Jesus Came To Repalce Rules With Relationships Series

He Came To Replace Rules W/Relationships

What Jesus Came To Do – part two

QUESTION – who here likes rules….?

We have rules at home….

Wash your hands before you eat

Take off your shoes before you come into the house

Don’t touch the thermostat

Ask before you eat

There are rules at school…

Elementary school – traffic light’

Hiss Ave or Cafeteria/Cafeteria All/Hiss Ave All

Shortly after graduating High School in August of 1978 (yes, I know it’s been 25 years…) I left for boot camp at the naval training Center in Great Lakes Illinois. AND – I was introduced to a lot of crazy rules… I mean there were rules about how you had to fold your under wear… your under shirts, roll up your socks… and how to make your bed.

I remember sitting in this big gym waiting for some shots – and this huge guy was sucking down a diet coke – yelling at us, telling not to let our hands touch his floor.. Anytime that you were outside – the rule was no talking… When you stood in line at the ‘chow hall’ there was a rule about how close you needed to stand next to the guy in front of you, there were rules about how long your had to eat. There were rules about tucking in your shirt (gig line had to be straight). There was even a rule that said you had to shave every day – no matter what… SO – every morning I shaved – my skin…

AND – perhaps the craziest rule there had to do with my ‘utility’ jacket… YOU SEE - the was a rule about how far you were allowed to zip it up. We were only allowed to zipper it up to a point even with the top of the pockets.. Now this was about 4 inches from being zipped up all the way… AND – let me tell you, in Great lakes Illinois it gets pretty cold in October… AND – you’d get outside and you wanted to zip that jacket up all the way – but you were not allowed… I remember one day when I was standing watch in the barracks while the rest of the company was out marching or something… About an hour later some of my friends came back all excited… “Steve you’ll never believe what we got to do – we got to zipper our jacket up all the way..” (I was absolutely devastated that I missed it..”)

Erma Bombeck – wrote something called rules…

1) Never have more children than you have car windows.

2) Never loan your car to someone to whom you have given birth.

3) Pick your friends carefully. A "friend" never goes on a diet when you are fat or tells you how lucky you are to have a husband who remembers Mother’s Day--when his gift is a smoke alarm.

4) Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.

5) Know the difference between success and fame. Success is Mother Teresa. Fame is Madonna.

6) Never be in a hurry to terminate a marriage. Remember, you may need this man-woman someday to finish a sentence.

7) There are no guarantees in marriage. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a Sears battery.

8) Never go to a class reunion pregnant. They will think that’s all you have been doing since you graduated.

Rules – they are nearly everywhere – sometimes they make sense and sometimes they make you crazy…

THIS MORNING – we continue our message series, “What Jesus Came To Do…” last week we saw that Jesus came to seek & save the lost… In that message we got a glimpse of the Father’s heart in regards to lost… We saw how the father feels about lost people…

We learned that lost people matter to God (regardless of their race, culture, looks, hang ups, education or social standing) – And we also learned that lost people are valuable to God (and God will light the lamp and sweep the floor until he finds him…

AND – the last thing we saw in the story of the prodigal or lost son – is that God desires all lost people to come home.. Pig dukey and all… AND – when a lost person is found it is time for a cosmic celebration…!

TODAY - as we continue in our series, What Jesus Came To Do, we are going to look at the awesome truth – that Jesus came to replace rules with relationships….

Prayer…

The first point in your outline is;

Rules Are The Old Way….

LISTEN – the law, the old covenant was about trying to keep rules… AND – there were a lot of rules… You had the 10 commandments…