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Galatians 3:1-14 Trying to get better at being a Christian can sometimes feel like trying to drive your car in neutral. You press on the gas pedal--the engine makes a loud sound, but you don't get very far. When you take your eyes off Christ crucified, when you drift away from faith in the power of the Gospel-- your life as a Christian may still make a lot of noise, but you don't get very far. Jesus loves you and gave himself up for you--so that you might actually live for Him. So that you might live well, work hard, suffer with joy, and then one day, die well. We have to be on guard for anything that would convince us that the Gospel of Jesus isn't enough. We start thinking we need more rules, more tools, when in actual fact, Christ has already given us everything we need. By faith alone, we have salvation, we have sonship, we have His Spirit.

What exactly is a hypocrite? Maybe you know someone who is. Do you think you might be one? We usually think of hypocrites as people who say one thing and do another. They don't practice what they preach. But the truth is--a hypocrite is anyone who acts a certain way because of who's watching. Back in the early days when the Gospel started to reach more and more Gentiles, Paul the upstart apostle had to call out Peter ("the Rock") for being a hypocrite. Peter knew it was wrong to give these new Christians the cold shoulder, but he did it anyway because the cool kids were watching. Is there anyone in your life whose opinion matters so much that you'd be a hypocrite, even for a minute? If so, how can you break free from living underneath their gaze?

Sometimes we talk about the Gospel like a 12-step recovery program. But in actual fact, it's more like a nuclear reaction. When God saves a person, every molecule, every part of that person gets rearranged. Redeemed. Nothing is wasted. That was the story of the apostle Paul. His great knowledge no longer defined Him, but God used it for His glory. Paul's ambition was once all about stamping out a few renegade Jews who decided to follow Jesus. When Jesus saved him, his ambition got redefined. Expanded, not erased. The Gospel separated Paul from his old community--but it united him with new brothers and sisters from every corner of the empire. Paul's story is yours too-- when God saved you, despite the sins and failures of your past, none of it was wasted. Despite what you may have lost, it will never compare to what you've gained.

Have you ever been invited to an exclusive event? Or have you ever had exclusive access to a venue or a really good deal? When it comes to having a right relationship with God, every Christian is part of a pretty exclusive group. How so? Well, it's only through faith in Jesus that any human has full access to God and His benefits. To some people, that sounds like God is unfair. That would be true if the way we gain exclusive access is through something we do, who our parents are, or some other arbitrary criteria. What makes Gospel maths good news is this: Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Jesus is the only key that opens your prison door to freedom, and He's the only key that opens the door to your Father's house. That's good news worth defending from error. That's what the book of Galatians is all about.

Is the God we worship full of wrath or mercy for sinners? Or is it both, depending on His mood? Think about the things that make God angry, like the time Jesus cracked a makeshift whip in the temple. What if the flashes of His wrath that we experience now are His way of warning us to avoid the ultimate wrath that's coming? That would be kind, wouldn't it? The passage in Romans 1 that we've been looking at in this series convicts all of us. No one is off the hook. We've all been conceived in sin (like David realised in Psalm 51). We've all committed sin. We've all celebrated sin. We've covered over our sin and condemned it in others. Any wrath that God pours in our direction is surely well deserved. But what if in His kindness, God not only spares us the fullness of His wrath to give you time to repent, He even moves heaven and earth to make you want to repent and be saved? That would be good news, wouldn't it?

A lot of people think the key to a life well lived is to follow your heart. Trust your instincts. Discover who you really are and then unleash that on the world. But what if we try that and it doesn't turn out the way we'd hoped? Is there a better way? Paul tells us in Romans 1 that the path of individualism-- "You Do You"-- is a path that goes nowhere but down. The Gospel is such better news--life isn't about conforming to arbitrary standards. But it's not about performing either. It's about belonging to the One who took your sin and your sorrows and made them His very own.

You ever wonder what God's will for your life is? Here's one answer to that question: "Rejoice always. Pray constantly. Give thanks in everything, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." That's 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. God wants you to be happy, to pray a lot, and to say thank you. Gratitude is one of the marks of a person who understands the truth. Not that there's silver lining in every dark cloud. But that the God of the universe is strong and kind. Why is ingratitude so deadly? Because it's how we convince ourselves that God can't be trusted. Gratitude is more than just saying thank you--it's about learning to trust in the kindness of our Father in heaven.

We're also kicking off a new sermon series called These Things Will Kill You where we take a deeper dive into what is sin and how do we deal with it. With the apostle Paul and Romans 1:18-32 as our guide, we'll see up front what sin is and what we need to overcome it.

God's mission is all about spreading His fame to the ends of the earth by sending out people just like us. But has the time for mission come and gone? Has the Internet made missions redundant, even wasteful? Shouldn't we all just focus on the needs closer to home?These questions aren't new, and they aren't easy to answer. This Sunday we'll look at one of the more surprising episodes in Jesus's life that will help us in our search discover what missions is and what it's not. You might even be inspired to do the unthinkable and become a missionary yourself.

Mission month kicks off this week as we welcome Tyson; bringing a message on God's mission at our workplaces. How do we point to Jesus in the spaces where we spend much of our waking hours? It's a question worth coming back to often so that we can encourage each other in a world where being a Christian can feel both weird and wonderful.

Mission month kicks off this week as we welcome John Cook the pastor of Gospel Church Minlaton. He'll be sharing a message from 1 Peter 2:9-10 called Mission in Small Places. He'll share how the Gospel is bearing fruit in a few places with some familiar names, and he'll let us know how the Ramseys are going after a couple of months in the bush.

This Sunday we'll be dipping our toes into 1 Kings 1-2 as we say goodbye to David, our beloved warrior king. The David we see in these chapters doesn't look regal or powerful, quite the opposite. And this picture of the end of his life has some lessons for us too. Lessons like-- why does the end of our lives have to be so drawn out and sometimes painful? Why can't we just fast forward to the part where we're with Jesus? The answer to those questions has everything to do with the grace of God--grace that only shows up in our weakest moments.

As God would have it, this week Tyson will be unpacking 2 Samuel 24, the story of the deadliest census ever taken. As you were filling out your census forms this week, it probably never occurred to you that there was a time when a national census led to the death of over 20,000 people. Looking at the numbers, it was David's deadliest sin. But why? Join us this Sunday to find out.

This week we're covering a lot of ground in the life of David. The fallout from his sin of taking Bathsheba and killing Uriah, her husband, is immense. When the dust finally settles, three of Davd's sons would be dead, one of his daughters would be a victim of a horrific crime. And the kingdom is hanging on by a thread. How did it get so bad for David? And what can we learn about our tendency to sin? We can't be naive, but we can't be paralysed by fear. We need the moral courage that David lacked to face our own sin, and the sin around us, square in the face. But where does that courage come from? Join us this Sunday to find out.

David thought he got away with murder. No man--even if they knew the truth--would have dared challenge the king. And yet no man--even the king himself-- can hide his sin from God. Everything done in secret will be brought into the light. How will David respond when his sin is exposed? Will he shoot the messenger? Or will he apologise? What does it look like for a man after God's own heart to say that he's sorry for adultery and murder? As it turns out, David's repentance is a model for us. True repentance isn't something we do for God--it's evidence that he's given us His very heart. And it's more than just a feeling--it takes decisive action to restore what our sin has broken.