All right now, if we're honest, reading the Bible consistently can be a challenge, but it's never too late to start and we're in this together.

This is the Join the Journey podcast.

Thanks for joining.

My name's Tyler Moffitt, and I serve here at Watermark as the director of discipleship for the porch.

I'm filling in for Emma today as we cover the second half

of the book of Galatians. I want to ask this question as we begin. Have you ever longed for someone

to really know Jesus so much that it was painful to you? This is actually what Paul is expressing

for the Galatians in the passage we're reading today. You see it in Galatians

chapter 4 verse 19. He says, my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth

until Christ is formed in you. Now that's next level kind of anguish. So my wife, Jen, is

pregnant with our fourth child right now. So I've seen childbirth a few times.

And I think it's pretty bold for a single guy like Paul to identify with the pain of childbirth.

So if you're a single brother out there, would not recommend that for you guys.

But what's the point?

Paul's saying he's anguishing to the point where he feels like he's in labor for the Galatians to truly

understand what they have access to in Christ, for Christ to be, as he's saying, fully formed

in them. This is the idea of Christian formation or spiritual formation. So how does Paul describe

Christ being fully formed? If you've been tracking with us,

remember he spent the beginning of the letter clarifying the gospel that we're not justified

by works of the law, but rather by faith in Jesus, the Messiah. So it's through him alone that

we're declared righteous before God. But Paul goes on from there to say in the section that we're reading today that the gospel

doesn't just save us from something.

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