The Gospel as Freedom: Love That Liberates All

``and why this gospel essentially that was being pushed adding requirements to following Jesus. These stipulations, these old laws, they're not bad, but they can't be the way to access Jesus. Jesus invites us to follow him. It's always him stepping in and inviting us to follow. And the only work to say is accepting that. And even that in itself is a challenge that we can't complete on our own. That's a gift from God. [01:04:41] (31 seconds)  #graceNotRules

And the reason I tell you this is because sometimes we do need to lose our sight to truly see. Just like this gentleman, just like first Saul turned into Paul, had to lose his sight to truly see that Jesus was God, that Jesus wanted him to preach this gospel to the world. Just like that man needed to be blind in order to connect with me and see that we are a lot more similar than not. And I guess just like I needed to have some of my own blindness be corrected. [01:23:14] (38 seconds)  #loseSightToSee

Love is just taking someone or talking to someone who's having an off day. It's recognizing when someone's having a good day. It's speaking up for those who are mistreated. It's being with those who are grieving the loss or the separation of family. It's sitting with them. It's speaking up for them. Love is feeding your homeless neighbor. Love is giving your time and not just necessarily resources, but your time to be with those who are suffering. [01:29:23] (39 seconds)  #LoveInAction

What's interesting here is that Paul not only was he stopped by if we read in the account of acts, he was stopped on the road to Damascus, the very place where he was going to persecute followers of Jesus. He was stopped on the road by Jesus, confronted by this divine figure who he knew was divine. He knew it was God in some form. And he was shocked to know that this was Jesus, and his whole world was changed. [01:08:02] (34 seconds)  #RoadToDamascus

And there's a problem with this because it essentially puts up a gate like into following Jesus. Already transitioning from being a Gentile or a pagan to Christianity is a huge step. This involves getting rid of a lot of practices and essentially learning to live following one God. That is hard enough in itself. So to be to have these requirements actually put on to these new believers and following Jesus, it makes it you essentially lose the whole point of Jesus because Jesus had already completed the requirements of the law. And the law is not bad, but the law in itself cannot give life. [01:01:36] (44 seconds)  #GraceOverRequirements

It needs to go through this struggle and this metamorphosis in order to change into the beautiful butterfly. And that's the approach that Paul took. He needed time to process what he was going through in his own mind. He didn't need to go and consult the disciples. This is something that God had told him. He knew that it was a message given to him from God. He just needed to sit on it and accept it. [01:12:42] (26 seconds)  #TransformationTakesTime

Paul argues that his message to give some context, Paul is writing this letter to this church in Galatia with the intention of essentially correcting them. You see this church was made up of believers of Jesus, but these believers were converted had converted from Judaism. And a lot of them still wanted to bring on these practices from Judaism which in themselves are not bad, but wanted to add them as a requirement to following Jesus. [01:00:01] (35 seconds)  #GalatiansCorrection

The world, like we mentioned before, there's a lot of chaos going on, and I don't need to say it twice. You already know what's going on. You see the way that families are broken apart. But as this next month comes, Black History Month, I want you to think about what the gospel asks us to do, and it's to love because love liberates. Love brings freedom to the captives and even to yourself. [01:30:26] (36 seconds)  #LoveLiberates