This Week’s Experience – 09/1/2019

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Our children’s program. We have age-appropriate programming for infants through 5th graders during our Adult Worship Experience.

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Order of Service

Music……………………..Worship Team
Real Love
Welcome……………………….Bill Butler
Music……………………..Worship Team
Zeal
Yes I Will
No Longer Slaves
Message……………..Gilbert Thurston
Gospel Guardian
Music……………………..Worship Team
No Longer Slaves
Offering & Announcements
Dismissal……………………….Bill Butler

Message notes

Is there a conflict, then, between God’s law given to Moses and God’s promises for today?

-Galatians 3:21

Why, then, was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised.

-Galatians 3:19

Is there a conflict, then, between God’s law given to Moses and God’s promises for today? Absolutely not! If the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying it.  But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian. For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

-Galatians 3:21-25

3 Ways the Law Helps Me Today:

1. The law is a for my life.

2. The law acts as a in my life.

3. The law serves me as a .

“The law drives us in desperation to grace, but an experience of grace drives us in devotion back the Law.”

-R.C. Sproul, American Theologian

Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set. And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world. But when the time was right, God sent his Son, and a woman gave birth to him. His Son obeyed the Law, so he could set us free from the Law, and we could become God’s adopted children. Now that we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts and the Spirit cries out “Abba Father, which means Daddy God!” So you are no longer slaves, you are a child of God. And since you are now his child, you are an heir to all that he has promised.

-Galatians 4:1-7

LIFE APPLICATION
To discuss during the week with your family or Life Group

1. How do you typically respond to rules, laws and commands that are given to you?

2. Explain Paul’s attitude towards the law. How is that helpful to you in your own response to it?

3. Of the 3 ways Gilbert shared that the law can help us today, which one is most helpful to you?  Why?

4. How does it feel knowing you are God’s child and not His slave? What’s the difference?

5. What is your next step as a result of this message?