Chestnut Ridge Church
Tim Haring-
It's about love
Music from today
Find Your Way Home [Derek Jones (Special Vocal)], God Is For Us, The Lion and the Lamb, Close, Make A Way, [Derek Jones (Lead Vocal), Sarah Jones and Becca Deming (Background Vocals)]
FREE FOR ALL - Part 4 [September 10/11, 2016] Tim Haring
People think it's about rules.
It's about love.
“The horror of the Christian universe was that it had no door marked Exit. It was also perhaps not unimportant that the externals of Christianity made no appeal to my sense of beauty…Christianity was mainly associated for me with ugly architecture, ugly music, and bad poetry.”
“But, of course, what mattered most of all was my deep-seated hatred of authority, my monstrous individualism, my lawlessness. No word in my vocabulary expressed deeper hatred than the word interference. …Christianity placed at the center what then seemed to me a transcendental Interferer.”
- C.S. Lewis
Ecclesiastes 3:11 HCSB
Galatians 5:1 HCSB
God doesn’t care about the rules; he cares about the relationship.
Galatians 2:19-20 HCSB
Galatians 4:4-7 NLT
Galatians 5:13-14 HCSB
Discussion Questions:
1. Do you think most people feel positively or negatively about the idea going to church? Explain your answer.
2. When you were growing up, did you go to a church that had a lot of rules? What were some of the spoken and unspoken rules you were expected to follow? Which rules were particularly difficult to follow?
3. What is wrong with churches focusing on rules and commands?
4. Read Galatians 5:1. What are some of the “yokes” people wear? How can we be freed from these yokes?
5. Read Galatians 4:4-7. In what ways have we been set free through Christ? What difference will it make if we realize we are really children and heirs of God?
6. Read Galatians 5:13-14. How might we apply these verses to our lives?
7. What could we do as a church to become more attractive to those who are far from God?
8. How might you apply tonight’s lesson to your life?