What would your younger self say?

Pastor Juliet begins with her six-year-old daughter's yearbook and wonders what her own yearbook self would make of her now. Things that once felt enormous are now barely remembered. What used to matter most was how she looked on the outside; now what matters is what God is forming on the inside. We should never be staying the same.

Why Galatians on Pentecost Sunday

Pentecost remembers the Holy Spirit falling on the first believers, and Galatians teaches how to walk in step with that Spirit from the inside out. Pastor Juliet maps Paul's first missionary journey around AD 48 to 49, planting clusters of churches in southern Galatia. On the way home he hears that Jewish Christians, the Judaizers, were undercutting his authority and insisting Gentile believers be circumcised and keep the law. Galatians may be Paul's very first letter, and it is full of heat. Her question for the day: how will you be known? Saul the rising rabbinical star wanted to be known one way; Paul, after meeting Jesus, a very different way.

Reading it in context (Galatians 1:1–5)

Pastor Juliet cautions against reading Paul with ourselves at the center; every line answers an accusation. Paul insists his apostleship came from Jesus Christ, not from men, then prays grace and peace over the churches, skipping his usual compliments. Those words are deliberate: the Judaizers were replacing grace with works, and if you climb back on the hamster wheel of works you will never find grace or peace, only anxiety chasing a God you cannot reach.

A perverted gospel (Galatians 1:6–10)

Paul is astonished the Galatians are deserting grace for a gospel that is no gospel at all. To pervert means to twist something into its opposite. The Judaizers, uncomfortable eating with Gentiles and eager to please their traditional families, wanted converts to become Jews first. Pastor Juliet applies it to church life: we cannot walk into the house of God thinking we must work our way in or play politics. "We are saved by grace. And that is the greatest news ever." Paul declares that anyone preaching another gospel, even an angel, is under God's curse, a sobering reminder of how high the call of teaching God's Word is. And he admits he used to be a people-pleaser; if he still were, he would not be a servant of Christ, because putting people's opinions above God's appointments is idolatry.

A gospel of divine origin (Galatians 1:11–17)

Paul's gospel came by revelation from Jesus, not from any man. Paul recounts how zealously he persecuted the church and how far he had advanced in Judaism; he knows the legalistic world better than his critics, and he points past it to the One who fulfilled the law. Christ was revealed in Paul so He could be revealed through Paul: we cannot reveal to others what has not first been revealed to us.

Three years in the wilderness (Galatians 1:18–24)

Rather than rushing to Jerusalem, Paul went to Arabia for three years to be schooled by God, and only then spent fifteen days getting acquainted with Peter. Pastor Juliet contrasts this with today's instinct to post the encounter immediately. She recalls that when God called her and Pastor Max to start Elan Church, He said not yet for three years. Paul then spent about ten years quietly building churches before his first tour, and only then did the character attacks come. When you are where God has you, you will be challenged.

Three lessons and a closing prayer

First, deception is happening even among believers, and there is more of it in the church than outside because the enemy knows truth lives there; justification is by faith and we can never earn God's love. Second, faith is the heartbeat of the gospel, and the greatest miracle is a changed heart. The law is not abolished, but works without faith are empty; she pictures setting out chairs with a proud heart versus a heart that says yes to God out of love, same work, completely different heart. Third, a true encounter with Jesus should propel you into His presence, not the public eye. Pastor Juliet closes with a choice: be known like the legalistic Judaizers, like wayward believers blown by every new idea, or like Paul, hands open to whatever God has in store, living by undeserved favor at the expense of Jesus Christ.