 Tonight we're in Galatians chapter three, though. I want to take you through verses 23 through 29. Let's begin reading in Galatians three, at verse 23. I'll read to verse 29, and we'll get into our study. Beginning at verse 23, before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 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 for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There's neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. You know, as we've been going through our Sunday morning services, we began a series, the first Sunday of the year, and we began a series on the church that Jesus builds. And one of the things that the Lord has been ministering to my heart, and it's the thing that I think is just, it's not that it's a new thing. It's not a new thing with me. And it's certainly not a new thing in Christianity. It's just one of the things the Lord has been ministering to me was that the people love to gather together. They like to gather together to get into the Word of God. They love to gather together to have fellowship. They gather together so that they might break bread and they gather together in order that they might pray. And that was what the early church would do. They gathered continuously. They were in the habit of fellowshiping, gathering together, but it wasn't because they had to do so in order to be Christians. It wasn't that they were forced into doing that. It wasn't that they were being forced into listening to the Word of God. They weren't being forced into praying. They weren't being forced into fellowship. They weren't being forced into any of that. There was something that they did from their heart. They did it because they'd been saved. They did it because they experienced the grace of God. They did it because they experienced the love of God. They did it because when God broke through, when God moved upon them, when they heard that message that the Apostle Peter had proclaimed, that message of freedom in Christ that occurs when you place your faith in him. When you give your heart to the Lord, when you say, God, be merciful to me, I am a sinner and I'm in bondage. When they came to realize that God loved us so much that he sent his son, Jesus, to die in a cross, when they realized that they were the reason he came in the first place because it was in order to retrieve them, it was in order to save them, in order to rescue them because of the sin that they were in bondage to, and the eternity that they were moving, they were progressing towards an eternity without God, an eternity in hell. Jesus Christ came and he rescued them and out of love for him and out of gratitude to him, they began to just love his word and they began to see it for what it is, it's freedom that is encapsulated in words so that when you take them by faith and receive them within yourself, you experience the depths of God and his love. They liked getting together, they liked getting into the Apostles' teaching, they liked praying, they liked the fellowship, they liked the break into prayer, they loved it, and that's because they'd been saved. I believe very much that God wants to magnify his grace, that the church needs to be reminded of the power of the Holy Spirit, the grace of God, because without the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, we're gonna live fruitless lives, lives in vain, lives that have no purpose, lives that are futile. But when we give our hearts to Christ when we're saved and we begin to walk in the grace of God in the power of his Holy Spirit, there is such a transformation and there's such a presence, there's such a joy, there's such a passion for God that comes through being connected to him. This last Monday I was part of a meeting with a number of Calvary Chapel pastors from throughout the nation. We gathered together on a yearly basis to begin to plan out the upcoming Pastors' Conference that's gonna take place. It's called the National, International Pastors' Conference of Calvary Chappals. It takes place in June. And we gathered together a group of pastors from around the nation to plan it out. Asking the Lord through prayer and seeking God by his word, asking him, what do you wanna do amongst us? And the overall theme, the thing that came through, the thing that was very clear was a desire for us as pastors and all the pastors to have a passion for the things of Christ, to have a passionate love for his word, a passionate love for the souls of men, a passionate love for our families, a passionate love for the church, just a sense of the passion that comes through having a connection to God. And that comes not because we're being forced to have that, that comes because we are a love for God himself who saved us and set us free. But you see, there's a lot of people who are more comfortable living with rules. They wanna have rules to tell them what to do and what not to do every moment of the day. Now, obviously, we know that we need rules because rules establish structure. Having a society that has a rule of law helps us to live safe and comfortable lives. We realize that rules are necessary in many ways. Parameters are necessary to help us to know what to do and what not to do. It's necessary in pretty much every aspect of life. I know that we need to have rules if we play games. I was watching a T-ball game. I think my grandson was in. And one of the little guys got up and you know how T-ball is, they have the T and they put that ball on it and because if they can't hit the ball after a hundred pitches, they put it on the T and then they try and hit the ball and when they hit the ball, they have to run to first base and this one little guy got up and he couldn't hit the ball when they were pitching it to him so they put it on the T and then he took a few swings at the ball and he finally made a connection and he was so excited that they had to tell him which way to run. So they said you run that way to first base and he went running to first base and he was so excited he ran out into right field and just he had a great old time but he wasn't playing according to the rules. I mean that's cute if you have that with a T-baller but when you go and watch the Dodgers, well they pretty much do the same thing. If they're lucky enough to hit the ball. Rules. Some people are very comfortable with rules, they desire rules, they need rules but when it comes to human behavior because it's obvious that we need rules to live by, problem is is religiously, when we begin to set up rules for ourselves, we begin to have a standard that will tell us whether we succeed or we fail but inherent within that will be a class of people who keep more rules than others and therefore they're better respected because they keep more of the rules. That's human nature. During the time of Jesus there were religious leaders, they were called the Pharisees. You read your Bible, you read the gospel, you see that Jesus had a lot of confrontations with the Pharisees. Very small group of people in the nation of Israel, they numbered somewhere around 6,000. That's not an awful lot of people in a nation. Most of their religious activities were centered in Jerusalem and down south and they were great opponents of the Lord Jesus Christ, these Pharisees. Pharisees were religious conservatives. They were well known for the things that they did and the things that they did not do. Respected by all because they were models of religiosity. People looked up to them. That's why Jesus in Matthew chapter five verse 20 used them as an example. He said in Matthew five verse 20, I say unto you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. When Jesus used them as an example for many people, that was basically closing the door to heaven for them because the Pharisees were known for being scrupulous, they were known for being the kinds of people who kept every jot, every tittle. They were known to be that way. They appeared to keep the law, but they did that by outside appearance only. That's why Jesus confronted them for their hypocrisy. In Matthew again in chapter 23 verse five, when speaking of them, he said all their works they do to be seen by man. So Jesus exposed them, he said listen, the things that they're doing, the things they do are not because they're in love with God because God fills their life. The things that they do, their prayers, their giving, their fastings and all the rest, they're done to be seen by men and from men they receive their reward. When Jesus was speaking again in Matthew 23 verses 23 and 24, he said to them, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anison and come in and have neglected the weightier matters of the law. Justice and mercy and faith, these you ought to have done without leaving the others undone and then he says blind guides who strain out a net, swallow a camel. You see when we're only following religious rules, our lives really are not transformed. When I'm only following a religious rule, I only have an appearance of godliness but I deny the power of it. I can become a master of following a rule. But I will have an unchanged heart and an unchanged life. That's again why Jesus said in Matthew 15 verses seven through nine, hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy about you saying, these people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me teaching as doctrines, the commandments of men. In vain they worship me with their mouth, they give glory to me but their hearts are far from me. It's not difficult to have an appearance of righteousness. It's really not difficult, especially in a time in a society like ours. It's not hard to look better than the average person and it certainly isn't difficult to look better than the average Christian. But it isn't rules that were set free through its grace, its mercy, its kindness, its love and these false teachers were entered into the church of Galatia and they were seeing the freedom that these Gentile Christians had and the first thing they wanna do is bring them under the law, bring them under their rules. Well Paul has been speaking concerning the law and he's been speaking concerning what it does and it's a fact and what its purpose is. Remember in verse 22, here in chapter three how he had said, the scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. He was saying that religious law will awaken us to our sinful condition but it doesn't save us out of it. He said scripture confined all under sin. That word confined means to enclose on all sides. And so basically what he is saying is that under the law everybody, all human beings are found to be sinners with no way of escaping, no way. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and the law points that out to us. You see the law requires perfect obedience and not a single human being can keep it perfectly. Remember what he had said in verse 10 of this chapter, cursed is the man who does not continue in all things. Verse 12 he said the man who does them shall live by them. You see no one keeps the law perfectly and it encloses everybody under sin and under sin when he speaks of being under sin it's like you're a prisoner in a dungeon and it's impossible for you to break out of it. I've described to you what the jail cells in Rome when Paul was there in his second imprisonment. I've described to you what that cell was like. It was actually hewn out of rock. It had an opening at the top that was the size of a manhole. There were no windows, they didn't need bars in it. And basically the prisoner was lowered from that ceiling and then the lid was sealed and there was a garden there with them and there was no way he's getting out. He was enclosed. There was no way he could get out. He couldn't dig out of that. He couldn't find a way out of that. He was enclosed in it. And that's what the law does. It encloses you, it confines you. And that's because no one can keep it perfectly. You can't continue in all things that it says. You can't live by them because what happens in the law is it reveals me to be weak and it reveals me to be sinful. That's what the law does. And that's why I need the Lord. But here's something for you. The ultimate purpose of closing up men under sin is actually an act of mercy on the part of God because it's through that that we get to the point of crying out a need for grace. And that's how we came to the point in our life where we began to say, God be merciful to me. I am a sinner. I am enclosed. I feel like I'm in a cage. I can't breathe. I'm not free. I feel so closed in, God. I can't take this anymore. That's how Paul would speak of it in Romans 7 when he said in verse 24, wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death. Well, the law does that. The law will enclose you. And so it's actually an act of mercy on the part of the Lord for you to have that experience because it's in that experience that you begin to cry for help. God help me. I can't do this. You see, in verse 23 when he says, but before faith came we were kept under guard by the law. We were shut up or imprisoned by it. We were kept in custody by the law. So he's saying the law kept us in prison but it speaks of before faith came. Now when he says before faith came we were kept under guard, that word faith there is really in reference to the incarnation. Jesus Christ who came for us before faith in him was awakened, before we had him here and we could deposit our faith in him. Before faith came we had the law that kept us enclosed but when Jesus came it made it possible for us to begin to experience freedom. We were at one time kept under guard he says. It's like being protected by a military guard. We were under the control of the law. That way we couldn't escape its power. It was like a prison but it revealed sin and it convicted us of our sin. When Paul was writing to the Romans he said by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin. So when God said thou shalt not it awakened in me an awareness of the things that are displeasing to him. And so the law awakened me to the reality of the holiness of God and my own unholiness and that's the reason I can cry out and say Lord I'm under such intense conviction and Father I am confined and God I have no joy I've got no peace I've got nothing going for me I don't have anything I'm trying hard sometimes but I really feel empty inside. And that's what happens when the law is in force in your life. You begin to long to escape from its prison and that's because the imprisonment is intended to cause you to long for freedom. In reality an unredeemed person is actually on death row. They're just filling out a time until ultimately they die. The wages of sin is death and the Bible says it's appointed unto men to die once and after this the judgment. And so there we were confined in the law on death row awaiting final judgment but then God did something for us. The law had revealed sin to us and we began to long to escape from its prison and now we can look back as Christians and we can see the results of being under the law because it caused us to turn to Jesus for freedom. When Paul was writing to the Romans in chapter six he said in verse 22, being made free from sin and become servants to God, you have put your fruit into holiness and the end everlasting life. In Romans 8 2 it says the law of the spirit of life is Christ Jesus. It's made me free from the law of sin and death. 2 Corinthians 3.17 says the Lord is the spirit where the spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom. We're not under any bondage anymore. We've been set free by Jesus Christ and I can now because the law of the Lord has been fulfilled in him and his word is now written on the tablet of my heart I can now from the inside do those things that are pleasing to him. It's not that I'm just looking to the outside anymore and reading and saying this pleases him, this pleases him, it's different now. I do read that in the word of God but he has written that on my heart so the intents and desires of my heart have been changed have been transformed. I wanna please him, I wanna serve him because I've been made free by him. Now again in verse 23 when he says before faith came we were kept under guard by the law kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Well, historically the Jews were locked up under the law until Messiah came to free them and he did this by fulfilling the covenant of promise and faith given to Abraham. To be set free, Jews need to receive Jesus as their Messiah. You see even under the covenant of the law Jews were saved through faith. Salvation has always been by faith and when you're saved by faith you're gonna produce works that demonstrate obedience and reveal righteousness. When you do the right thing it's because God has placed it in your heart to do that but you were saved by faith. Remember verse six in this chapter, verses six and seven it says Abraham believed God it was counted to him as righteousness. Verse seven therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. I wasn't made a Christian through the ritual things that my mom might have done for me. I didn't become a Christian because my mom took me and had me water baptized when I was a few months old. I became a Christian when I was 20 years old and the word of God was proclaimed and I heard the message and the spirit of God convicted me and drew me to himself the way that you were saved. You weren't saved by works of righteousness which you did you weren't saved by all the good things you tried to do. You and I we were saved because God's Holy Spirit awakened in us a desire to have a relationship with him and we gave our faith to him we placed faith in Christ. And when I gave my heart to the Lord when I said God be merciful to me I'm a sinner God actually invaded and made my body his temple and he now dwells inside of me and I am the temple of the spirit of God and the spirit of God dwells within me. No law produced that. That is an act of faith that's what happened with you when you said God forgive me come into my life I wanna be brand new I believe Jesus Christ existed I believe that he died on a cross I believe he died for man's sin he died for mine. I believe you so loved the world that you gave your sin and that he died on a cross was buried the third day he rose from the dead I believe he ascended into heaven I believe these things I've just never acted on them and Lord now that I know that if I give my faith to you you actually will invade you will actually come into my life and transform me from the inside so I can be a brand new creation in Christ Jesus old things being passed away behold all things becoming new that's what I desire. I think there are a lot of people today who are trying to be Christians in their own power and failing miserably because they're not resting in him they're not resting in him. Every morning when I wake up it's the same thing I've been doing this for many years once I realize I'm still alive when I wake up the very first thing I do in the morning is I begin asking God would you move in me today? Will you move in me today Lord? Remind me of who I am and God will you use me today those of you who are my Facebook buddies will notice a lot of time my first entry is like five o'clock, five thirty six in the morning you'll see that because that's what's going on at five thirty six o'clock in the morning that's what's going on in my heart I'm asking God for a word I'm asking God to speak to me and I'm asking God to move in my life I do that every day that has transformed my life not a I'm gonna be a real good person today and I'm really gonna love my wife today and I'm gonna be good to my kids today and I'm gonna do good for my grandchildren and I'm gonna come to work no it's not a work thing at all it's a God will you work in me today so that when I say good morning to Marie and I turn and look at her and cover my mouth so she doesn't die with morning breath you see these movies where this guy turns in the morning and kisses and talks to her like three inches and I turn to Marie and say that is not true that is so stupid that woman would have her blankets over her face and you know that and I do too there's no way it's like what they said about Lazarus it's stinketh but I wake up and I say Lord change me today help me today help me today help me to be a Christian help me to live for Jesus that's every day because every day the flesh battles the spirit and the spirit battles the flesh every day and it's just it's so easy to live in the flesh because it's natural to do that and it's all by faith it's all by faith it's recognizing that God has done a work in your life and that today because I'm new in him this day will be new in him too it's not that you wake up saying oh I've got all these things I've gotta do and therefore if I don't do them I'm not a good Christian it's simply today I'm gonna ask the Lord to help me to love you more Lord Jesus may I love you more today I wanna love you more because the things that I do for you Lord may they be out of love like that woman who was married for so many years to that man and every day that man would write a list of things he wanted her to do and he'd leave the list for her and she'd get up and she'd find his list every day of their marriage it was a list for the things she was supposed to do and then she'd go through the day doing everything and crossing those things off the list you know pay this bill and do this here and take this here and go to this place there run this errand here and the man died and she ultimately remarried and one day she was up in the attic of their home with her new husband and she opened up a trunk and as she opens up the trunk she started finding all these old things that she had forgotten she had in there and as she began to rummage through this trunk looking at these things that had been there for a while she found a list and it was one of the lists that her her previous husband had written for her and said do this and do this and do this today and do this and as she was looking at the list she began to realize these are the things that she does every day or for her present husband and she never needed a list from him she simply did these things because she loved him and that's how it works in your walk with God you know people could tell me you shouldn't get drunk man Christians don't get drunk you can tell me that all day long you know but my will is what it is and if I want to get drunk I could say that I'll just get drunk who are you to tell me I can't drink but I don't drink why oh because you're a Christian no I don't drink because I don't want to drink I don't like it I don't want it I don't need it it's not because somebody said you can't have a glass of wine it's not because somebody said you can have that beer it's because God gave me new taste buds and I don't want it there are a lot of things that you might have freedom to do that you simply don't do why because you just don't want them anymore those are not things you desire anymore those are things that I used to do in the old days I don't need that anymore why would I return to the things I was saved from why do I go back now as a Christian and say oh I have the freedom in Christ and through grace I can do this why do I do that if I was washed from those things why do I return to those things I don't need those things and it's not because somebody says oh you can't do that listen I'm a little bit over 21 if I want a beer I can have one but I don't want one why don't you want one why don't you want wine well because the old wine I had plenty of it's the new wine that I really enjoy the new wine of the Holy Spirit the wine that has transformed my life and gives me power and I have never had a Holy Ghost hangover some have I never have driving under the influence of the Spirit I'm telling you it's love guys it's loving God it's loving Jesus it's longing for Him it's desiring Him it's getting to know Him it's it's not religion it's a relationship it's it's every day getting to know Him a little bit better and knowing a little bit more of His love and mercy so that there's this longing that begins to grow in your heart for you to be with Him and then one day you finally will see Him face to face and every day you have been longing a little bit more just a little bit more that doesn't come through age by the way it doesn't come just because you've been a Christian thirty years automatically there are people who have been married thirty thirty-five years who still really don't care that much for their husband or wife they still don't love them that much they still don't long for them like that you know my kids can tell you when it comes to love how I am with my wife Marie will come into the house and I'll watch her and she'll walk in and she's she's so sweet and so silly and I'll hear her just singing to herself as she walks in the door my kids have seen me do this all their life and here comes mama and daddy can't take his eyes off her I just see her walking in and she'll go what? she'll look at me what? and I'll say shut up give me something to eat but I'm really loving her no I'll look at her and I'll say nothing baby just looking at you and just loving you you can't give me a lot to make me do that you can't you know new california state law husbands must love their wives I'll break the law you can't you cannot put a law down like that it will not be obeyed love is something that's voluntary it's something that comes through an appreciation it is something that happens to experience with and time with and our relationship with God comes because of his grace and mercy towards us he has been good to you he loves you he loves you and when you grab hold of that your life changes he loves you every day I want to remind people on my face book that one thing God loves you you need to know that today how much he loves you that's real and it's not a bunch of duties and obligations that you have it's expressions of love for the God who first loved you now notice how it says here in verse twenty four therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to christ that we might be justified by faith once again he uses the phrase by faith the law was a tutor that word tutor is a guardian he was a guide for the young men among the greeks and the romans the name was applied to trustworthy slaves who were charged with the duty of supervising the life and morals of boys belonging to the noble class they were not allowed to even step out of the house without them before arriving at the age of manhood he would take them to and from school discipline them and made sure they studied their lessons the tutor was never permanent he was only to safeguard them until adulthood which was reached between the ages of fourteen and seventeen and at that point their relationship changed and the adult did not respond to his control or authority any longer so paul's point is the purpose of the law was to bring people to faith in jesus christ in order that they might be forgiven of their sins remember chapter two verse sixteen knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in jesus christ even we have believed in christ jesus that we might be justified by faith in christ and not by the works of the law for that by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified the weakness of the law is exposed jesus is the one who makes you right with god and he makes you right with god one time for all time he says in verse twenty-five but after faith is come we are no longer under a tutor jesus has come and fulfilled all the requirements on our behalf we no longer need a tutor to bring us to him because we've already arrived in him so the purpose of the law has been fulfilled when he says in verse twenty-six you are all sons of god through faith in christ jesus a law awakened in me a need for salvation the law said to me you are confined and you are in bondage you are not free but there's one who comes to set you free when i hear the gospel message and it says jesus christ will set me free and i by faith receive him i have now entered into a relationship with him the law which was a tutor bringing me to christ has done its business and now i have a personal relationship with god through faith and that's what he's speaking about faith has come and we are no longer under a tutor he says in verse twenty-six for you are all sons of god through faith in christ jesus and that's the summarization really that's what he wants us to know he's saying this you false teachers who are creeping into the glacial churches and influencing them to come under the law you need to be rebuked because the bottom line is it's by faith that you're saved it isn't through adherence to the law that you're trying to bring these people under but it's by faith in christ that you are saved and it's through faith in him that you become a brand new person we receive him faith in jesus christ is what transforms but to as many as received him to them gave he the power to become sons of god even into those who believe on his name john one twelve says see so a gospel preacher is really somebody who is bringing you to an awareness of the fact that there's one who can set you free it's jesus christ so we become sons of god both jew and gentile through faith in the lord jesus christ we become faith we become sons of god not in a physical descent but in a spiritual sense because abraham had faith and and and was justified and therefore we have faith and we receive justification and when that happens we become family in the lord jesus christ notice verse twenty seven as many of you as were baptized into christ have put on christ there's neither june or greek there's neither slave nor free there's neither male nor female you are all one in christ jesus now when he says in verse twenty seven as many of you as were baptized into christ have put on christ he's not saying that the way that christ saved you was when you jumped in that water and got water baptized he's not saying that we know again that water baptism doesn't save us nowhere are we ever do you ever find in the new testament any indication that you are saved through water baptism there are doctrines and i won't go into them with you but there's a doctrine called baptismal regeneration in which people say that you are regenerated to the waters of baptism so that when you go into the water you actually that your point of actually being converted that is not found in scripture what is found in scriptures that you trust in the lord jesus christ and you are born again the question was asked what must i do to be saved and the answer that was given was believe in the lord jesus christ and you shall be saved paul has just made it very clear that we are saved by faith in christ jesus so when he speaks concerning baptism he's not saying all of a sudden that you received water baptism to be saved because water baptism is a symbol of your salvation as i've been sharing what he is saying is that the holy spirit has brought you in according to first Corinthians twelve thirteen into the body of christ by one spirit we've been baptized into one body so when you got saved you were not saved to be all by yourself once again we could we could speak on this subject for a long time you have an influence on people guys never forget your influence on people can either bring them to christ or draw them away the way i live in the way you live makes an impact for eternity my transformation was used by god to rescue my parents because my mom and dad saw that i actually was a saved man it was a transformation that god used to touch my brother and my sisters a transformation that was used by god to touch friends and prayerfully continues to this day as i give the word out it was a transformation that that caused the girl who came to a bible study to give her heart to christ and become my wife it's a transformation that happens through faith in christ it wasn't through works it was by by a love for god that transformed a human life and then other people were influenced by that so what you do influences other people either to reject or receive is a great influence you have a great influence you have a powerful ministry ministry that people like like me don't have because you speak to people i will never speak to you you share with them things that they wouldn't hear from me that's how it works so when your life is really being changed and people really see it you can have a tremendous influence on them when you got water baptized that was an open testimony you invited friends you invited family you asked them to come be a witness that wasn't saving you it was a demonstration of the salvation you experience and that's why you said can you come to my baptism now you probably invited those who didn't know the lord to come because you wanted them to hear a message that might touch their life and sometimes they give their hearts to christ because you invited them and they hear that message but it wasn't the water that you went into that saved you was the blood of jesus christ that purified you and you put on christ and when you put on the lord jesus christ your life was changed now when he says in verse twenty eight there's neither jew nor greek there's neither slave nor free there's neither male nor female we're all one in christ jesus once again and i'll say this briefly you've heard this many times one thing i love about being a christian is we're a big family we're a huge family and and we're a huge family made up of a variety of ethnicities i really don't believe that god has certain sections in heaven for certain ethnicities you know he has has the section over here for for for black for brown for yellow for red chartreuse when i first got saved i've said this before repeated i got saved in the jesus movement went into the military station in north carolina coming out of calvary chapel going down south north carolina a friend of mine got saved and invites me to church so i go with him to his church and as we're there i'm looking around and and i'm used to see i'm a new i'm a new christian i'm less than a year old in the lord and i'm looking around and and so i turned to him and i say to him where are the others and he goes other what and i said the other the other people where the other people he said what other people i said i i i i don't see any blacks around here i i don't see any other colors now that wasn't a racist thing on my part i hope it was and i don't think it was it was just an observation i just want to know where's it at because i came out of calvary chapel i came out of california and i saw something different so i'm just asking what's going on here where are they and i'll never i'll never forget his answer all they have their church and i'm a brand new christian remember that i i i was less than i was only like eight months old in the lord nine months old in the lord i was a new christian brand new and i'm looking around and i just don't see other colors you see because when i read my bible the bible makes it very clear that we belong to one another the bible makes it clear that that we belong to one another and and i think it's one of the worst things that we have in in christianity is this this mentality of segregation it continues to exist to this day and it's a great sin it's a terrible because i'm telling you the love of christ causes us to to love those that would perhaps we would have been at war with before maybe we were opposed to before maybe we use slurs against before but when you get saved you become colorful and you really do look around you right now and you're gonna find out all kinds of people you probably wouldn't have hung around with in the world look around and you see people of various ethnicities and we're here together why because jesus makes this one that's why that's why laws can be passed all day long you can call him hate laws or any kind of law you want you can pass laws all day long and it doesn't change a human heart it will not change a human heart you'll just find ways to hate them and not do violence to them you'll find a way if you really hate them to to hurt them and not get caught it doesn't change oh there's a law in the books you're not to hate this person it's a hate crime hate speech hate everything you know what changes you is the gospel of jesus christ and the love of god that transforms you from the inside it changes you there's no law that can force you to love somebody else there's no law they can pass laws all day long telling you to love people and you won't but when god when god takes residence in you when jesus christ enters into your life and you begin to start praying with sincerity on a daily basis god help me to love people i guarantee you god answers that prayer i got saved and i started praying that because if there was anybody who was angry at everybody it was me i didn't like hardly anybody and i had a bad word to say about most everybody and i started praying and i started saying god in jesus name i don't like myself the way i am i don't like this harshness that i feel towards people god in jesus name teach me to love teach me to love i can say this before the lord i have been praying that prayer for forty years teach me to love every day in one way or another i repeat that god in jesus name people aren't easy to love guys are they they aren't people get on my nerves they do they do i was in church the other day and somebody to the music kept on kicking the back of my chair as i was worshiping and i'm sitting there saying god i'm i'm getting bugged i'm getting bugged and they're a member of my church that keep kicking me but at least they had rhythm it isn't easy it really isn't is it it isn't god help us there's no jew there's no greek there's no male there's no female there's no slave there's no free it's just one in jesus do you guys do you guys feel that do you guys have that answer me do you do you have that do you love people do you talk to me i want you to i want you to if there's anything that this church needs to be known for is the love for christ the love for his word and a love for one another can we have that here can we have that here can we i desire that more than any this is forgive me here we go i shouldn't do this it's only it's wednesday i should hold these tears for sundays right that is the deepest desire of my heart to love one another to love one another i want us as a church to be known as those who love who love god love his word and love each other that's the greatest desire and prayer of my heart to not just put up with each other but to love each other to be kind to one another to be courteous to each other to be patient with each other to pray for one another to accept each other to receive one another to comfort one another to do the things that god says this world is filled with hate and violence and the church should be a shining light in the midst of all this darkness instead of being strident and angry and bitter and argumentative and so self-righteous we should be humble and we should be respectful and we should be loving never tolerating evil and being willing to speak out against it because some things need to be said but to say the things that we say with sincerity and a tear in our voice so people know it tears our soul and we're not judging them we love them and we hurt for them that's what makes us Christian not some law but love god moving in us and transforming us into the image of his son who is love and he said in verse 29, if you are Christ's, if you belong to Jesus then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise you are in Christ and you receive the promise of life that god gave to Abraham because of your faith in Jesus not because of some law but because of your trust in the Son of God