Love> Law

Well, just by a show of hands, how many of you enjoy a fireworks display? Anybody? All right, I know that's kind of controversial. Some people don't like fireworks. Some really like them.

It's the heart of fireworks season, whether you like it or not, right? The days leading up to the fourth of July, a couple days after fourth of July, fireworks abound, in fact, in our own community. Last night, with the celebration of freedom and independence, you could go to Freedom Fest, right? You could see the drone show. It was followed by an incredible fireworks display.

Fireworks are all around us. I don't know about you, but I was curious, like, what makes a firework work? Like, how does a firework function? Anybody else ever wondered that? Maybe not.

If you haven't. If you have. Here's your little tutorial today from a guy who's not specialized at all. But here's what I've learned about fireworks. Whether they're the fireworks that light up over Victory Field after an Indians game or the end of a football game or on the fourth of July.

Fireworks have the same basic anatomy. There's the tube, which the technical name for it is the mortar. I think we even have an illustration of the anatomy of a firework. There you have the mortar. There's a long fuse, the main fuse that runs down into what is called the lift charge.

And the lift charge is black powder. And as that lift charge is ignited, it propels the shell out of the mortar and into the sky. Well, when that happens, there's a secondary fuse that gets ignited by the heat in the lift charge, and that begins moving up into the shell. And so, depending upon how much black powder there was and how high that shell was intended to go, when that shell reaches a certain point, then that secondary fuse has been consumed, and the shell ignites. And inside that shell are what look like little pellets, but they're actually called stars.

They're made of what we call metal salts. And those metal salts, depending on what type of metal they are, determine the color that you see and some of the effects that you see. Certain metal salts will just kind of give that big flash and then the fade. Some of those metal salts will give more of that sizzle and that crackle. And all of that's built into the firework.

But the firework will not work properly unless that lift charge ignites and sends and propels that shell up into the sky. How many of you like fail videos? All right, so if you don't like fireworks, maybe you like fail videos. Maybe there's a Correlation. Usually this time of year, you can see fail videos of people where a firework didn't function properly, where the lift charge didn't ignite, and instead the secondary fuse went up and the firework just kind of went off right in front of people and maybe even caused some damage and some pain.

My son, who is an EMT, tells me that he longs to work on the 4th of July every year. He wants to be on the 4th of July. He's like, that's when all the good calls come. And I don't know what type of person thinks that way, but it's not me. But that's how our son thinks.

And you've probably seen that. And although we know that tragedies can happen when fireworks don't function correctly, would any of us consider intentionally bypassing the main fuse and the lift charge? Like, would we take out the shell with the secondary fuse and we set it on the picnic table or the little place where we're staging our fireworks and we just stand in front of it and light it and let it go off right in our faces? I don't think so. Right.

We know it would cause harm to us and would cause harm to people all around us. And you might be wondering by this point, why on earth is a discipleship minister teaching me about fireworks today? Well, here's why. I think it's a picture of what happens in the lives of disciples of Jesus. There are times when we take God's intended way and we bypass it, and we emphasize things out of order.

And when we do that, not only can we get hurt, but we also hurt other people in the process. As we turn back to Galatians today, my hope is that you'll see that God's life is intended to work in some ways like a firework. There's a specific lift charge that he intends to propel us out into this world, out into life, to showcase to the world around us the beauty and brilliance of the Way of Jesus. And when we miss that lift charge, when we emphasize some secondary things over the most important things, not only does it hurt us, but it hurts people around us. It hurts the people in our workplace and the people in our family and the people in our neighborhood and the people on our team.

Sometimes those people aren't even yet believers. They're people we're trying to reach. And they see something in us that doesn't truly reflect the beauty and the brilliance of the Way of Jesus. That's what was happening in Galatia. There were rival teachers that had come in and they were emphasizing certain behaviors rather than the most important thing that is Jesus.

We're going to be in Galatians chapter five this morning. It kind of marks an important turn in Paul's letter. As we move into the final third of his letter, we're going to see Paul kind of turn his attention to like, okay, I've taught you about this freedom you have in Jesus. I've called out these false teachings that you've heard. I've told you with incredible passion, like, what's most important.

And this is what should result in your life because of that. By the way, I don't want to forget this. If you have not yet joined us in our Discovery Bible Reading Plan, this is still available out at our Connection Center. It's available in our app. It gives you daily Bible readings.

And the beauty of a Discovery Bible Reading plan is that this could be your first day at Greenwood Christian Church. This could be your first day watching online. And you can jump into God's word with us and not be left behind, because God's Word will still teach us and help us along the way. So I want to encourage you to grab that if you haven't. Again, it's available in our app as well.

Before we jump in and start reading from Galatians 5, here's just a brief recap of where we've been. Paul, a disciple of Jesus, a man sent by God, is the primary writer of this letter to the Galatians. The Galatians are a group of people that live in a region of Galatia in the Roman Empire. Most of the Galatians that are hearing this letter in their little house churches for the first time are Gentiles. What do some of those things mean?

Well, one, he's writing this to the churches. These are gatherings of disciples that are meeting in people's homes. They're meeting outside underneath trees sometimes, and they're trying to live according to God's purposes in Jesus. Together, they're primarily Gentiles. That means that they weren't from Jewish descent.

That's important because as Paul taught them, they were hearing about Jesus for the very first time. And they didn't have a connection, many of them, to Abraham or Moses or the Old Testament prophets. They didn't know those stories. So they come to follow Jesus. They find freedom in Jesus.

And then Paul moves on. Paul moves to new cities to teach new people about Jesus. And in his absence, some rival teachers. Their fancy name is the Judaizers. These rival teachers come in and they say, you know what I think?

Paul wasn't sharing a complete gospel with you. Yes, Jesus is important, but you need more than Jesus. You need to check off all these other boxes that we do in Judaism to make sure that if you do these things, God will really love you and God will accept you. Well, Paul gets wind of that. And Paul writes back, and he writes back to encourage them.

He says, listen, their conflicting message is this. They think that it's Jesus and the Old Testament law, Jesus and obedience to the commands that God gave Moses. The But Paul says, no, it's really Jesus and nothing else. It's all about Jesus. You can't save yourselves.

Only Jesus can save you. It doesn't matter how many good things you do. And we shouldn't expect the same of other people, other than for them to trust and to follow Jesus. One primary command rises to the surface over and over again in Galatians, and we need to talk about it for just a moment. He Paul mentions circumcision quite a bit.

And here's something we need to know about circumcision in Galatians. Yes, it's talking about a specific command. Yes, these rival teachers were saying that the men in Galatia needed to be circumcised, but it's actually representative or indicative of something greater. When Paul uses circumcision like he's talking about obedience to the law as a whole. And so don't get caught up just in circumcision.

He's talking about obedience to the law. It's kind of symbolic, obedience to the law. So Paul has unpacked all of that in the first four chapters. And here in chapter five, he's going to start turning towards, okay, what does this mean for our lives? I want to pick up in Galatians 5, verse 1.

So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law. There's not really anything new there, although it might be Paul's best summary statement in the letter to this point that Christ has set us free. So don't go back and get tied up in the law. If he set us free.

He continues that summary verses two through four. Listen, I, Paul, tell you this. If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. Remember what I just told you. He uses circumcision both to reference an individual command, but also as being symbolic of obeying the entirety of the law.

So I, Paul, tell you this. If you're counting on circumcision, obedience to the law, to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. I'll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, by obeying the law, then you have to obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ.

You have fallen away from God's grace. I shared this with you a couple weeks ago on Father's Day. But Galatians is somewhat unique in Paul's letters in that there is just this one primary point that Paul hits again and again and again. And it's that freedom is found in Christ. It's not found in obedience to the law.

And you can hear that in these verses, right? He says it one way and then another way and another way, and it's the exact same thing again and again. Paul's point is this is that Jesus alone can save. It's not Jesus and checking the right boxes.

It's not checking the right boxes and then adding Jesus to it. Like Jesus alone rescues us. We are broken. We are cut off from relationship with the God who made us and loved us and formed us for his purposes. We're cut off because of our sin.

And only Jesus has atoned for that. And only Jesus brings us freedom and rescue. It's nothing that we do that can earn God's favor. And so Paul in this passage again and again says, listen, if you're going to choose to think that you can save yourselves by what you do, you're actually cutting yourself off from Jesus. That's pretty strong language.

Either we're going to believe that Jesus alone saves us, or that in some way through our actions we can save ourselves. We can't have it both ways, and only one of those ways works, and that's that Jesus gave his life for us. As Paul continues on in verses five and six, he kind of begins this transition to the last part of the letter. He says, but we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness that God has promised to us. But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness that God.

God has promised us. He says that the Spirit has come to live inside of us. And he's doing that renewing and transforming work that only God's Spirit can do. And by the way, we just witnessed a baptism. Acts chapter 2, verses 38 and 39 tell us to repent and be baptized, every one of us, for the forgiveness of our sins.

And we will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. We get the transforming agent of God to come live inside of us, to shape us to become more like Jesus, to live the kind of life that God intends. And that's what Paul's saying. He said, but when we who live by the Spirit, the Spirit is the one working in us. We're waiting in faith to be made completely righteous.

The God's promised that to us, so he's doing that work in us. We don't have to earn that favor from him. Verse 6. For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, when we choose to trust and follow him and align our lives around him, there's no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.

And in this moment, Paul introduces us to the lift charge. For the life of a disciple of Jesus, what propels us into this world to showcase the brilliance and the beauty of of the character of Christ, the life that he intends to those around us? It's not legalism. It's not the law, it's love.

It's love that is defined not by us or our culture, but a love that's defined by God and His Son, Jesus Christ. That's the lift charge. That's what shapes our lives. That's what compels us to live in certain ways.

What is important is faith expressing itself in love. And what follows in the next few verses is Paul begins to compare and contrast a life lived by legalism or a life lived by love. And he shows us just how dangerous legalism is. And he shows us just how incredible love is. And in the process, he shows us that love greater than legalism.

Love is greater than legalism. Look at verses 7 through 12. He shows us just how destructive legalism can be. He does so by giving us a couple of powerful word pictures or illustrations. He says, you were running the race so well.

Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn't God, for He's the One who called you to freedom. This false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough. I'm trusting the Lord to keep you from believing false teachings. God will judge that person, whoever he is, who's been confusing you.

Dear brothers and sisters, if I were still preaching that you must be circumcised, as some say I do, why am I still being persecuted? If I were no longer preaching salvation through the cross of Christ, no one would be offended. I just wish that those troublemakers who want to mutilate you by circumcision would mutilate themselves.

Paul shows us the destructive power of legalism using these three powerful pictures. The first is that of someone running a race. He says to them, you were running so well. Like Paul probably has in mind, thinking back to his days with them in Galatia, how eagerly they responded to this good news of Jesus. When they learned that they were broken by sin and separated from God and what Jesus had done for them, they're like, yes, I'm all in.

And they start running that race. They start trying to live for Jesus and honor him with their lives. And he says, you were running so well.

What happened? What's. What's held you back from following the truth?

I've never been a runner, which might be obvious for my physique, but we know runners. And I just have never understood why someone would choose to run. Like, I will run if a bear is chasing me or if I'm escaping a fire, but I just don't see the appeal in it. And it might be because one time I tried to run. This is way off topic.

I'm going to warn you. One time I tried to run because someone told me it's the best exercise you can get. And that one time I tried to run, I ran a mile and I ruptured a disc in my back. So I was like, okay, that's why we don't run. All right.

So anyway, from what I've been told, when it comes to running, this is not an expert, that when there's a really great runner and you're in a competitive race, that sometimes the other runners will intentionally, not maliciously, but intentionally try to kind of crowd around them to keep them from getting out ahead. They box them in. Now, sometimes it can be malicious. I read the story this week of Louis Zamperini. You may have heard his name before.

His story is told in the popular movie Unbroken, which is based upon a book by the same title. But Louis Zamperini was running in the 1938 NCAA Championships, and people knew that Louie was the favorite to win the one mile race. And so other coaches had instructed the rival athletes that they needed to crowd Louie and keep him from getting out so he couldn't set the pace and be victorious. Well, a couple of those coaches took a few steps too far. They said, you do whatever it takes to impede his progress.

And as Louie tells the story, like one of the runners, as they boxed him in, intentionally took their stride and stomped on one of his feet and. And took the metal spike and it pierced his foot. So obviously that hurts when you're running. Another runner chose to make a more dramatic leg kick and slash Louie's shins with his metal spikes. And then a third runner that was crowding in around him actually took his elbow and just laid it into Louie's chest, fracturing a rib.

Their goal was to keep Louie from running one. Well, Louis actually went on to win that race. He still was victorious, but they did everything they could to impede his progress. Paul uses that image for us, for legalism, when we emphasize and make things essential that were never intended to be essential. Like Jesus, when we tell people, you have to do this and this and this to be a really good Christian and to follow Jesus, and we add that to Jesus, we can actually box them in and impede their progress.

And that's what he's warning the Galatians about. Like someone's trying to box you in. They're trying to keep you from experiencing the true freedom in Christ. He uses a second powerful image, and that's of yeast and dough.

He says in verse nine, this false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads to the whole batch of dough. Who in here likes a good yeast roll, a good cinnamon roll, right? If you've ever made, like, dinner rolls with yeast, you know that it just takes a very small amount of yeast and it actually activates and takes over everything else.

Paul says that's what legalism can be like, just adding one thing in addition to following Jesus, one thing in addition to trusting Jesus, like, it can spread over and we can find ourselves being legalists. And there's a third really strong, somewhat offensive picture in verses 11 through 12. And I don't want to labor it because we have young people in the audience, but he essentially says, you know what? If you want to emphasize circumcision so much, then I wish the people that were doing it would just go ahead and emasculate themselves. If you want any evidence that Paul is not playing games, he's like, listen, and God doesn't want us to be legalistic.

Something is greater than being legalistic, and that is love.

I know that things have changed since 1st century in Galatia. I have not walked on any street recently and heard someone yell at me that we all need to be circumcised. Thankfully, I have not heard that. I've not heard anybody emphasize they have to keep certain Holy days or festivals.

But if we're honest, every one of us can trend at times towards being legalistic. We can create our own lists of the things that people need to do in addition to trusting in Jesus to show God that they just love him more to be a better Christian.

And in the process, we can end up hurting people. The best definition of legalism that I found comes from a man named Todd Wilson. It's in his commentary on the book of Galatians. He says this legalism is treating that which is good as though it were essential. Another way to think about it is anytime we say that you can't really be right with God unless you.

And it's not Jesus, that's a movement towards legalism. Here's a few examples of what I've seen in my own life and in the church that is evidence of a movement towards legalism. When we think that those who are not yet followers of Jesus need to get their life together before they can come to Jesus, that's choosing legalism. When we think that the addict has to get clean before he can come and follow Jesus, that's legalism. When we think that the person who's wrestling with some type of sexual sin has to completely abandon that sin or that lifestyle before they can come to Jesus and be changed, that's legalism.

And those aren't just things I made up with because they sounded like something that would be applicable. These are things that I have seen. I sat in a meeting with a leader of a church who told me that someone could not make a decision to follow Jesus and be baptized until they cleaned up their life first. I thought, wait a second. How are we gonna clean up our lives unless we have Jesus?

We need him. It's His Spirit that helps us. It's His Spirit that helps convict us of sin. And yet that attitude dominates in the church, that people have to get cleaned up before they can come to Jesus. And that's a movement towards legalism.

Now, I'm not saying that discovering God's way for overcoming substance abuse and sexual sin and the things that are broken in our life is bad. But like, we need Jesus to do that. We don't have to get that right first. Here are other ways it happens in the church. Anytime we make a certain view, a theology, theological argument, like essential, we move towards legalism.

Here's how it shows up. Oftentimes in the church, we think someone has to believe the exact way we do about the end times, or they're not really honoring God. That's A movement towards legalism. When we emphasize a specific Bible translation like, this is the only Bible you should read. I served as an intern in youth ministry way back in 1997 at a church in Georgia.

The preacher there got wind that I was teaching from the niv and he said, craig, the only Bible you can use is the kjv because that's the real Bible. Can I just tell you, that's a movement towards legalism.

When we emphasize that someone can't be a true follower of Jesus unless they adhere to the sacrifice same political ideology we have or support the same political party that we like, that's a movement towards legalism. Anytime we expect that someone would follow Jesus and practice spiritual disciplines, and it has to be in the way that we do, or different or even better, that's a movement towards legalism. They've got to pray the same amount we pray, read the same amount of Bible that we read, serve the same amount of times that we serve. They have to give as generously as we give. That's a movement towards legalism.

Anytime we add something essential to one standing before God and how much God loves them, we move towards legalism. And when we do that, we box people in. It's as though we're stepping on their feet and spiking them or slashing their shins or fracturing their ribs. We're. We're holding them back from experiencing the freedom that Jesus brings.

I think Paul's point is clear, that legalism is not the way that love is greater than legalism. So he turns his attention to love as he addresses the Galatians in verses 13 to 15, he says, for you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters, but don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in one love your neighbor as yourself.

But if you're always biting and devouring one another, watch out. Beware of destroying one another.

Whenever someone addresses legalism, whether it's Paul to the Galatians or someone on a platform like this trying to teach God's word, inevitably people get a little riled up and they're like, but what about. Well, Paul says, like, the freedom shouldn't lead us to self indulgence, but rather that freedom should lead us to serve one another in love. And then Paul goes on to quote Leviticus 19:18, to love your neighbor as yourself. I believe that Paul's doing more here than even that, though maybe you recall the words of Jesus. He was asked by a teacher of the law.

Teacher, what's the most important command and how does Jesus respond to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus goes on to say that all the law and the prophets hang on or are summed up in these commands. Now look at Paul's language again, for the whole law can be summed up in this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself. Paul is likely employing a teaching technique here.

He does it a lot of places where he only references part of something. But to an audience that has heard even more prior, they would recall the more complete message Paul's most likely drawing to their minds not just the words of Leviticus 19:18, but the whole of what Jesus said about what the greatest commandments are? It's to love God and to love others. What's greater than legalism? It's choosing to allow Jesus to transform you, you to be transformed by his love in such a way that you walk out that freedom by loving other people.

You love God and you love others.

If you and I are going to overcome a pull towards legalism, it's going to be because we choose to allow the love of God to ignite that lift charge of love in us. And as we are compelled to love God and to love others, we in the process will display his beauty, his brilliance, the captivating character of Christ to a watching world. And it will affect what we do, it will affect what we say, it will affect what we think. But it starts by being ignited by the love of God, and that propels us in love. Rather than pursuing legalism, it's probably worthwhile to look at a definition of love that is important.

First Corinthians, chapter 13.

Again, in a world that has defined love in a number of ways and most often associates love with a feeling, here's how Paul defines love from God's perspective. 1st Corinthians 13:4, 7. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way, it's not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance.

When we allow the love of God to lead us into the lives of other people in love and we strive to emulate a love like this, not only do they see Jesus in us, but they're drawn to follow Jesus themselves in ways that our legalistic requirements never could. So I want to go back to how we started with a firework. For a firework to captivate and not destroy.

For firework to reveal beauty and brilliance and not cause pain, it needs that lift charge. And for the disciple of Jesus, our lift charge is not love. It is not legalism. It is love.

Our world is full of people who are in need of the disciples of Jesus in this world, loving the way he loves. In just a few moments, we're going to sing a song, and we want it to be a song of decision, an anthem for you. It's called Available. The whole premise of the song is, would we be available and listen to God's voice? And so I'd encourage you, as part of your next steps this morning, to participate in the song.

And as you do, maybe some of the ways you're thinking about being available is will you surrender to Him? Maybe a legalistic tendency in your life. What are the boxes that you've created and you've added? Is it a specific theological position on the end times? Is it that someone has to serve like you do, or give like you do, or clean up their life in some way like you think they should?

Are there ways that you gravitate towards that and you just need to say, God, I don't want that in my life. Like, I want to be someone controlled by love. Would you take this from me? Would that be part of your anthem this morning?

Would you also think about what type of love he wants to cultivate in your life? Like, could you meditate on 1 Corinthians 13, 4, 7 this week and say, God, where am I not patient? Where am I not kind? Like, where am I jealous or boasting or where's pride showing up? How am I irritable?

Where am I keeping a record of wrongs?

God, how have I given up? Or how have I lost faith? And we say, God, would you cultivate a love that reflects your love in me? And if you're not yet a disciple of Jesus, my hope is that as you sing about being available to him and answering his call, that if you're curious about what it means to follow Jesus, that you would choose to be courageous today? And we'll give you some instructions after the song to step out and to ask some questions, to let us come alongside you and help you discover this amazing God and the amazing love he has for us in Jesus.

Let me pray and then we'll sing. Father, Lord, we Thank you for your word, God. I thank you that an ancient passage like a letter to the Galatians can just challenge us.

God, you know that our struggle to move towards more legalistic thinking isn't new. Obviously, it was going on in the first century. But we can even look back into the story of your people in the Old Testament. It's been going on for quite literally thousands of years. The answer is only your love, Lord.

And so would you compel us to embody your love, to respond to your love? We can't earn it, but man, it can fuel us just to give off a captivating display of your glory. Glory to the world, Father. For those that are wrestling with whether you're real or how to follow you, God, would this song for them be a song of surrender as well? It's your name, we pray.

Amen.