Set Free to Live Free - Cruciform Community- February 1, 2026

Sermon of Galatians has arrived. It's been since October when we

started the series in Galatians, and I've been looking forward to

the last sermon ever since. So I'm going to invite you to

open your Bibles to Galatians Chapter 6.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

Can you use your Bible app if you want, or you can follow

along here on the screen. The Apostle Paul writes,

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live

by the Spirit should restore that person gently.

But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the

law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are

something when they are not, they deceive themselves.

Each one should test their own actions.

Then they can take pride in comparing themselves alone

without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one

should carry their own load. Nevertheless, the one who

receives instruction in the Word should share all good things

with their instructor. Do not be deceived.

God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

Whoever sows to please the flesh from the flesh will reap

destruction. Whoever sows to please the

Spirit from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we

will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to

all people, especially to those who belong to the family of

believers. See what large letters I use as

I write to you with my own hand. Those who want to impress people

by means of the flesh are trying to compel you to be circumcised.

The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for

the cross of Christ. Not even those who are

circumcised keep the law, yet they want you to be circumcised,

that they may boast about your circumcision in the flesh.

May I never boast except in the cross of Christ, cross of the

Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified.

To me and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor

uncircumcision means anything. What counts is the new creation.

Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule.

To the Israel of God. From now on, let no one cause me

trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus, the grace of

our Lord Jesus Christ. Be with your Spirit, brothers

and sisters. And all the people said Amen.

Let it be. So be it.

He ends with an Amen. Let's remind ourselves, what is

Paul envisioning? Paul's envisioning that this

church, this group of churches in the region of Galatia would

know God in his fullness, that they would know the Father, Son,

and Holy Spirit, and they would experience the deliverance from

sin that Jesus offers, that they would experience deliverance

from the powers of darkness. This is why he keeps Speaking of

their freedom in Christ. They have been set free to live

free. It's been one of the huge themes

through Galatians that they would also be a new family, that

they would enjoy their freedom of association as Jew and

Gentile, slave and free, male and female, That these would

have less significance except for this, that they're all

following Jesus Christ, the Messiah, that he is the one that

has drawn them. And so now they're reorganizing

their life around the Messiah, the Messiah who's the

fulfillment of the promises to Abraham.

Look to the rock from which you have been cut, said the prophet.

Look back to Abraham and Paul's drawing from that same, what we

would call a hermeneutic to read all the way back to Abraham and

say, look, you people together are the fulfillment of God's

promise to Abraham. So now you reveal the Messiah,

you reveal Jesus, you reveal the liberating, freeing powers of

Jesus by transforming relationships everywhere with

God's love. This is a little summary of what

Paul seems to have in mind as he envisioned the church responding

to this letter, that their relationships would be

transformed everywhere because of God's love in their life.

Do you want some of that? Has God stirred up a hunger in

your heart and life over this is sermon 11 plus Christmas.

So over the past 11 weeks plus Christmas, did he stir up a

hunger in your heart for some of this to be your living reality?

We've tried to summarize a little bit of what Paul's

envisioning, and now I want to pull it in together just as he

does, to say that what Paul is envisioning is the Christ life

lived in a cruciform community. This might be a new word for

you, the cruciform community. Would you turn to your neighbor

and say we are the cruciform community?

What in the world does that mean?

It means we have been formed and shaped into the image of Jesus

on the cross, arms outstretch, nailed to the cross.

We are to be like him even as a community formed by the cross.

And I've said that Galatians is a book about spiritual

formation. What is that spiritual

formation? It's to make us like Jesus.

Like Jesus How? Jesus on the cross, it's a

little difficult some for sometimes for us to get this.

So Paul says it in a lot of different ways.

He did say you have been crucified.

He says I have been crucified with cross, but like with

Christ. But he also said things like

this serve one another humbly in love.

And so we've said that's the Christ life.

The Christ life is that we would humbly serve one another in love

just as Jesus did, ultimately going to the cross and laying

down his life for others in love for them.

So let's examine this a little further.

What is this cruciform community to be like?

Now he's going to come on to some real action here.

Last week he talked about the character of the people and the

fruit of the spirit that's required in order to humbly

serve one another in love. Say them with me if you've

memorized them, Lovejoy. Peace, patience, kindness,

goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

I'm free. Look at all the things I'm free

to be. This is the character.

Now he's going to talk about some more things to do because

you are that. And each of these actually

creates a kind of tension in our lives.

And there's four of them. He breezes through them really

quickly here. And we're just about do the

same. But I want to list them out.

Here are the four things he spoke of valuing holiness.

If you're going to value holiness in your life and in the

life of the body of the church, you're going to experience some

tension. Keep stay with me a little bit

being helpful. If you're going to be helpful to

one another in the church and as the church, you're going to

experience some tension supporting the ministry

financially. Uh oh, I already feel it.

Tension. I'm going to experience some

tension if I I have to part with some of my money.

We breezed through it so fast. You're like, I don't even notice

that Paul said that. What, Craig, are you making this

up? And the fourth one that he

mentions here really quickly is just continuing to do good, do

good. It creates tension.

Are you all familiar with tension?

Attention band you. When you give your attention to

something, it means you're focused and drawn into it.

But really, when we speak of tension, it means that there's

two things pulling right. I mean, some of us put a rubber

band on us so that when we experience tension, we're like,

snap, it's OK, snap, pay attention, snap, it's OK, we're

not going to snap this, but you're going to help me.

So this rubber band is of no use until it actually has two parts

pulling, right? Two parts pulling.

Now we, if this band is come on, hold on, man.

If this band is useful, it actually has two poles that are

pulling to each other and you manage the tension.

It doesn't go away. Tension is meant to be managed

in your life, not eliminated. If you had no tension, you could

not stand up this morning. Tension is actually very helpful

in your life. But some of you think tension is

just drama. Are you still holding on?

Oh, man. You're you.

You've actually relaxed Here. Come on.

Keep it here. Keep it here.

You were. See, He was managing the

tension. He just held it out.

Go. Just hold on.

Lean back. Thank you for holding on to me.

See, he's managing the tension, and this is what we do when

we're healthy and mature people. We manage the tension.

We don't try to eliminate it or throw it out.

We manage the tension that's there in our lives.

And each of these four things that Paul speaks of actually

create a great deal of tension in our lives.

But to actually see God work in our life means that we need to

have some pull and some push back and some pull and we go.

And then we might have a season of just sort of relaxing, but it

creates tension on someone else. OK, so let's look a little

closer. Thank you.

Give him a hand. He's he really held on there.

Thank you, Aidan, for not letting me fall.

Let's look at these areas just a little more closely.

We have to value holiness. Notice he says if someone is

caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that

person. How gently.

He didn't give any other instructions on how to do this

except this one. Do it gently.

Be gentle. If you discover that someone is

caught in a sin, they have a slip up that they've the word

sometimes even has been used to say they've been surprised by

sin. Restore them gently.

You know, there is this whole move that sometimes happens

where we think that someone is actually going to get better in

their life if they have somebody yelling at them.

If you find that your children are failing, yell at them and

they'll get better, right? No, no, it just doesn't work

ultimately, because you know why?

If you're yelling, it's just an external move.

It means that they are being moved by an external, but if you

do it gently, you actually connect with what is the

internal intrinsic motivation. And so you want to cooperate

with the Spirit of God to reach in gently and find how do we

point to Jesus and his liberating work in your life?

And then Paul offers why there's even tension about this.

He doesn't think there's tension just because this is awkward.

He doesn't think there's tension just because it might blow up.

They might not respond well. He suggests there's tension

because when we address sin, we also become tempted.

We become tempted. We've become tempted to overdo

it. We've become tempted to join in.

We've become tempted to say, Oh well, if they can do that, I can

do this. We've become tempted to move

into conceit and pride, as he'll point out later.

We become tempted and there's tension then.

And this tension of valuing holiness in the life of the

church means that sometimes the church holds on to points of

view that in our society really put us at odds.

Valuing holiness means that you're going to accept some

tension in your life. The second area that he speaks

of is being helpful. Notice he says, carry each

other's burdens. And this way you will fulfill

the law of Christ. What is the law of Christ?

Love one another, the law of Christ love one another.

So he says, carry each other's burdens.

Come alongside and say, I see that you have a burden in your

life and I'm going to help you carry that burden.

I'm going to go with you in this burden.

And he says, notice he goes right away to the tension.

If anyone thinks they are something when they are not,

they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own

actions, that they can take pride in themselves alone

without comparing them to someone else.

Do you know sometimes we enter into helping other people

because it doesn't just make us feel good.

We like the feeling of being superior.

Oh, there was this deficit in your life.

Let me help you. And so now I'm needing you to

keep needing me to help you so that I can feel superior in my

life. And Paul's noting some of the

psychology of codependency being helpful.

There's tension in the church in being helpful because notice

what he says on the other side for each one should carry their

own load. What?

See why this is tension. We're each carrying our own

load, but now he's being helpful to me.

Snap. They don't see this is what

tension does. And there's tension in the

church and there's tension in your life group, and there's

tension in your ministry here on campus.

When you're helping others accomplish great things with

God, when you're helping others become the people God wants them

to be. And there's a time where it

feels like, wow, they're just leaning on me.

But you're each carrying your load because you're helping

something beautiful exist here in this life.

Being helpful must be managed in our life together.

So on one hand, he says, carry each other's burdens, but each

one should carry their own load. Which way is it, Paul?

And he's like, yes, it's both. It's both.

This is the life of growing and maturity of being

interdependent. Interdependent.

Most of us enter into high school, maybe some of us enter

into it a little bit later of really wanting to be

independent. I will carry all my own loads.

And so we try to work hard to create some kind of illusion of

independence and being a self-made person.

But the life of maturity in Christ is 1 of interdependence.

And interdependence always has some tension.

It always has some tension. The third thing he says is that

this this cruciform community is also supporting itself.

It's supporting the ministry of this community.

It's supporting the teaching ministry.

And I think he probably could have gone on to others, but here

very specifically, he speaks of the teaching ministry of the

church. He says, nevertheless, the one

who receives instruction in the Word should share all good

things with their instructor. We're not sure why Paul noted

this to be an issue in the Galatian church.

But he draws it out here to say that in the life of the church,

there's this self supporting, self-sufficient kind of

interaction that happens financially in the life and

ministry of the church so that the Word can continue to be

known and shared and integrated into the life of this community.

Remember, he's been trying to teach them how to read the Old

Testament through the cross of Christ all the way back to

Abraham. And so now he's saying you need

to support your teachers of the word in the life and ministry of

the church. And, and he's like, don't be

deceived. God cannot be mocked.

Like this is this is an odd move.

Don't be deceived. God cannot be mocked.

A man reaps what he sows. Well, what kind of sowing has he

been talking about right away? It's financial.

And so this, this verse has been abused in some settings and some

traditions of the church to say, oh, like if you if you sow your

money here in the life of the church, you're going to get 10

times more, a hundredfold more in your life because you gave to

this church. We're not saying that at all.

I don't think that's what Paul was saying here.

But he does say there is some kind of spiritual blessing in

putting your money where your mouth is or where your heart is

or where you're being fed in the life and ministry of the church.

There is some kind of blessing. And notice the blessing, he says

whoever sows to please their flesh from the flesh will reap

destruction. So he's like, if you're only

using your money to feed the flesh, your comforts, your

pleasures, your needs, your desires, he says this is just

sort of destructive. But if you actually sow put your

money into things that produce and yield spiritual impact, then

you're going to reap eternal life.

What we're going to talk more. I know this is this is huge,

right? In some ways to thinking about

money and the life of the church.

And it creates tension. And some of you are experiencing

the tension of the church talking about money like this.

You're like, I'm just getting jerked around.

Sorry. You did well, man, you're

hanging on. Very responsive.

But Paul is saying, look, if you're going to support the

ministry and the life of this church, there's a tension to be

managed, the tension between what you just want to do with

your money, hard earned money. I don't know how many of you

students are hard earning money right now.

A few of you, yeah. And some of you are not.

You're in that in between realm of afoot in both worlds.

But there's tension to be managed when it comes to

speaking about money and the life of the church.

So, so much so in this that in a one more week, like next Sunday,

we're starting a sermon series on financial peace and purpose.

It'll be a five week series talking about this tension that

we feel about money and peace and purpose and what does the

scripture have to say to us as a community about this?

OK, so that's one of those areas. 4th area, doing good.

Who knew doing good could create so much tension?

I asked my life week life Group A couple weeks ago to make it a

daily prayer, pray, asking God how could I today humbly serve

another in love. And even then, someone, someone

just volunteered. Oh, this is going to be really

difficult for me. And we talked and processed

that. Doing good creates tension, but

it also comes with great promise.

Notice what he says. Let us not become weary in doing

good. Is your arm tired yet?

Minus I think I've been pulling more.

You've just been out there. And so, you know, if you become

weary in doing good, you're you've actually become tired.

Why have you become tired? Because doing good creates

tension. We have great inertia sometimes

to doing good. Sometimes in doing good we've

become overextended. Thank you for holding on there.

We've become overextended. We've overdone it, so we have to

manage it. So he says, look, do not become

weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a

harvest if we do not give up. Do you know sometimes when you

do good and you don't get the expectations, you think, well,

what's the use in that? Sometimes you do good and you're

like, well, they didn't say thank you, so what's the use of

that? I was doing good, but their life

just seemed to get worse. What's the use in that?

God. So he attaches it to a promise.

Remember, Paul saw that they now lived not just in the present

evil age, but they lived in the age to come.

They had already been ushered into it, and so they were

looking forward to a greater harvest in the new creation.

So he says, look, there will be a harvest.

You're planting good things in the lives of others and your

community when you insist on doing good.

So therefore, he says, as we have opportunity, let us do good

to all people, especially to those who belong to the family

of believers, do good to all people, especially the family of

believers. So it's as if that my efforts at

doing good for the family of believers actually then

conditions me to do good for others.

The way in which I respond to vulnerability, weakness, and

need in my own family of believers sets up how I will

deal with weakness, vulnerability, and need in the

rest of the world. So how did it go in Galatia?

Did did Galatia pull this off? Did they actually see these four

things? Did they actually become a

cruciform community, or did they just sort of get wiped off the

history books? Well, there's a really

interesting letter that comes from Julian the Apostate.

Isn't that a terrible name? Julian the Apostate?

He became the emperor of Rome in 361 to 363.

Before that he was the Caesar of the West.

When he was 20 years old, Julian renunciated Christianity.

He said, I will no longer serve Christ.

I will serve the gods of the Greeks and Romans and I will

become a great promoter of the gods of the Greeks and Romans.

And so that's why he's known as the apostate because of his

apostasy. And Julian the the apostate

writes somewhere around 362 three before he died, he wrote

to the Greek priests of Roman religion in Galatia.

He writes to them and he says, why then do we think that a

stagnant Greek religion is sufficient and do not observe

how the kindness of Christians to strangers, their care for the

burial of the dead and their sobriety of lifestyle has done

the most to advance their 'cause he's writing a let me interpret

for you. It is a little a little awkward.

He's writes and says, look, I know we are observing how the

Christians are winning in Galatia, and so we need to

compete with them. Each of you, he says, ought to

do all of these things. It is not sufficient for you to

practice only one, but all the priests of Galatia, without

exception, must do these things, He says.

All of you Pagan priests must also not go to the theater, must

not drink in a Tavern, and must not profess to any base or

infamous trade. Dude, something must have

happened in the Galatian Church over the next 250 years that

they began to change their culture.

Why? Because they were becoming a

cruciform people, he goes on to say.

You must do more things like the Christians.

You must build hostels so that strangers may enjoy kindness.

You must be willing to do it for anyone, no matter what religion

they practice. You must support the poor.

Not just the poor in your own group, but the poor of everyone.

You must teach everyone to contribute so that these

services may continue. In other words, give money so

that we can do good things, he said.

You must accustom them to such benevolence.

Let us outdo them with our good deeds rather than being

disgraced by laziness. Wow.

Over the next 250 years, the church in Galatia had a profound

impact on their culture. Why?

Because they were a cruciform people.

Why? Because they accepted the

tension of being Jesus's followers.

Isn't that exciting? It is so cool.

That's why I've been looking forward to this last message,

because we can actually see the impact of being a cruciform

people. We can see the impact of living

the Christ life. Thank you again.

So let me just lay it out here. Our spiritual formation is to be

cruciform. Jesus put it out there and I, I

just want to do this. This will be actually our last

point because we're going to run out of time.

In this message, you know, Jesus spoke of the cruciform life of

the disciple. Notice what he said.

He's asking them, who do people say I am?

Peter said you're the Messiah, you're the one, the one it only.

And Jesus warned them, don't tell anyone.

The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the

elders and the chief priests and the teachers of the law.

He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

In other words, the government was going to turn on Jesus and

he was going to lay down his life and he was going to be

killed on a cross, but on the third day he would be raised

again. So he's like, let's not talk a

lot about that now, but you need to know that.

So then he said whoever wants to be my disciple must deny

themselves and take up their cross daily.

Take up your cross daily and follow me.

In other words, Jesus is saying you must have a cruciform shaped

life. Take up your cross.

This would have been really weird to them because the cross

was a Roman tool of capital punishment.

It was a Roman tool of tyranny. It was the Roman tool of

exerting their power and their influence over others.

It was their way of saying you are weak, we are strong.

Every tyrant finds their mode of doing this.

Every authoritarian regime seeks to do this.

Every parent who thinks they will be the king of their castle

looks to how they can exert power over another.

It is the move of empire. And Jesus said, when you run

into that, take up the cross. That's the cruciform community.

A few years ago, I had a conversation.

You can advance with me. I had a conversation with a

student in the MSA, the Muslim Student Association, and this is

probably about eight years ago. We were having an amazing

conversation just back and forth and he was asking me why do I

appreciate Jesus? And asked him, well, what do you

appreciate Jesus? And he says, well, I'll tell you

what it says about Jesus in the Quran.

And he processed that with me and and then he says, but Jesus

had a deficit. I said, oh, OK, tell tell me

about that. What was Jesus's deficit?

You can go back to that verse. And he said Jesus's deficit was

that he never governed. He never governed.

He he wasn't a governor. So he doesn't provide us an

example of what government looks like.

And every, every great leader actually needed to govern in

some kind of way. And I said, oh, that's so

interesting. I've probably been processing

different responses to that, trying it on for about 8 years

now. And recently God gave me an aha

moment. I was listening to Brian Zahan,

pastor at Word of Life Church in the United States share about

this very issue of Jesus and the governance.

And notice the verse. We all know this we from

Christmas right? For unto us a child is born, to

us a son is given, and the government will be on his

shoulders. Was Jesus deficit and he'll be

called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father,

Prince of Peace and it goes on to say and and of his government

there shall be no end. So how was the government on the

shoulders of this Messiah Jesus? Well, here's how the government

was on his shoulders. The government was on his

shoulders with the cross. Look at Jesus carrying the

cross, the symbol of the government's power.

It is on his shoulders, and he carried it.

He experienced it, and upon it His own shoulders leaned back as

he was nailed to it. The government was on his

shoulders. And so we we must enter into

that strange view of Jesus in the confrontation of powers to

say we are our best as a church, not when we're shouting.

We are our best as a church, not just when we're praising.

We're our best as a church when we're cruciform.

Because therein is how God reveals His power.

How could one of the ugliest symbols in the world be

cherished as the most beautiful? Because of the resurrection

power of God expressed to the Christ who died on that cross.

So much so that now we know he governs.

Jesus governs and every knee will bow and every tongue will

confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

So let me ask, are you willing to accept the tension, the

tension of following Jesus? Do you know the temptation to

power is all around us? For Rome, they had a special

class of people called the gladiators.

Do you know about gladiators? How many of you have watched

those terrible movies about gladiators?

So much violence, right? So much power.

They were in a special class, and the games of the Colosseum

were no games at all. They were how the week became

killed. As they were devoured by animals

or as they were killed by gladiator soldiers.

And in four O 4. After Rome had been experiencing

Christian governance quote UN quote the games were continuing

and at the Coliseum one day, January 1st four O 4, it's known

that a priest from Syria jumped out of his seat in the Colosseum

and ran into the playing field and said In the name of Christ,

stop. Telemachus was so moved in his

heart by the brutality of the government that he said In the

name of Christ, stop. An emperor onerous declared soon

after that the end of the games. He outlawed them, but Telemachus

was martyred on that day. He was killed on that day

because he said in the name of Christ, stop.

Many of us fear not that we're going to lose our life when we

stand up for Jesus, but we fear we'll get a little cut.

We fear that we might get embarrassed.

We fear that we might lose a little credibility.

We fear that someone might laugh at us.

We fear that we won't have the right words to say, but

Telemachus just said what was in his heart that day.

In the name of Christ, stop. And it got the tension of the

emperor and it changed something in the empire of Rome forever.

But again, we're always trying to resurrect the old ways, but

Paul says, hey, you, you are the new creation.

So in Christ, let the new ways dominate your life.

Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we, we come and

we're a bit sober in this moment because we realize we we are

meant to be a people that stand in stark contrast to the way of

the world. And yet the church is always

tempted to do another way. The church has always been

tempted to hold the cross out front and yet hold the powers of

Rome. And so we pray that you would

truly help us to be the cruciform people of Jesus as we

come to the table. The table reminds us every week

that we are a cruciform community because it reminds us

of your body being broken for us and your blood being poured out.

And you invite us to the table as a cruciform community.

You tell us love one another, for love comes from God.

This is how God showed his love among us.

He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might

live through him. And this is love.

Not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as

an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

So, brothers and sisters, let us love one another.