Breaking The Law Series

ME:

Welcome

Series Review

Our focus is on building UNITY in the body of Christ… Healing the disunity in the church so the church can help heal the disunity in our world.

WK 1 - Disunity disrupts the mission of the church.

WK 2 - When we serve together it brings us together.

WK 3 - How we fight the battle will determine what war we win.

THIS WEEK - we're going to explore a single law that makes unity, not only possible, but inevitable.

WE:

Question: (I promise this is not a trick question) How many of you consider yourselves 'law-abiding citizens?'

Most of us do.

How many of you are REALLY 'law-abiding' citizens?'

• Did you ever roll a stop sign?

• Did you ever copy a video/cd/song? (I had a fantastic bootleg library of albums)

• Did you ever share your password for Netflix/Prime/Hulu?

• Did you ever jaywalk?

• Did you ever sing 'Happy Birthday' in public?

• Did you speed on the way to church today?

If you have done ANY of those things (and dozens more) you have broken the law.

Now… let's be real, none of those are the crime of the century. You're probably not going to jail for violating any of those laws.

And then there are those laws that we just don't like. The ones we don't agree with and we didn't want in the first place and the guy/gal we voted for didn't vote for the law… but it still became a law.

• Obama-care

• In some states - gun registration laws

• Certain tax code items.

We don't like them. We think they're stupid. We think they're unfair or unjust. So, we just kind of ignore them.

If we're being honest, we may not be quite as LAW-ABIDING as we think we are.

Now… what does ANY of that have to do with the great divide in our nation and churches? What does any of that have to do building UNITY in the church so we can help bring UNITY to our culture?

I am glad you asked.

Open your bibles to GALATIANS 5. Pg. 797.

GOD:

Galatians Set Up:

• Not really a book, just a letter written by Paul.

• Remember Paul was not a follower of Jesus… then he meets Jesus.

• Paul planted several churches (Jesus communities) around the Roman Empire

• Several of those churches were in a region called Galatia

• This letter was written as a 'circular letter' to this group of churches

o Each church was to read it and pass it on to the next one.

• The Jesus followers in the region of Galatia were, for the most part, not Jewish.

• They were Gentiles who had heard the message about Jesus and had decided to give their believing loyalty to Jesus alone.

• In this letter, Paul is addressing the issues raised by a group called 'the Judaizers'

• The Judaizers were Jesus followers who were Jewish (all of the first followers of Jesus were Jewish)

• But this particular bunch were saying that, you couldn't be a follower of Jesus if you weren't Jewish or if you didn't adopt Jewish religious practices and follow the Jewish law.

• To become Jewish it meant you had to change your traditions… it meant you had to change your diet… it meant you had to change the way you worship…

o Worship on the Sabbath

o Only eat certain foods and abstain from others

o Follow hand washing rituals

o Follow rituals for cleansing your utensils

o For guys… It required a bit of surgery!

The Jewish believers were actually making it hard for the Gentiles to become followers of Jesus. They were telling them that, to follow Jesus, you had to follow the law. And not just any law, but OUR law. The Jewish law. The law God gave to Moses for governing a group of escaped slaves more than 1500 years earlier.

They were accusing these new Gentile Jesus followers of "BREAKING THE LAW."

And so, Paul - in his typical, colorful and very direct fashion - sends an open letter that makes it very clear that there is ONLY ONE LAW being broken…

Heads up… I'm going to give you that law right now. No long build up to the reveal..

The law that Paul says is being broken?

THE LAW OF LOVE!

• By making it hard for others to follow Jesus…

• By demanding people follow YOUR rules to follow Jesus…

• By demanding that your traditions be observed before someone can be a follower of Jesus…

• By demanding that people with a different background and a different culture become LIKE YOU before they can be REAL Jesus followers…

Paul says… YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW OF LOVE.