The Gospel Over Rules

Thank you for joining us on the CCW podcast.

Make sure you connect with us on social media to stay up to date on ministries and events happening at CCW.

We hope you're encouraged, inspired, and motivated by today's message.

To find out how to connect with us, keep listening after the message ends.

Happy Sunday.

Man, y'all got boisterous this morning during that 90 seconds.

There's a low roar in here.

That's kind of exciting.

Sometimes people are a little dry in the morning on Sundays.

So, amen.

Turn your Bibles to Mark, and I do want to say a word of welcome.

One of the church matriarchs is here with us this morning.

Miss Susan Lovett.

We can give her a hand of applause.

So glad to see you.

Pastor Danny texted me this morning, tipped me off, so I was ready.

And I studied harder after he texted me.

So glad that you're here.

It's always good to see you.

And uh man, what a good week and weekend.

I know that Amanda made mention of it.

But if you missed night of worship, man, you need to go back and you can listen to it on Facebook.

We played that live.

But the testimonies that were shared from uh Arianne and Caleb and Mr.

Greg Wood were so good.

And just hearing, and that's the theme for the year, the way that the gospel on the ground impacts lives.

And I hoped the church would see that from the youngest all the way up, not that you're the oldest, Mr.

Greg, but how God's blood has covered our sins and seeing it in your stories was so inspirational.

And man, we got down with some hymns for a little while, and I'm telling you, the spirit was here.

All of it.

Worship team, it was all so good.

Um, and then yesterday morning, um, I've heard Jeremiah Castile before, and he, if you don't know who that is, he uh played for the University of Alabama and played in the NFL, and I heard him in like a more business setting.

And yesterday morning, it was not a business setting, it was church, and he was fired up, and I'm like, man, I'm not gonna follow him preaching.

So, anyhow, but that was so good.

Thank you, men.

Thank you, Pastor Eli, and uh all that were involved, Mr.

Bill, for your contact there, and then the guys in the kitchen that served us so well.

What a great uh time.

So, anyhow, uh thank you, church, for the way that you serve.

And I know that we're here on Sunday, but there's a lot going on all week long.

With that, I want to ask you how many of you would uplift your hand and say your rules people.

You like rules, you abide in rules, rules are your thing.

Okay, I saw you, I'm taking note.

I live with two rules people, and it's three to two in the numbering, but somehow the two outnumbers the three in my house, if you know what I'm saying.

And I'll let you take a guess at who's who in that scenario.

But there's three of us who are not rules people and two who are.

When it comes to rules, I wish I could say to you that I have a more natural desire to follow rules, but can I be real honest with you?

I was driving one Friday in my 68 GTX.

And for the sake of the car, the car tells you when you get in it that it has to be driven fast.

And I really took it as a sign from the Lord when for the fourth Friday in a row, I took it out.

And it only gets one radio station, and I turned on the radio station.

For the fourth Friday in a row, a song by Luke Combs came on called I Drive a Fast Car.

And I said, God, I hear you.

I hear what you're saying, and so I will do what you're telling me to do.

Amanda was just like you said, the voice came and I listened.

So I drove my car that one Friday, and I came in Sunday morning after that, and this precious, sweet man from church, I mean, he has kindness in his eyes, and he looked at me and he said, Pastor, did I see you driving a red classic car yesterday or Friday?

And I said, Oh yes.

And he said, So it was you that cut me off in traffic and sped on by, and I said, Oh no.

But I knew it was.

He just sweetly smiled at me.

When you think about rules, where does that put you?

When I really think about the word legalism and rules, it takes me back to my church and Christian school days in the early 90s.

And uh we had some rules that I didn't like, but I had to participate in.

And they were things like it made you feel like to be godly you needed to abide within this zone.

Well, you were not allowed to wear jean pants on the surface of church, right?

I never was allowed to wear jeans.

Not in my Christian school, not in my church.

I had to have my hair cut to a certain length, and we were only allowed to have sideburns.

Oh, I thought it was weird, sideburns to the middle of the year because the lobe was definitely ungodly.

Middle lobe, I don't know.

Like sideburns were ever that cool, but that's what the rule was.

Okay.

Sorry if you have long sideburns today.

I mean no harm.

And then you could not have a shirt on that was untucked.

So I thought about that.

And here I'm preaching today.

Hey, I mean I'm not saying I'm spiritual, I'm just saying in the 90s I definitely wasn't at my church.

But we kind of like we abused the term a little bit.

Legalism became a way for me and my friends and people like me to talk about the legalist, and it became anyone who told me to do anything that was they thought was wrong, anyone that told me I was wrong was a legalist.

And I kind of became legalistic about legalists.

And so when I think about that, I think we have some unpacking to do this morning and looking just at this topic, the gospel over rules.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you, and we are grateful and thankful to meet with you.

And God, I'm I'm so thankful.

God, all week long you've just been, your spirit has hovered in this place.

And God, we ask and invite you, Lord, just to be present, Lord, to be felt.

Get us and our agendas and everything just out of the way and speak to our hearts.

Lord, help us to see the importance.

Lord, not to just run through this or run over it, but to see the importance of abiding in the gospel and the freedom that it brings and not in the rules.

Amen.

Want you to look in Mark chapter 2, verse 18 and 19, a few to follow.

Mark 2:18

First point this morning is this the ploise of legalism.

Mark 2, 18 and 19 says this.

But your disciples do not fast.

And Jesus said to them, Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?

As they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.

I want you to look down to verse 24, and then we're going to go to chapter 3 for two verses.

Verse 24, and the Pharisees said to him, Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?

Chapter 3, verse 1 and 2.

And he entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a weathered hand.

So they watched him closely whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.

So we see these ploys of legalism, and we see the Pharisees here looking for a reason.

Letter A is this, focusing on rules of a relationship.

See, the first text that we looked at was a text about fasting.

Fasting's a spiritual discipline.

Fasting is important, and that's a whole nother message for another day just to talk about the principles of fasting.

But for the Pharisees, their approach here is this: our practice is to fast.

This is our rule.

This is what we do.

And we've noticed that you and your disciples are not doing it.

Therefore, you must not be spiritual.

And Jesus responds, How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?

He says, they cannot.

You see the picture he's given.

Fasting is important.

He's not telling them, don't fast, but he's saying, I am here with my disciples.

I am here to talk to them and relate with them.

I am here that they may grow.

Clark said this: that some rabbis declared that if the observance of any law came in the way of having a good time during a wedding, that they didn't have to keep those laws.

Marriage feasts were times of extraordinary festivity.

So Jesus tells them subtly, again, remember he talked about being the Son of Man?

He didn't come out and boast of being the great Messiah that he waited for.

He called himself the Son of Man.

Now he says the bridegroom is here.

He's identifying himself.

So his response begs this question.

Did rules ever gain you a relationship?

What are they fasting for in the first place?

Right?

They're fasting, looking to see the spiritual barometer move.

They're fasting to somebody or to something, and Jesus is saying, I am right here.

Abiding by this law of fasting while I'm here is not necessary.

Romans 5.8, I want to tell you about relationship.

The Bible says God demonstrated his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Not while we were earning anything through some set of rules or through laws.

Not earning.

You can't earn your way to Jesus.

The theological term there is called works righteousness.

And it's one of the most dangerous ideas that legalists purport everywhere.

That keeping rules, keeping sets of laws somehow allow you entrance into eternity by keeping every law to the T.

I don't know if you know this, but that is why a Muslim will commit an act of jihad.

Because in the Muslim faith, you have to live 51% good and let your good every day outweigh your bad.

How many of you are in trouble?

I am if I'm a Muslim.

And if your good doesn't outweigh your bad, then your utopia, which is what they call their eternity, is up for grabs.

We don't know.

But an act of jihad, that is martyrdom for the faith, that is a plane flying into the twin towers for the faith, losing your life for the faith, guarantees you an eternity.

It's an act, it's a work.

And the Bible shows us that those things do not get us closer to Christ.

Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says it is for by grace that you're saved through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast.

Works, righteousness, is man-made works.

We can't write ourselves to God, but we can take hope in this.

I want you to see Romans, turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

It's not a rule, you see, it's about relationship.

In Romans 8, 16 and 17.

This is what it says.

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God.

And if children, then heirs, and if heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.

We through a relationship with Jesus Christ become part of family.

Children and sons and heirs.

I've got three children, and none of them has done anything to have the right to be my children.

They hadn't done anything to gain that right, nothing that I've noticed.

There hadn't been a birthday present once.

There hadn't been a cleanup of a room once.

There hadn't been a surprise once that said, you have now earned the right to be my child.

There's nothing about anything that they did.

And it's all about everything that we did.

Made them our children.

Y'all understand that?

They can't check boxes of good and bad.

And by the way, no good thing will allow them the relationship.

No bad thing that they do will disqualify them from the relationship.

They're mine.

Good, bad, or indifferent, they're mine.

It's all about what we did.

Today, your freedom, church, lies in the fact that Jesus Christ already did everything that was needed for that relationship.

And did it to offer you that.

Listen to me, not a rule relationship, it's a relationship.

We're gonna have an invitation later this morning, and I'm gonna ask some today.

Maybe you're here and you've never accepted that relationship.

That's what Jesus Christ died for a relationship.

It wasn't just so that the law would be fulfilled, it was so that there would be a relationship.

Well, how do we make this practical, Pastor?

Your day-to-day, what that means.

There are some people, I was talking to the serve team, that will read their Bible and it's literally a box to check.

We went through the yearly things we do, the monthly things we do, the weekly things we do, the daily things we do.

And there's a lot of things we do almost robotically.

It's a checkbox.

Now I've explained to them, I have a weekly date with my wife.

It's not a checkbox.

So I can check it and say, I got that done.

It's a relationship.

We were created to relate with people.

And so what are you doing?

Are you communing with God?

Are you reading this and going, check?

Do you feel the presence of God?

Or are you going, check?

Are you prayerfully spending time and have some moments where you're really dealing things out with God and asking and seeking God?

Or are you going, check.

Check, check.

If Heather goes on a date with me on Friday and checks a box, and Heather kisses me and checks a box, and if we robotically move through the motions with no passion, we will have checkbox communion.

It's going to implode.

That's what's going to happen in that relationship.

And you may laugh, but I know people who have told me we have to schedule out all kinds of stuff.

I want to tell you, the relationship is better than the box.

It's better than the rule.

Our first year of marriage.

You know, I was learning, like some of you are still.

And I played video games from the age 14 till that point in my life.

I had a 10-year relationship with video games, and I had a one-year relationship with my wife.

So one night I was sitting there playing, Heather could, Heather could tell you names of basketball players from NBA Live 2007 because I'd be up late at night playing while she went to bed.

Right?

I left our marriage bed over here and I'm on the floor.

Can you picture the scene?

A grown adult, there's my wife over there, and I'm playing this game.

Well, it dawned on me one day out of the blue, that is better than this.

Being with her is better than this thing that I'm doing.

And so I cold turkey.

I have not played video games really unless I'm relating with my children anymore.

I just quit.

Man, the Lord provided that.

Cured my addiction, gave me a better one.

What for?

A relationship.

It's not a box that you check.

I have a question to ask you when you think about that.

I mean, I I enjoy being with my wife.

Do you answer this honestly within do you enjoy being with the Lord?

Do you enjoy it?

Do you commune with the Lord?

Do you ever commune?

When you hear that, does that even make sense to you?

Does that resonate?

To say I have communion with my God.

Because man, we're busy checking boxes from the moment the alarm hits, and we gotta get this box and that box, and by the end of the day, I gotta check the emails, and it's all gonna blow up! Do I take time to commune and love my God in that relationship?

Well, let's look at letter B.

They were focusing on ritual over reality.

Chapter 2 again, verse 23 and 24.

Now it happened that he went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and as they went, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.

The Pharisees said to him, Look! Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?

See, I want you to know, church, due to sin, due to what happened in the Garden of Eden, God prepared a covenant, and he prepared covenants throughout the Bible and Scripture.

I've got a picture that I want you to see of the covenants.

God imparted humanity with these covenants.

And the reason for the covenants, they were a plan to restore what had been broken in relationships.

Each of them has an unconditional promise, and all of them have conditional blessings.

But these are five that are mostly noted with uh some folks will look at the Edenic or Adamic covenant when Jesus provided the skins for them.

But we live in an age right now that is a new covenant.

Jesus came in the age of grace, and I will tell you, each age previous to that had laws and rules, and the intention was that they would point us to our need of that coming covenant of Jesus Christ.

They would point us of our need, and these laws and rules that were within them would tell us that we can't actually abide within them.

They would teach us that we can't fulfill every law.

Only one can come and fulfill all of the laws and the prophets, and that was Jesus Christ.

He was coming.

And he is here right in this moment proclaiming his promises with authority, and the disciples pluck a head of grain.

And the Pharisees said, Mm-mm-mm-mm, teach her.

Right?

Anyone had one of these in the class?

Mm-mm.

Callie got a letter came home one time that said, Your daughter has a strong sense of justice.

I took that to mean you telling me she's a tattletale?

I don't think I raised one of those.

I was getting tattled on, not tattletailing.

They said, This is against the rules on the Sabbath, teacher.

David Guzick said this about the ancient rabbis' teaching on the Sabbath.

Listen to this: the rules.

A man could not carry something in his right hand or in his left, across his chest or on his shoulder.

But he could carry something with your elbow or on your ear or in your hair or on the hem of your shirt or your shoe or your sandal.

But on the Sabbath, not only that, you are forbidden to tie a knot.

Except a woman could tie a knot in her girdle.

How do you feel about all these rules?

Do you feel like I feel about it?

Like when Sabbath comes, I'm probably gonna sleep right through it.

That's gonna be the best option for me because I'm gonna break some rules.

Gotta remember where I like, oh, I can carry all my elbow.

Oh, it slipped to my wrist.

What has happened?

Somebody's gonna tell.

Right?

There's so many things to keep up with.

When I hear about Sabbath like that, I'm like, I don't know that I can keep up with this cumbersome load.

I want to tell you though, interestingly, you can look through it.

Jesus never.

Violated God's command to observe the Sabbath, or approved of his disciples violating God's command to observe the Sabbath.

But repeatedly Jesus broke and disregarded man's legalistic additions to the Sabbath almost seemingly deliberately.

Right?

For people like me, when we see that Jesus, we go, Yes.

Mark chapter 7, I want to explain something to you.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

Look at how far it's gotten.

Mark 7.

Look at verse 5 through 8.

Pharisees again, scribes again.

Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?

He answered and said to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites?

As it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men, and for laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men.

You see the problem there?

He is explaining.

He said, Men have made rules, and you're purporting these rules as if they're biblical, as if they're to live and die by.

And he's saying, You're making these things up, and you're in violation of your thought.

Man-made.

How many times through the ages has man-made a philosophy and we've bought in?

Well, I want to take you to the second point this morning: the philosophies on living.

Mark chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

Again, we'll look at uh a couple of those verses.

Verse 20 through 23.

But when I think about this, the idea, philosophies on living, the way people think, uh, one pastor was talking about uh this person came to him and said, Pastor, we know that we can never come to your church because you Baptists don't allow dancing, and we dance.

And he said, No, sir, that is not true.

Baptists dance.

Amen.

We just don't dance good.

Maybe it shouldn't be allowed.

I don't know, but it's okay to do it.

The Psalms, man-made rules, right?

I'm telling you, when I grew up in church, you were not, church, I grew up, you weren't allowed to dance.

But the Psalms says, oh, praise him with the dance.

I tell you what, you find a scripture about David lost it.

He got out there, did a jig, busted a move.

I don't know what he did.

But David was dancing to his God.

See, people turn matters of taste into spiritual matters.

I only had to say it long, but church music, whoo.

Matters of taste into spiritual matters.

What's in the book?

I'm gonna tell you.

Drums is in the book, but I grew up, and drums were the devil.

It's in the book.

Now we got a lot of things we don't have, Benji.

I don't know what a dulcimer is, but we don't have one that I know of.

There's all kinds of things.

A psaltery.

Maybe we should have some more, but it's in the book.

Right?

They were telling us, don't you?

Oh, they put a drum gauge in the church.

What's next?

Just turn up the fire.

Hell is coming.

What is, I mean, what's so wrong with a beat?

Good heavens.

But we were stuck on it.

And there are probably some still.

Well, let's see about these ways of living.

Letter A is the way on the wineskins.

Jesus responds to this first challenge, the one on the fasting, Mark 2, 20 through 22, and look what he says.

Again, he says, But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them and they will fast in those days.

No one, so he's trying to give them a picture, no one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the new piece pulls away from the old and the tear is made worse.

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, and the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined, but the new wine must be put into new wineskins.

What in the world does that mean?

Alright.

So I brought you, you know, our wineskin that we use all the time.

All the time.

Friday date day.

I'm joking.

I'm joking.

Okay.

Right?

I had to find this on Amazon.

You find all kinds of biblical things.

But anyways, uh, like what happened?

What made a wine skin, bro?

I wanted to see what that looked like, and I'm like, okay, so that can burst.

I couldn't make it burst, but what it's saying is if you have an old wineskin, and under the process of fermentation, that wineskin would begin to expand, and it caused a problem.

It caused something that was taught within itself to have certain dimensions, taught within itself, this is how far it can go.

This is the only distance it can go.

It takes something like that and it explodes it.

You see, trying to fit the new covenant, I showed you the covenants, Jesus Christ, into ritual theology.

He was saying, it's gonna burst.

This is not ritual, what I'm talking to you about.

This is not habit, what I'm talking about.

This is not law, what I'm talking about.

This is not checking a box what I'm talking about.

Jesus Christ came introducing something new.

It's called new in this grace.

He doesn't destroy the old.

Jesus doesn't do that, but he comes to fulfill it.

I had to think about this.

It's kind of like a corn seed.

When you plant a corn seed in the ground, it becomes an ear of corn.

In a sense, the seed is gone, but its purpose was fulfilled in something greater, something better.

You can see something that happened from that seed.

So we notice these men were not simply abiding in the law.

It wasn't that they were abiding with in biblical law.

They were living in man-made law and making their man-made laws biblical.

And Jesus says, No! You can't box this thing up, you can't bottle up what Jesus brings.

This new age of grace is not anything man-made.

What I'm coming to bring you is freedom, and your works religion is going to explode.

We have to be careful of this.

And I'm gonna invite you today, and we have our invitation.

Families and counsel and church, would you pray a shield against this kind of thinking and theology?

We can get in here and I can get up before you and tell you all the things.

And it I could I could probably make it sound pretty good, and yet it might be unbiblical.

Y'all hearing me?

Bible says, prove these things.

Don't just go and listen.

You prove these things by that working of the Spirit within you.

Are you listening to God in your life?

We don't want to be a church like that.

I don't want to, and listen, you're like, ah, we're good.

We don't do that.

I'm gonna tell you in a minute, where society as a whole really does.

Society makes all kinds of rules and we start walking right in accordance because most of us are drawn by the desire to succeed within society.

You say, well, tell me about them rules.

I will, we're getting there.

Let's look at the strategy letter B.

We saw the way in the wineskins.

Let's look at the strategy on the Sabbath.

Now it happened, verse 23.

He went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and they went with his disciples and began to pluck heads of grain.

Go down to verse 27.

And he said to them, This is a great verse for you, the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.

Go back to chapter 3, verse 2 through 5.

So they watched him closely whether he would heal the man on the Sabbath, so they might accuse him.

And he said to the man who had the withered hands, step forward.

Then he said to them, It is lawful, or is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or kill?

They kept silent.

They didn't want to incriminate themselves.

And when he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, he said to them, Stretch out your hand.

And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.

The strategy, the way that these laws, these rule people were looking, they watched him, and the reason it said there, they watched him to accuse him.

They were looking for an opportunity to accuse.

Do you know whose name means accuser?

Satan.

Satan means accuser.

Satan is a legalist.

Satan, the word, the Hebrew word for Satan's ha Satan, it means literally accuser or as a prosecutor.

He is prowling around seeking for a way to accuse, to assault you in that way.

And they're picking grain, and Jesus heals a man, and they go, oh, oh, wait, oh, wait a minute.

Is that a charge against Sabbath?

Is that a charge against Sabbath?

What are they doing?

That law.

That's what Satan's out to do.

He's looking to get after people in this way.

And Romans 8:1, I want to tell you, says, there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1

It's been settled by that cross and by that blood.

There's no condemnation that the accuser is going to throw.

You see, legalism seeks to pervert our freedom.

Jesus heals a man with a real physical need, right?

Can you imagine being a part of the group over here who's watching someone get healed?

Right?

If somebody came in here and we saw God just magically heal somebody, can you imagine the naysayers over here?

I can't believe that.

It is Sunday.

Like he just healed a man who's had a withered hand.

He healed.

He meets a real need.

What is more spiritual?

Meeting a physical need or keeping a law.

That's what you got to wrestle with here.

We went to Costco.

I know you get tired of my Costco stories, but we live that life.

We always in the club.

We went to Costco and we had our friends Doug and Treva with us.

And we went in there and didn't think anything about anything.

And at the very end of the checkout, Doug and Treva had an item or two.

And we said, we need to pay separately.

And the lady was right there and she was ready.

I mean, she was the fifth grade tab test.

She said, Um, that's not gonna work, sir.

I was like, what?

You just need to do it separately.

She said, nope, nope.

She said, I need to see your membership card to my friends.

They don't have a membership card.

And I said, Oh no, what are we gonna do?

I said, you know what?

I'll take those items, and those will be mine.

And she said, No, sir, we can't do that.

They're not a part of the club.

And I was like, what are we doing here?

I said, okay, we'll go to another line.

I'll take them with my money.

She said, sir.

Started getting mad and veins were coming out.

And I was looking at Heather, who normally abides by rules, and she was a little upset, and I was like, okay, I'm vindicated.

And we're like, can we just pay for this?

And she was like, I'll let it go this time.

I was like, what is does Costco not exist to get money?

Do they not exist to have people get their products?

Look, I know you want to get an extra$80 so they can get their milk for$5, but what are we doing here?

Is the law greater than the need?

Some of you are like, yes it is, Pastor, they should have got a membership.

I know.

Some of you is you're messed up right now.

You're like, I can't sit under a pastor like that anymore.

Rule breaking.

Well.

And I think about it, like, how about the times that I've I've gone flying?

I mean, flying down the highway.

I had a son who was concussed and we didn't know what was going on.

And I mean, I was breaking every traffic law known to man to get down to urgent care.

I did it when we first got married, and Heather's work called me, and they told me all they told me she was in emergency.

I took shoulders on the interstate flying.

Do I think for one second, if a cop pulled me over and I told him what was going on, that he would write me a ticket?

I don't really think so.

I think he would probably maybe turn on his light to say, let's get you to your wife.

You know why?

Because the law was not greater than the relationship.

The law was not greater than the need.

Do you understand?

Well, I'm not against the Sabbath.

I've preached on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath is good.

I've preached on rest and worship and prioritizing.

But these Pharisees were not interested in if Jesus was worshiping or resting.

They were watching him closely to throw an accusation.

Sidebar, don't watch people closely to throw an accusation, because you'll find one.

Who of us here does not merit an accusation?

Romans 3.23.

For all have sinned.

We've all fallen short.

We all merit accusation.

But I want you to think about this.

God gave me this this week.

John 1.1.

Did not Jesus Christ stand?

It says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Jesus Christ stood at creation, at the onset of it.

And all things, Colossians 1 says, all things were made through him and by him and for him, and in him all things consist together.

And so God, Jesus at creation was a part of the six days of creation forming.

And on the seventh day, Jesus was there.

And in creation, he said, let's create rest.

Jesus, who was perfect and wasn't in need of relaxation or an extra drop of energy, decided on the seventh day we're going to rest.

On the seventh day, we're going to reflect.

On the seventh day, worship was instituted by God.

Sabbath is his institution.

And you know what Jesus did on the Sabbath?

He healed a man.

Which tells me it's always right to do right.

It's always right.

He said, Sabbath is for the man and not man for the Sabbath.

Do you see that?

The relationship is greater than the rule.

The rule has no rights.

So why would we worship the rule?

Further, who is the one that created the rule?

Jesus at creation.

Why don't we worship him?

And if you can put yourself in that scenario, there were 12 that were worshiping him.

And there were crowds that were trying to figure this thing out.

But these guys were set to burn the whole thing down.

Why?

Because it made them think about their place and their power.

And there was this struggle.

And I'm going to tell you, when you come to church or when you come to worship, when you come into a place, do you come seeking to find your place of power?

You come saying, man, we're all right here.

The relationship is more important than the rule.

Well, thirdly, let's look at the purpose of the law.

I'm gonna need you to turn over to Galatians chapter 3.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

Where Paul poses the question, what is the purpose of the law?

Galatians chapter 3.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

Verse 19 says, What purpose then does the law serve?

It was added because of transgressors, transgressions.

I told you that that in the Garden of Eden, it's the purpose, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.

Verse 20, now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one.

Verse 21, is the law then against the promises of God?

Certainly not.

For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.

But it couldn't.

Verse 22.

But the scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith, which would afterward be revealed.

Therefore the law, here it is, here's the purpose.

Therefore, the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.

But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

Letter A is this pardons from bondage.

We saw that the law was added because of sin.

Now, I want you to understand this.

Okay, we are a church that believes in the Bible, Old Testament and New.

The whole council of the scripture will be preached and taught in this church.

You're going to talk to people today, you're going to get on some people today that believe that the old law, the old, there's no real reason for it.

We live in the New Testament and age of grace.

I want to tell you, the Old Testament, every letter, every jaw, every title points us, it is the law, it was the tutor that points us to Jesus' coming.

It was our tutor, it says.

That's the wording means a guardian who prepared a child.

You can never live up to the rules.

It's teaching us that.

You can never live up to it.

And so if you come in here and you feel inadequate and you have all these feelings, listen.

You can't.

And you can't beat yourself up.

That's Satan's ploy.

Get them down.

They can't.

You can't be in full-time ministry.

You can't possibly do that because you're always messing up.

Well, we all are always messing up.

I'm not saying we don't try to be holy for he is holy.

We try and we try to get better, but I'm going to tell you: listen, the law's purpose was this that we realize we can't live to that letter.

Jesus could.

There's only ever been one.

Faith through Jesus Christ brings freedom.

You don't have to be perfect, and you can't be perfect.

And the point of the law was to let you know you needed somebody to be perfect.

But you can't.

You need to know someone perfect.

2 Corinthians 5.21 says, He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.

The law wasn't about me.

It's never been about me doing something, but I that I cannot do something.

So I embrace grace.

And it says, and we are no longer under a tutor.

But what about society, Pastor?

You said make that practical.

Help me.

Man-made rules in society.

We've got to stop trying to live up to the Joneses and be more than you can be.

Listen, we live in a wealthy area of society, and freedom is knowing that we're all just stewards of a human life, a human body, and human resources.

And the Bible says on the stewardship principle that God gives some 10, some five, and some two.

And I won't tell you this morning that if you're trying to live the 10 life, but God gave you five, you're probably going in credit card debt.

God gave you what he gave you, and he gave you something to steward.

But we keep looking at the 10 across culture, going, that's the one.

That's the top rung of the ladder.

If I just keep climbing, we get to another rung, and there's another rung on top of that that we never even saw before because we never got there.

We weren't in that 10 zone, and now we're there and we go, I can't believe it.

There's a whole nother ladder.

The further I go, there's a new one.

And living under the American chase puts a man in bondage.

It's full-on legalism.

Just go to a high school and you'll see it.

Students say, Pastor, I want to be unique.

I'm me.

Ain't nobody like me.

I'm just me.

Ain't nobody like this.

And if you ask them they want to be unique, everybody, yes, yes, yes.

Where do we sign our name to that?

But then if you go to a high school, they may not have a dress.

Code, but this is the dress code.

If you want to fit in, here's what you got to dress like.

And if you want to fit in over here, this is the music that you need to listen to.

And if you want to fit in over here, you better have a car that fits in this room.

And if you want to fit in, you probably need to be involved in this sport or this club.

And go look at the haircuts.

I'm telling you, all of them, all the boys right now got the same floof.

It's part of the rules right now to fit in society.

It's a rule.

I don't know where it's written, but it's a rule.

Right?

There's all kinds of these things that we have to do.

You gotta have a certain friend type and certain type that you don't.

Has it ever stopped, adults?

Has it ever just ended?

I hope you can say yes.

You must go and you must be seen.

I'm gonna tell you, students, that is modern-day Phariseeism.

We fit in that box.

If I ask the students right now, is it very popular to be a Christian in your high school?

Probably a slim box for that.

Let me tell you what outreach.

Outreach magazine did this article on modern-day Phariseeism in the church.

Said, look out for these things.

Number one, worship on Sunday is not drawing close to God.

It's a check on the list.

Do you come in here and leave feeling like you got closer to your God on Sunday morning?

Number two, modern-day Pharisees.

They spend more time talking about what they're against than what they're for.

Do you find yourself in circles of that dynamic?

Looking down other churches, looking down these things and that things and people and what they do and what you don't do.

Number three, you find it hard to repent of your sins because your sins are not serious sins.

It's not that big a deal.

Number four, you condone in secret what you preach against in public.

Number five, reading the Bible is another checkbox.

Number six, most of your Christian friends look and act much like you.

Number seven, if you're corrected or rebuked, you are highly offended.

We could go to the seven woes of the Pharisees, but this is the type of behavior that you see.

There were one thing on the outside, but on the inside, Jesus said, your heart is like it's full of dead men's bones.

You're real sick on the inside.

We do a lot in culture to look a certain way.

And for what?

Why are we keeping to these rules?

What would keep us from getting our hearts right with God?

What would keep a person from confession?

What would keep a person from running to the one that can free you from something in that relationship that He's freely given you?

But you hold back and say, well, I might look like something.

Who cares?

Look like someone who's growing in Christ.

Who's willing to make a change?

Who's willing to be different.

That's hard today.

There's another person here.

Maybe you're here this morning and you've put off being a Christian.

I want to tell you, putting off being a Christian is to choose bondage in this world.

It's false happiness.

To put off being a Christian, the only happiness a person finds in this life that's that's not a Christian is idolatry.

Idolatry is putting any person or idea before God as if it were God.

And all idolatry is, is it's born from man-made rules.

It's climbing all those rungs in society, having these things or having this look or getting to the next what?

If you've repent and receive Jesus Christ, let me tell you what you gain transversely.

You're accepted as a sinner.

Romans 5.8 said that.

But God commended his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners.

The gospel is not a list.

This is what makes people frightened about becoming a Christian.

The gospel is not a list of to-do's and to don'ts.

When you get it, you'll naturally do some things and not do some things.

But the law was never meant to be a religion, but pointed us back to the one who created us.

And in his person, let me tell you what you are.

In him, you are accepted.

In him you are welcomed.

In him you are wanted.

In him you are needed and included and connected and loved and adopted.

And in him you're redeemed.

You're like family.

And when you fit in like family, let me tell you, is there a greater feeling?

Is there a greater feeling than feeling like you fit in like their family?

All the things that you aspire to, if they just treated you like family, well, that's what Jesus has offered.

To be accepted like family.

Well, letter B will just hit there in Galatians 3, 25 through 27.

It powers us through bonding.

That's what the law meant to do.

But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor, for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek nor slave nor free.

There is no male nor female, for you all are one in Christ Jesus.

As many put on this bond of Christ, it says it wipes out everything.

Church, do you see that?

At the foot of the cross, you've heard this, it's an old song.

It's level.

We're all free to be right there, stewards of what he's given us.

It's quite the opposite side of the story than what the Pharisees and scribes saw for themselves.

It was never about being level.

The only reason they have a problem through all this is because they're worried about the power that they've had, the influence that they've had over a particular place.

And they're worried about losing that place.

That power of bonding, that power of the law pointing to Jesus built us.

When Jesus came and those disciples began, it built us.

Take a look around.

It built the church.

That power built the church.

Are you living in that freedom?

It's hard to admit.

But are you living within some sort of bondage, some societal bondage, some workplace bondage where you're just tied up?

Look, I live in a neighborhood.

Neighborhood, people, the way that they look.

It can be bondage because you want to appear a certain way and climbing in groups.

You got kids in school.

Everybody's living in this societal man-made rules to fit in man-made systems for what?

Let me share this story in closing.

The Navy SEALs were sent in on this covert operation.

It was in a deep dark part of the world.

They were sent in to rescue American hostages.

The hostages that were kept in this place were kept in this room, and they had been terribly mistreated for a long time.

They had been punched, they had been kicked, they had been beaten with rods.

They basically had been dehumanized by a group of terrorists.

And when the seals landed, they quickly stormed into this room because they had just a moment of time to see this thing through.

And when they stormed to the room, one of the seals yelled out, We are Americans, we are here.

Please follow us.

And the mass amount of people that were laid out on that floor were paralyzed with fear, no one moving toward that voice.

They were just scared and frightened.

Not very certain about what was going on.

The seals stood there for what seemed like a long time trying to figure out what was the next move as these people that they came, this mission, and time was fleeting.

And finally, one soldier got down on his knees, took off his helmet, laid down his gun, and he got as close to a group of people that were on the floor as he could be let and allowed.

And quietly, he caught eyes with a man and he spoke quietly for a moment.

He got close enough that they were connecting almost eye to eye.

He softened the look on his face and he said, I'm sorry for the pain and the hurt that you've gone through.

I can't stand what you've gone through.

In fact, I have been paid by the United States government to be here to get you out of what you've gone through.

He looked at him and said about the seal.

A tear began to roll down his cheek, and he said, Please, will you follow me?

If you leave with me, you will be free.

He slowly got up to his feet.

He said, Please.

And slowly that man got up on his knee.

He rose up to his feet.

And then before long, one after the other, after the other, after the other, rose to their feet.

And they followed that man.

And they got out of that place and they got to their place of freedom.

And I want to tell you, church, Satan's agenda has always been to hold you hostage.

It's always been to beat you down and beat you up and dehumanize you and make you to feel like you were just nothing.

But Jesus came in and found you in a pit.

He said, I hate all this hurt.

And you know what?

I paid for all this hurt.

He said, I paid for your rescue.

And Jesus reaches his hand and he looks into your eyes and he whispers to you, please, will you follow me?

With me, you're accepted, you're welcomed, you're wanted, you're adopted, you're redeemed.

Would you follow me?

We're excited you joined us for today's message.

Our heart is to connect with others in our community to grow with one another and build a bigger kingdom.

If you accepted Jesus today, we want to hear about it.

Take a moment and text CCWConnect to 94,000.

Thank you again for joining us on the CCW podcast.

We hope you'll make plans to join us in person on Sundays.