the simple digital resources that can help you stay connected to your church family wherever you are.
 
Our website, cityrise.org, is the best place to begin. There, you can find upcoming events, ministry opportunities, registration links, media, and helpful next steps. You can also download the CityRise app, which is a great way to keep important resources close at hand no matter which campus you typically attend.
 
If you're traveling or unable to join us in person on a given Sunday, you can watch our services live or replay them later at cityrise.org/live or on our YouTube channel. You can also find CityRise on Facebook and Instagram, where we share clips, stories, updates, and ways to celebrate what God is doing across our church family. We are also grateful that CityRise is featured on the GLU streaming network, giving even more people access to biblical teaching and encouragement across multiple devices.
 
These tools are not a replacement for gathering together, but they are meaningful ways to remain engaged, encouraged, and equipped throughout the week. In many ways, they serve the same purpose as the opportunities I’ve mentioned recently: they help us to stay connected, keep growing, and invite others to take a next step with us.
 
This Sunday is also Senior Recognition Sunday, and we will have the joy of honoring this year’s graduating high school seniors. I hope you will join us as we celebrate them, pray for them, and encourage them as they step into this next season of life.
 
We’ll see you on Sunday, Church Family.

 
Expecting Greater,
Pastor Roger

Are you a recovering legalist? It is a phrase that might sound strange, but for many Christians, it describes a very real and painfully familiar season. Legalism is the tendency to try to earn a better standing with God through moral performance, through doing more, being more, and quietly measuring yourself against everyone around you.

Looking back at my own life, the symptoms were obvious once I could see them. I truly thought my moral performance made me better than others. My mindset was simple: I cleaned up my act. What's wrong with you? I truly thought my level of commitment put me on a higher plane as a Christian. In my mind, there were A-team and B-team Christians. A-team Christians showed up Sunday morning and came back Sunday night. B-team Christians? They were in, but just barely. I actually used to look down on people who skipped the evening service, because I thought it was all about performance and commitment level.

And here was maybe the most serious symptom of all: I truly thought I was the stronger, more mature brother. What I could not see at the time was that I was actually the weaker one. I did not yet understand what it meant to walk in the liberty of the gospel and in genuine gratitude for the grace of Jesus Christ.

Maybe you recognize those patterns. If so, those are exactly the kinds of mindsets Paul is dealing with in Galatians.

Who Led You Astray?
In Galatians 3:1, Paul does not ease into things. He writes, "Oh foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Christ Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified."

The Greek word for "foolish" here means to be easily led astray. The word "bewitched" means to be fascinated by false representation. The Christian Standard Version translates it directly: "Who hypnotized you?" Paul is trying to wake them up. He wants them to see that they are off-center from the cross, and someone led them there.

His alarm actually began earlier. Look back at Galatians 1:6-7: "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you into the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel, not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and who want to distort the gospel of Christ." He was addressing the Judaizers, teachers who had come in and told the Galatians that Jesus was good, but circumcision and law-keeping were also required. Jesus plus something.

Paul drew a hard line in Galatians 1:8: "Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed." One gospel. Stick with it.

Think of the White Witch in Narnia. She does not overpower Edmund by force. She allures him with Turkish delight. She is appealing, persuasive, and ultimately a false representation. That is exactly what Paul's word "bewitched" is getting at. If your life has drifted off-center from the simple message of the cross, it is worth asking: who led you there? A book, a podcast, a YouTube channel, a teacher?

4 Personalities That Can Pull You Off Course
Paul dealt with the Galatians' specific influencers, but the same spirit surfaces in recognizable personalities today. The core equation of the gospel is Jesus plus nothing equals salvation. Here are four personalities that complicate that equation.

The Ultra Zealot runs on performance. This was me. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, Saturday visitation, the whole nine yards. All about the black-and-white letter of the law. Be good, try harder, do better, and do it with great gusto. The Ultra Zealot leads people into an exhausting lifestyle of trying to be good enough for God to accept them and do enough for God to receive them.

The Ever-in-Debtor operates on what can be called the debtors ethic. The logic goes: grace is a free gift, I have received it, but now I sort of have to make installment payments and pay Jesus back. This was part of my own legalist mindset. The problem is that if you owe it back, it was never a free gift. It was never grace. This way of thinking produces a guilt-laden Christian life, a constant sense of spiritual deficit no matter how much you do.

The Special Sage approaches with an insider lean: "Yeah, yeah, Jesus saved you. But let me tell you what you are missing." They carry some extra revelation, a deeper layer, a mystery the average believer has supposedly overlooked. Many cults are driven by exactly this kind of thinking. If someone is complicating the message that Jesus saves, watch out for them.

The Fancy Free sits at the opposite end of the spectrum. Their version of grace sounds like a blank check: you are saved, so go live any way you want to. Paul addresses this directly in Galatians. In Christ, we are not free to sin. We are freed from sin. Those are two very different things. The Fancy Free will pull you beyond what is biblical liberty in Christ and into sinful patterns of unrepentant, ungodly behavior.

The Gospel Holds the Center
The book of Galatians exists because people had started to believe that Jesus was not enough. That they had to do some more things to really, truly be in good standing with God. Paul's answer is the same equation repeated throughout the letter: Jesus plus nothing equals salvation.

The Galatians were not led astray by obvious wolves. They were led astray by persuasive voices that sounded almost right, voices that added just enough to the gospel to slowly shift the center. Stay anchored to the cross. Resist any voice that adds to it. Walk in the liberty of the gospel and in gratitude for the grace of Jesus Christ. That is where the freedom is.



This blog is based on the message shared by Campus Pastor Ben Hays at our CityRise West U Baptist campus on Sunday, April 26, 2026. Check out the full message below!

We are so excited about the progress we are already making with your commitments to our Pathways campaign! The Milton street parking lot renovation outside our West U Baptist campus is expected to begin mid-June. Because of your commitment to support this work, we are excited to see real change and improvements happening soon! CityRise received over 450 pledgers, including 76 who had never given to the church before. If you haven't made a pledge and would like to join this three-year effort, please visit cityrise.org/pathways. And if you'd like to give toward Pathways or any of the other great Kingdom work our church is doing today, please make a physical donation during our time of offering, visit cityrise.org/give, or click the give button in the CityRise app.

Dear Church Family,

Last week, I encouraged you to stay connected over the summer. With changing schedules, travel, and all the good activity this time of year can bring, it’s easy to drift from the steady rhythms that help keep us grounded in worship, community, and spiritual growth.

Along those same lines, I also want to mention a powerful and visually striking film releasing in theaters next Thursday, April 30 called The Story of Everything: The Science that Reveals a Mind Behind the Universe. The film explores the order and wonder of creation, and our own Dr. James Tour is featured in it (along with John Lennox, Dr. Stephen Meyer, Peter Thiel, Brian Keating, amongst many others). As Dr. Tour shared with me, this could be a meaningful film for anyone with children or grandchildren heading to universities, for anyone who knows someone who is persuaded that science points away from God, or for anyone trying to think more clearly about the relationship between faith and science.

You can watch the trailer below, then visit thestoryofeverything.film for showtimes, locations, and tickets (even for groups). It will only be in theaters for one week initially, though if it performs really well, they may push for a second week.

Thankfully, the God who speaks through the vastness of creation is not distant from our tiny placement in the universe. He is at work all across this planet, drawing people to Himself through the gospel of Jesus. At CityRise, we are grateful to be part of that work through strategic partnerships, ongoing prayer, generous giving, and many opportunities to go.

With that in mind, I encourage you to visit cityrise.org/missions this week.

There, you’ll find upcoming mission trips, missions-focused gatherings, and training opportunities that can help you take a further step. Whether that means learning through one of the UBA Missions Cohort Trainings, exploring opportunities presented through the MedAdvance conference in Florida, or considering the Zambia mission trip coming July 2–12, there are practical, specific ways to generously give the gospel of Jesus Christ and even learn how to do it effectively.

We are thankful for partners like the Union Baptist Association (UBA), the North American Mission Board (NAMB), and the International Mission Board (IMB), which help strengthen and expand gospel-sharing ministry in so many different ways. Through these partnerships and others, our church family has opportunities to give and pray as well as learn, prepare, and go.

Perhaps the summer is a season for you to pray more intentionally for the nations; perhaps it’s a time to explore how the Lord might use your gifts, profession, generosity, or even your willingness to go. However He leads, let’s remain a church family connected and ready to say yes here and everywhere.

We’ll see you on Sunday, Church Family.


Expecting Greater,
Pastor Roger

P.S. Those of you attending CityRise Bellaire this coming Sunday, I hope you’re as excited as we are to install Pastor Tim Yeager as our new Bellaire Campus Pastor. Give Tim and his family some love and encouragement this weekend!

Somewhere along the way, you learned that your worth was what you produced. The better your resume, the more valuable you were. The more accomplishments you stacked, the more secure you felt. And for a while, it worked. Promotions came, recognition came, and you kept climbing.

Then something cracked. Maybe a season of failure. Maybe the quiet realization that applause never satisfies. Maybe the exhausting math of having to keep performing just to stay afloat. When your identity is built on performance, even success feels unstable, because you can always lose it.

Paul, the apostle who wrote most of the New Testament, knew that life. Before his encounter with Christ, he was building a religious resume that would have impressed anyone. In Galatians 1, he opens up about the day that foundation collapsed, and what replaced it changed everything.

The Gospel Was Revealed, Not Constructed
Paul anchors his entire message in the origin of the gospel. In Galatians 1:11-12, he insists that the gospel he preaches is "not according to man." That phrase carries real weight. Paul is not saying the gospel merely differs from human opinion. He is saying it does not originate in humanity at all. It is not a philosophy you build from the ground up. It is not a set of ideas you develop and refine. It was revealed.

The Greek word is apokalypsis, meaning an unveiling. Something hidden is made known. Paul is telling the Galatians, "My identity and my message were not constructed. They were revealed. Christ was revealed to me, and it changed everything." John Stott put it this way: "The gospel is not speculation, but revelation. It's not invention, but discovery."

That distinction matters. If the gospel is something we build, then we can modify it. We can adjust it as we go. We can elevate tradition until it sits beside Scripture. But if the gospel is something God reveals, then we have to receive it as it is.

The Resume That Almost Worked
Before Paul's encounter with Christ, his whole life ran on performance. Listen to how he describes his former self in Galatians 1:13-14: "You have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers."

Notice the language. Advancing. Beyond many. Extremely zealous. This is the vocabulary of performance. If anyone could have built security on achievement, it would have been Saul of Tarsus. He would fit right in among today's high achievers, the driven ones, the ones determined to win every opportunity in front of them. His identity was built on success, respect, admiration, and being secure in the eyes of others.

If you looked at his resume on LinkedIn, you would want to connect with him. You would hope he answered your message. If anybody was doing it, he was. And then his entire foundation got blown up by Christ Himself.

How the Gospel Redefines Who You Are
Look at Galatians 1:15-16: "But when He who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son to me, in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone."

That little word but carries the weight of the whole sentence. Paul has just described a life of achievement, effort, and striving. Then everything changed. On the road to Damascus, the light blinded him. Jesus stopped him mid-sprint. "Why are you persecuting Me?" His identity was no longer rooted in his performance.

Paul now roots his identity in three realities.

First, divine initiative. He was set apart before he was born. God chose him. It is the language of election. God picked him.

Second, unearned favor. He was called by grace. Imagine how radically this changed him. He went from performance, performance, performance, from achieve, achieve, achieve, to the realization that he had done nothing to earn any of it. All he had been doing was persecuting Jesus. He thought he was righteous. He thought he was zealous. He thought he had it all together. But God said, "You are nothing. And I picked you. I called you to be My own. I love you." Later Paul would write, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).

Third, transformation. God was pleased to reveal His Son in Paul. Not just information being handed down, but a full re-formation of his entire life around the Messiah.

The gospel does not come to improve your identity. It comes to replace it.

That is not the same thing as saying the gospel improves your life. That framing is shallow and incomplete. The gospel takes hold of every part of you. It means God will often allow the very things you trust most, your competence, your effort, your reputation, your control, your ability to close a deal or raise money or perform, to be stripped down to nothing. He does this because He is for you. He is freeing you.

Legalism, License, or Liberty
Paul is writing to the Galatians because a false gospel is creeping in. Legalism. Rules heaped upon rules. Try harder, measure up, earn your standing. That path leads to enslavement. But there is another ditch on the other side of the road. License. "I am under grace, so I can do whatever I want. I will be forgiven anyway."

Most of us swing between those two poles. We either white-knuckle our way through a list of expectations, or we use grace as an excuse to drift. Paul is pointing the Galatians toward a third option. Liberty in Christ, walking in the Spirit. Not enslaved under a mountain of rules, and not free to live however we please either. A true freedom Jesus purchased, which produces a life He gets to shape.

Real Gospel Identity Doesn't Fear Examination
Paul then does something revealing. He invites scrutiny. In Galatians 1:18-20, he writes, "Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother. In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie."

Three years. Paul did not rush. He did not get converted and start preaching the next week. He went to Arabia. He studied. He wrestled. He sought the heart and mind of God. There is a hidden season in his life that matters more than we realize.

God often does a deep work in people long before He does the visible work through them.
Healthy things take time to grow. Be careful of anything that sprouts up overnight. It tends to have no rootedness. Remember the parable of the soils. The shallow growth gets scorched. The deep growth bears fruit.

When Paul finally went to Jerusalem to visit Peter, he did not go to get his gospel from Peter. He went so that his gospel could be examined next to the apostolic witness. It could be heard, tested, and verified. And then Paul adds this striking line: "Before God, I do not lie." Why does he speak so strongly? Because everything is at stake. If the Galatians can be convinced that Paul is second-hand, insufficient, or incomplete, then the false teachers can move in and distort the whole message.

So, Paul opens his life to scrutiny and says, "Examine the facts."

Real gospel identity does not fear examination. If your identity is built on appearances and on the approval of others, examination feels threatening. Every question becomes a potential unraveling. But if your identity is rooted in Christ, what is real can stand in the light.

What to Do When Your Foundation Is Cracking
If you feel the floor shifting under you right now, if the resume is not working the way it used to, if the applause is quieter than it used to be, this may not be a disaster. It may be an invitation.

God sometimes strips away what we trust most. His aim is freedom, never punishment. The very things you were counting on to define you, your competence, your title, your reputation, your performance, may be the things keeping you from a deeper identity. An identity that cannot be lost because you never earned it in the first place. An identity rooted in divine initiative, unearned favor, and transformation through Christ.

You do not have to build your identity. You only have to receive it.



This blog is based on the message shared by Senior Pastor Dr. Roger Patterson at our CityRise West U Baptist campus on Sunday, April 19, 2026. Check out the full message below!

Because you give, CityRise had an incredible Holy Week. About a thousand people gathered at our inner loop Palm Sunday picnics and over 3,300 people worshiped at one of our worship gatherings on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. Eleven people were baptized Easter Sunday. Our kids team welcomed over 1,400 people to our inner loop Easter Egg Hunt and connected with 32 families with no church home and over 200 currently not attending regularly. At our Missouri City Easter Eggstravaganza, about 300 people enjoyed hot dogs, popcorn, a bouncy house, and an egg hunt. If you’d like to give toward work like this and so much more, please make a physical donation during our time of offering, visit cityrise.org/give or click the give button in the CityRise app.

Happy Friday Church Family,
 
If you missed the email from last Saturday, we’re excited for a special Sunday in a couple weeks’ time. On Sunday, April 26, we will install Pastor Tim Yeager as the new CityRise Bellaire Campus Pastor! We are grateful for the Lord’s clear hand in this process and thankful for the way He has already been at work in Tim and Sydney’s lives. I hope you will join us in praying for them and celebrating this important step for our Bellaire campus.
 
As we steadily shift into summer soon, it’s incredibly easy to become caught up with travel, changing schedules, and good-but-inconsistent activity. Summer often feels more loose, but that does not mean we have to become disconnected.
 
In fact, summer can be a meaningful season for worship, rest, community, and fresh spiritual renewal.
 
That’s why we’ve created the Summer at CityRise page at cityrise.org/summer. It's a simple location where you can stay connected and plan for what is happening across our church family in the months ahead. You’ll find a lot of fun ways to stay plugged in with local opportunities for kids through senior adults, and you’ll also find mission trip information to take the gospel to other parts of the world.
 
More than anything, I want to encourage you to stay near to the Lord. Stay near to His people. Continue showing up for worship when you are in town (or bookmark cityrise.org/live if you’re away). Help your family stay anchored. Look for opportunities to serve, grow, and see what God may want to do in you during these freer months.
 
Take a moment this weekend to visit cityrise.org/summer and see what might help you and your family stay engaged and have some fun while you’re at it.
 
We’ll see you on Sunday, Church Family.

 
Expecting Greater,
Pastor Roger

We live in a culture that is full of ideas about what God wants from you. Some of those ideas are harmless. Others are quietly pulling you away from the gospel without you even realizing it.

You have probably heard them before. God wants me to be happy. God won't give me more than I can handle. If I live a good life, I'll be okay when I die. Just follow your heart. All roads lead to God. The list goes on. These ideas float around in our culture, and because they borrow the language of faith, they can sound like truth. They are not.

The more dangerous ones cut closer to home. The belief that as long as you stay on the straight and narrow, keep the rules, and avoid the big sins, God will be pleased with you. Or that being a Christian is mostly a matter of where you were born or what family you came from. These are lies, and they are the kind that do not feel like lies at first.

Why We Keep Adding to Jesus
There is a consistent human temptation to believe we need something more than Jesus. We need Jesus plus our performance. Jesus plus our obedience record. Jesus plus our family legacy. Jesus plus the right church attendance streak.

But every time we add something to Jesus, we are implying that what He did was not enough. And Scripture does not leave room for that.

In Ephesians 2:19-21, Paul writes: "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people, and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and it rises to become a holy temple in the Lord."

The image Paul gives us is architectural. Jesus is not one brick among many. He is the cornerstone, the stone from which every measurement is taken, the reference point for every wall, every angle, every addition. When ancient builders set a cornerstone, they set it first, leveled it precisely, and then built everything else in alignment with it. If the cornerstone was right, the structure could be trusted. If something else became the reference point, the whole thing would drift.

The One-Degree Problem
Here is what makes spiritual drift so dangerous: it does not feel dramatic. Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to abandon the gospel. It happens by degrees.

There is a principle in aviation called the 1-in-60 rule. If a plane is flying even one degree off course, it will be off by one mile for every sixty miles traveled. That does not sound significant at first. But a one-degree error on a flight to San Antonio means you are a couple of miles off. The same one-degree error on a flight to New York puts you forty or fifty miles off course. Flying to London, you are over one hundred miles away from where you were supposed to land.

Our lives are not a single moment. They are trajectories. Every day we make decisions, form habits, and reinforce beliefs. If we allow even small deviations from the gospel of Jesus, those deviations compound over time. We end up somewhere we never intended to go.

This is why it matters so much to keep coming back to the cornerstone. Not just at salvation, but continually. Every decision measured against what Jesus has done. Every belief aligned to the truth of His resurrection and what that means for us.

What Happens When We Drift to the Right
One of the most common ways people drift from the gospel is into legalism. This is not a faraway theological problem. It lives in ordinary churches and in ordinary people who love God but have quietly replaced relationship with performance.

When the rules become the point, something breaks. The disciplines that were meant to connect us to Jesus start to become the thing we are performing for an audience. We get good at looking right. We learn how to present ourselves in a way that communicates health and stability. And we get very good at holding that presentation in place.

But underneath it, there is pain. There is turmoil. There are things going on inside that we will not let anyone see, because somewhere along the way we learned that being seen fully would cost us acceptance. If people knew the truth about what was happening inside of me, they would not accept me. They would not love me. They would not allow me to belong here.

That fear keeps people trapped behind a performance. And the longer you hold the performance, the harder it becomes to put it down.

I know this personally. I grew up in a Christian home. My parents were missionaries. They were literally on the cover of a book called The Christian Family. I was always in church, always involved, a chaplain at the Christian school I attended. By every external measure, I had it together.

But I knew something was off. I could feel it. I sat down with my Bible one day and just told God I did not understand why something felt so wrong when I was doing everything right. And God spoke to me clearly: You think you can do this all by yourself. You don't have a relationship with me.

That was the moment I realized I had all the rules and none of the relationship. And without the relationship, the rules are just a burden you carry alone.

What It Means to Build on the Right Foundation
We don't turn to ourselves. That is the plain message of Scripture. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." God does not put things in our lives so we can prove we can handle them. He puts things in our lives that are beyond our ability to handle, so that we stop looking to ourselves and start looking to Him.

The goal of difficulty is not self-reliance. It is dependence. It is the discovery that Jesus is not a supplement to your strength, but the source of it.

Jesus is not inviting you to a performance. He is not standing at the door of heaven with a clipboard, tallying up your obedience. He is inviting you into a relationship with the God of the universe who knows you completely, who created you on purpose, and who loves you with full knowledge of every flaw and every failure. He died to give you access to that relationship.

Keeping the Cornerstone at the Center
The practical implication of all of this is not complicated, but it requires intention. If Jesus is the cornerstone, then every part of our lives has to be measured against Him and aligned to Him. What we believe about ourselves. What we believe about God. How we handle failure. How we handle success. What we do when we are hurting. What we do when we feel proud. All of it goes back to the cornerstone.

When we start to drift, the answer is not to try harder. It is to return. Come back to the gospel. Come back to what Jesus has actually done. Come back to the truth that He paid it all and that you owe everything to Him, and that this is not a transaction but a relationship.

The gospel is not a starting point that you move past as you mature in your faith. It is the foundation you keep returning to your whole life. Everything else gets measured there. Everything else gets aligned there.

Jesus is enough. Not Jesus plus your discipline. Not Jesus plus your background. Not Jesus plus your good behavior record. The whole building of your faith rises because He is in it, and because everything is built on Him.

If there is something in your life that has quietly replaced Jesus as the reference point, today is a good day to set the cornerstone back where it belongs.



This blog is based on the message shared by Student Pastor Alberto Avila at our CityRise West U Baptist campus on Sunday, April 12, 2026. Check out the full message below!

There are some moments in life where you realize very quickly… you’ve trusted the wrong thing.

I was thinking this week about how many of us have become completely dependent on GPS.

And I don’t mean casually dependent—I mean fully surrendered.

You don’t question it anymore. If it says turn, you turn. If it reroutes, you assume it knows something you don’t. You just follow.

But every now and then… it gets it wrong.

When I was a kid in elementary school, our teachers made us write a letter to the President of the United States. We learned then what the address to the White House is. Does anyone know it?

Yes, that’s right – 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Over Memorial Day Weekend in 2017, our family went to Washington D.C.

We rented an Air BnB in the city, and we walked all over our nation’s capitol.

Our first adventure was the White House. We set our from our little apartment and started walking to the White House.

So, I typed in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue into my Maps Application on my iPhone and we started walking.

And we walked…we walked by Union Station…and the Lincoln Memorial was just off to our right…you could see the monument.

And we walked some more.

And we walked and walked and walked…and we couldn’t see the historical sites…there were no vendors…we didn’t see the Mall where all of the Museums were.

And I figured my Maps Application was taking us to the quickest route without all of the tourists.

My wife would ask, “Are you sure we are still going the right way? It seems like we should have gotten there by now.”
 
I would say, “It’s just a little bit further. It’s just up here.”

We were walking through a neighborhood…and, you know, I hadn’t really walked a city before using GPS…but our team was all troopers.

As we got closer to the Freeway, we saw a McDonalds.

And we decided that we would stop into this Oasis and get some Fries and Diet Coke.

As we did this, it started to rain. And then it started to pour.

And what’s funny is that the GPS Map Application said that the White House was just across the Street from McDonalds. But when you arrive, this is the building you see…

Did you know that you can be just a little off, but be completely wrong?

Friends, this is where I earned the label, “Confidently Wrong,” in my house.

It’s actually a pattern…but I don’t have time to tell you the rest of my stories, but let’s just say, “If you are going to be wrong, be confident about it.”

You see, in some map applications, if you type in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it defaults to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE.

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Default: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
White House: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

So, after a 45 minute subway ride, we made it to our destination.

You see, I trusted the wrong information that sent us in the wrong direction.

Now here’s the reality.

When GPS gets it wrong, it costs you time.

When a financial decision goes wrong, it costs you money.

But when you get the gospel wrong…

it doesn’t just affect your life—it affects your eternity.

And that’s exactly where Galatians begins. Paul is writing to a group of churches that have not rejected Jesus. They haven’t abandoned church. They haven’t walked away from faith.

• They’ve done something far more subtle.
• They’ve started to adjust the message.
• They’ve begun to add to the gospel.

And Paul steps in—not casually, not gently, but urgently—and says:
There is no other gospel.
 
Now before we dig into the text today, I want to give you a bit of an overview of the entire book.

You see, Galatians provides us a proto-type, a playbook, for dealing with conflict on the core issues of the message of the Bible.

In his overview of the book of Galatians, Dr. Randall Smith said…
“Every great denomination, seminary, and church that has embraced a liberal theology and has rejected the Bible as the authoritative word of God did not start there.”

The Apostle Paul is writing an urgent letter pleading with the churches of Galatia. Now Galatia is an entire region in Asia Minor. These churches include Antioch of Pisida, Iconium, Lystry, and Derbe. They were started by Paul and Barnabas as they were on their first missionary journey in Acts 14.

• God was moving,
• and Paul was preaching in power
• and great things were happening
• and many people were coming to faith in Jesus.

But notice something that happens when Acts 15 opens up. They have just returned to Antioch in Syria. And then this is what happens:

Acts 15:1-5
But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. 3 So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers.  4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. 5 But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”

This is going to spark the Jerusalem Council where they are going to wrestle with the doctrine of Salvation and what is required of Gentiles to be saved. These are the earliest Church Fathers.

Now, look at Acts 15:6-11.

Acts 15:6-11
6 The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. 7 And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. 10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

Now skip down just a few verses, as James is now speaking.

Acts 15:19-20
19 “Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20 but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.”

They are wrestling with what are we expecting of the people when they come to faith in Jesus.

And instead of heaping the entire law observances upon them, they make this declaration. Tell them to:

• abstain from things polluted by idols
• from sexual immorality
• from what has been strangled (animal sacrifices)
• from blood

Now, soon after this, this teaching of having to be circumcised that we saw in the opening lines of Acts 15, emerges in the region of Galatia to the churches that Paul has planted.

The initial emergence of this false teaching took place at Antioch Syria, the portion we come to in Acts 15.

But remember:

• They then travel to Jerusalem to debate it
• But it appears that these false teachers then head to these churches in Galatia, as this false teaching is the occasion of the letter to the Galatian churches.

Let me now show you the 6 part frame, and then we will dig into the first 10 verses.

When the Core Message of the Bible Comes Under Attack

Paul’s Framework

• Define the Central Argument – Ch. 1
• Address the Charges that the Message of the gospel is Rogue – Ch. 2
• Show how the message does not change in an ever-changing world. – Ch. 3
• Connect the Dots from departure to consequences. – Ch. 4
• Stick to Your Guns. Unapologetically call people to stand for the truth. – Ch. 5
• Call to Decision. Make a choice, but be willing to forgo peace so you don’t sacrifice truth. – Ch. 6

Now, let’s read Galatians 1:1-10.

Galatians 1:1-10
1 Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me,
To the churches of Galatia:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Now, let’s look at Paul’s framework to remember what he is doing in Galatians 1 as he confronts them about drifting away from the Gospel.

When the Core Message of the Bible Comes Under Attack

Paul’s Framework

• Define the Central Argument – Ch. 1

Q: What is the core message that Paul preaches?
A: Paul preaches the Gospel – the Good News.

And here is his starting point of the Central Argument of the Gospel…

The Gospel Comes from God, Not Man

Galatians 1:1–5
Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me,
To the churches of Galatia:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Paul opens this letter by establishing something foundational.

This message did not come from man.

“Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ…”

In other words:

• This gospel was not developed.
• It was not voted on.
• It was not shaped by culture.

It was revealed by God.

And if the gospel comes from God, then we don’t have the authority to edit it, adjust it, or improve it.

• We receive it.
• We proclaim it.
• But we do not rewrite it.

And Paul uses a title to introduce himself. That title is “Apostle,” which means, “Sent one.”

Now, in the New Testament, an Apostle is one who had seen the risen Christ and was commissioned by Him to go and preach the good news as His messenger. In other words, they were sent by Christ himself, to go and proclaim the forgiveness of sins.

So, not only is he saying, the Gospel is from God, but as he opens this letter up, he is saying, “I was sent to you by Christ himself.”

And then notice what Paul does. Paul anchors everything in the resurrection:

Galatians 1:1
Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead

The authority behind this message is not opinion—it is resurrection power.

But then Paul moves quickly from authority to content.

Galatians 1:3-5
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Grace – Goodwill freely disseminated by God; especially to the benefit of the recipient regardless of the benefit accrued to the disseminator.

Grace Acronymn:

• G – God’s
• R—Riches
• A—At 
• C – Christ’s 
• E – Expense

The truth of the Grace of God is that God poured out His wrath toward our sin upon Jesus Christ. And instead of punishing mankind for our sin (WE CALL THAT MERCY), He has put it on His Son.

Instead of Wrath, we are going to get the GIFT of GRACE – The KINDNESS and RICHES of God toward us.
                 
Peace – Harmonious relations and freedom from disputes; especially during the absence of war.

This is what is available to us.

Grace is the source.

Peace is the result.

You don’t achieve peace with God—you receive it because God has extended grace to you.

And then we come to the heart of the gospel:
“…who gave himself for our sins…”

This is not symbolic language.

This is substitution.

Christ did not come merely to show you how to live.

He came to do what you could never do.

He gave Himself—for your sins.

As Isaiah 53 tells us, “He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.”

Warren Wiersbe states:
To the person who has trusted Christ as Saviour, the real “Good News” is the Gospel: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures … He was buried, and … He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4). It is the Good News that sinners can be forgiven and go to heaven because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross. The Good News of salvation through faith in Christ is the most important message in the world.[1]
  [1] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 682). Victor Books.

And then Paul says:
“…to deliver us from the present evil age…”

Now don’t miss this.

The gospel is not just about forgiveness—it is about rescue.

There’s a difference between helping someone and rescuing someone.

If your car breaks down on the side of the road and someone stops to help, that’s assistance. That’s helpful.

But if someone is caught in a current, being pulled under in the ocean, they don’t need advice shouted from the shore.

They don’t need someone saying, “Try harder. Swim better.”

They need someone who can get to them, take hold of them, and bring them back.

That’s rescue.

And Paul is saying:
Jesus did not stand at a distance and offer suggestions for your life.

He stepped in.

He gave Himself.

And He didn’t improve your situation—

He delivered you – he took you out of estrangement with God which was a dangerous situation, and lifted you to safety.
 
But notice the rescue is both eternal, but it is also for today – we are delivered from the “present evil age.”

Our faith isn’t just for a “graduation to heaven” someday. It’s for today.

• It’s life and light
• and wisdom from God for today.
• It’s joy and love from God.
• It’s protection, provision, inspiration, courage, and forgiveness.

Look at the phrase
“…according to the will of our God and Father…”

This was not an accident. The cross was not God reacting—it was God acting.

As we saw at Easter, this has always been the plan.

And Paul ends with worship:
“…to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Because when you understand the gospel rightly, it doesn’t just inform you—it humbles you and lifts your eyes.

And here is why Paul starts here:
Before he confronts them for drifting…
he reminds them what they are drifting from.
 
One of the reasons this series is called Set Free is because in Galatians there is a struggle presented – A Struggle that we all shift toward – Legalism –  (Which says…)

• Jesus got me started, but I have to do good.
• Or, the Church is the arbiter of Grace – I have to get the “Sacraments” the dispensing of grace, from the Priests.
• Or, If I live a good life, I will be “accepted by God. Heaven is my paycheck for living a good life.”

We struggle with Legalism… “Am I doing enough?”

The other side of the Struggle is LICENSE.
 
We hear the Good News that Jesus died for us and we say, “Great. I can live however I want because Jesus is always going to forgive me.” We abuse the grace of God because we still want to control our lives.

If we aren’t careful, we will justify all sorts of things saying, “Well, I am under grace. I don’t have to worry about any notion of the law.”

The message of Galatians is that there is a Liberty available to us as we walk by the Spirit. And that’s what we as a pastoral staff want for all of our lives. We don’t want to be given to “legalism” and the shame that comes by never feeling we are good enough, and we don’t want to live lives of “license” because we reason, “well, it’s all forgiven, I can do whatever I want.”

No, we want to recognize what God has done to redeem us and live lives of worship, sharing the Gospel with others.
 
Now notice how Paul's rhetoric intensifies. The second thing we need to see today is this:

Drifting from the Gospel is Deserting God

Slide: Galatians 1:6–7
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

Now the tone shifts -- “I am astonished…”

Paul is not mildly disappointed. He is shocked. There is urgency here. There is concern. There is pastoral weight. He planted these churches. He poured out his heart with these people. And he expects more from them.

He says, “I am astonished…that you are so quickly deserting him…”

Notice what he says. He does not say you are drifting from ideas.

He says you are deserting Him. To leave the gospel is to leave God.

Why is that?

It’s because we need to feel like we brought something to the table.

We brought:

• Our good behavior
• Our church attendance
• Our service to the poor
• Our monies for the building project and the budget

We hate to come to our eternity empty-handed as if we had nothing to do with it. We don’t really want grace. We want acceptance through our goodness, our efforts, our kindness.

And this is where we need to be honest.

Most people don’t wake up one day and say, “I’m done with God.”

Drift doesn’t happen all at once.

It happens slowly.

If you’ve ever been in the water—at the ocean – you can be swimming, enjoying yourself, talking, and everything feels normal.

You look up, and you’re still in the water.

But then you glance back at the shoreline…and you realize you’re not where you started.
You didn’t feel the current.

You didn’t notice the movement.

But over time, you’ve been carried somewhere else.

That’s how spiritual drift works.

• You begin to rely a little more on yourself.
• You begin to measure yourself a little more by performance.
• You begin to carry weight that grace already removed.

And before long…you are no longer standing where you once were.
“…and are turning to a different gospel…”

And then Paul clarifies:
“not that there is another one…”

There are not multiple versions of the gospel.

There is one.

And anything that adds to it or reshapes it is not a better version—it is a distortion.

Look with me at 1 Corinthians 15.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…

This is the simple good news of Jesus.

• Christ died for our sins – according to the Scriptures – in other words, it was promised.
• He was buried and raised on the 3rd day, according to the Scriptures – in other words, it too was promised!

The content of the Gospel message is Objective.

• It’s not a feeling.
• It’s not an idea or philosophy that changes.
• It’s anchored in an historical event where Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and on the third day, his tomb was empty and because He rose from the dead.

And then 1 Corinthians 15 talks about eyewitnesses to the resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:5-7
5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

This was an historic event and these disciples went to their deaths believing that they had seen the Resurrected Christ. They died for this confession.

And Paul is asking, “how can you dessert our Lord Jesus?”

Galatians 1:7b
but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

And here’s the danger.

The distortion rarely looks obvious.

It doesn’t walk in and say, “Reject Jesus.”

It says:
“Jesus is good… but you need more.”
“Jesus saves… but you have to complete it.”
“Jesus forgives… but you should still carry the weight.”
“Jesus is our Lord…but you have to access Grace from the church through these steps you must do.”

And Paul says:
That is not adjustment.

That is desertion of Grace accessed by Faith, to acceptance based upon your works.
And this will hold you hostage. This will keep you busy. This will keep you uncertain if you will ever truly do enough. You aren’t free in this system.

You may be saying, “Oh, come on Pastor. Aren’t you making too big a deal of this? Can’t we all just have our approaches to how we access Christ? At least we are all claiming Christ as our Savior.”

But notice the strength by which Paul challenges this sort of thinking, and it’s our third point today…

III. A False Gospel Is Spiritually Deadly (Galatians 1:8–9)

Galatians 1:8–9
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Now Paul removes all ambiguity.

“But even if we…”
Even if I come back and say something different—don’t believe it.

“…or an angel from heaven…”
Even if something supernatural shows up.

Even if it looks powerful.

Even if it feels convincing.

If it contradicts the gospel—reject it.

Because truth is not validated by

• charisma,
• platform,
• or experience.
• 
  

It is measured by whether it aligns with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“…let him be accursed.”

This is strong language. Paul is not being harsh for the sake of being harsh.

He is being clear because eternity is at stake.

And here’s why clarity matters.

Those who study counterfeit money don’t spend most of their time studying fake bills.

They study the real thing. They handle it. They learn it. They become so familiar with what is true that when something is even slightly off—they recognize it.

And if you don’t know the true gospel clearly…you will not recognize a false one quickly.

And the false one will sound close enough.

• Close enough… to trust.
• Close enough… to build your life on.
• Close enough… to miss the truth entirely.

Listen to the words of Jesus.

Matthew 24:23-25
23 Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand.

It’s the subtle message. Or it’s the spectacular message. But if we don’t know the message and hold fast to it, you too can drift and then if you are not careful, desert the Lord.

So, the final natural question is this…who are you living for?

The Real Issue: Who are you living for?

Galatians 1:10
10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Paul now brings it to the heart.

Why distort the gospel?

Because a modified gospel is easier to accept.

A gospel that says:
“You can earn this.”
“You can contribute.”
“You can prove yourself.”
—that appeals to us.

But Paul says:
You cannot serve both the approval of people and the authority of Christ.

At some point, you have to decide.

If you’ve ever posted something and then checked it again and again—
“How many people saw it?”
“Did anyone respond?”

—you know how quickly your sense of value can shift based on others.

Now take that same instinct into your spiritual life.

If your standing with God is based on how well you think you’re doing…

• you will live constantly checking.
• Constantly measuring.
• Constantly wondering if it’s enough.

And Paul says:
That’s not grace.
That’s performance.

Come Back to the True Gospel

So let’s come back to where Paul started.

“…Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins
to deliver us…”

That is the gospel.

Not what you do for God.

But what Christ has done for you.

And here’s the question:
What are you trusting in to be right with God?

Not what do you say.

What are you actually resting in?

• Is it your effort?
• Your consistency?
• Your track record?

Or is it Christ alone?

Because you cannot build your life on both.

You cannot say, “Jesus saves me—and I complete it.”

You cannot say, “Jesus forgives me—but I still have to earn it.”

So here’s the invitation today:

Stop adding to what Jesus has already finished. Because what’s done is done!

• Lay down the pressure to perform.
• Lay down the need to prove.
• Lay down the weight you were never meant to carry.

Some of you have been around church your whole life.
You know the language.
You know the expectations.

But if you’re honest, your hope has always been in what you do—
not in what Christ has done.

And today, you need to shift your trust.

Because there is only one gospel that saves.

And His name is Jesus.

And He has already done everything necessary

for your forgiveness, your freedom, and your peace.

There is no other gospel.

And you don’t need another one.



This blog is based on the message shared by Senior Pastor Dr. Roger Patterson on Sunday, April 12, 2026, at our CityRise Bellaire campus. Check out the full message below!

Because you give, 13 high school seniors went on mission to Ecuador during spring break. The students led the two-day "boot ministry," where over 500 children across two villages had their feet washed, fitted with new boots, and heard the Gospel. Over 90 families in two other villages received food baskets as our team prayed over them and shared the Gospel. Through our ongoing collaboration with One Heart Global Ministries, we have witnessed incredible impact with the planting of 52 churches and countless lives transformed through salvation. If you’d like to give toward work like this and so much more, please make a physical donation during our time of offering, visit cityrise.org/give or click the give button in the CityRise app.