Element Christian Church
Galatians Week 11: Two Paths: To Blessing or Curse
Locations & Times
Element Christian Church
4890 Bethany Ln, Santa Maria, CA 93455, USA
Sunday 9:00 AM
Sunday 10:45 AM
Welcome to Element
We strive to ensure the biggest thing people think when they hear about Element is Jesus! We are a Gospel Centered Community that finds our identity in Jesus.
Want to be baptized?
Our Spring baptisms will be held on April 23rd and we are starting to plan now.<br><br>If you or your child is interested in being baptized, please plan to attend our Baptism Information Class. There will be an in-person class after each service on March 26th or a virtual class you can attend on-line on Tuesday, March 28th.
Middle+ Roller Skating
All 6th-12th grade students are invited to join us at the Central Coast Sports Arena Sunday, March 26th from 5:30p-7:30p. Cost is $10
https://ourelement.churchcenter.com/people/forms/507944Bible Display
We want to help parents find great, age-appropriate, Bibles for their kids. With this in mind, our eFamilies team has been researching great options and we will have them on display to browse as well as some available for purchase over the next few Sundays. So if you’re needing the perfect Easter gift for your kids or grandkids, be sure to check out the display after service.
Delta Egg Stuffing
Help us celebrate Easter by stuffing Eggs for the students at Delta. We did this last year and it was so much fun to see these “cool” high school students still get excited to hunt for Easter Eggs! There will be a stuffing event on April 2nd at 12:30p in the Barn.
Serve Santa Maria
Serve Santa Maria is a group that organizes various community projects once to twice a year. Past projects have included repainting homes, helping with landscaping for elderly or at various schools, beautifying our parks and so much more. This year, one of the projects is to help a member of Element who recently became a widow and is in big need of help restoring her home. It is quite a big project and we could use as many volunteers as possible. The event is taking place April 22nd, however, there may be a couple days before then to help prepare for the big projects. If you are at all willing to help, either on the official day or in the days leading up to it, please sign up today and we will be happy to give you more information.
https://ourelement.churchcenter.com/people/forms/513251New to Element? Need prayer? Just want to connect?
Click the link to fill out our Digital Connect Card so we can know you were here and send you a "Welcome" email.
https://ourelement.churchcenter.com/people/forms/295918Start Serving
Click the link below to see all the various areas you can serve at Element and sign up to help
https://ourelement.churchcenter.com/people/forms/395779Church Center - the app
Free in your phone's app store and a huge resource to stay in touch with Element! Download today!
This week's song list
Interested in looking for some of the songs we sang this week? Here's the titles and original artists:<br><br>No One Like You - David Crowder Band<br>Give You Glory - Jeremy Camp <br>Come as you Are - David Crowder Band<br>Jesus Paid it All - Kristian Stanfill<br>Sweetly Broken - Jeremy Riddle<br>Rejoice - Modern Post
Week 11 - Two Paths: To Blessing or Curse
In Galatians 3:6-14 Paul shows the disaster that can happen when people go down the path of religious law-keeping in order to find righteousness or acceptance before God. Paul has been on this journey before with many others, and he knows how to keep us on the path, as too often, we get lost seeking God’s acceptance of us.
• How did you get lost?
• Did you ask for directions? Why or why not?
• What are the best ways to keep from getting lost as you travel?
The Galatians were coming out of their pagan religions, and now they were standing at a crossroads, where they were faced with a choice of going one of two paths:
• One path was the path of faith, where they could rest in the work of Christ as the basis of their acceptance.
• The other path was the path of law-keeping, where they would need to follow the Old Testament rules and rituals in order to gain God’s acceptance.
People think they are headed for blessing by following the law, but Paul makes it clear that what they really find is condemnation. This is not because God’s laws were deceptive, nor were they bad laws. It’s because:
1. They were never designed to save us eternally, and
2. We could never keep all of them, anyway!
The Law was given as a diagnostic, to show us that we have a problem. It served as an effective tool to prepare our hearts with a sense of need for someone ELSE to save us.
Read Galatians 3:6-14 aloud.
• Can you think of any parallels to the advice of hiking or driving that could help in a Christian’s walk?
• What part of this short passage impacts you the most, and why?
• In what ways do we sometimes try to earn God’s favor by what we do?
The false teachers were telling the Galatians that in order to be right with God, they needed to become children of Abraham. The way they said you do that is by becoming a Jew, which to them, meant becoming circumcised. Abraham, however, was justified before he was circumcised. In reality, he was still a Gentile
when he was justified, and so are the TRUE children of Abraham who have trusted in the work of Jesus on our behalf.
• What “Christian rules” seem to be important in your circles?
• Why is it easier for Christians to live by rules and traditions than by faith?
• What rules do you tend to follow, to assure yourself that you are walking with God?
• When you are around others who live by a legalistic code of conduct, how does it make you feel?
• How do you think it makes the non-believer feel?
When it says Christ “redeemed” us, it means He bought us back, out from under the curse of the law. How did He do it? Jesus took our curse for us. He actually traded places with us....He took our curse upon Himself, and then the BLESSING of God that He deserved...the blessing of being declared righteous... came to us. Jesus was declared accursed and condemned for US, so that WE could be declared RIGHTEOUS!
• In the future, what are some ways we can show courage and grace in resisting well-meaning Christians who want to impose their own rules on others?
• What are some ways we might reason with someone who thinks their salvation depends on religious law-keeping or human works?
• How can you experience more joy and freedom as a result of being set free from the law?
Galatians Reading Plan
For a deeper study of the passages covered this week, download this helpful guide
https://audio.ourelement.org/galatians/notes/2023_galatians_readingPlan_discussions.pdf