Pastor Bryan Hurlbutt
1-15-12

Free to Love

Galatians 5:13-15

I.                   The Purpose of Your Calling (13a)

1.      He knew me first
1 Corinthians 13:12 – For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

2.      He loved me first
1 Jn. 4:10 – In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

3.      He established me
1 Cor. 15:10 – But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

II.                 The Purpose of Your Freedom (13b-14)

A.      Improper Use (13b)

B.      Proper Use (13c)

What love doesn’t look like when it serves:

1.      It doesn’t look for a pat on the back

2.      It doesn’t keep records

3.      It doesn’t do things carelessly

4.      It doesn’t wait to be asked

5.      It doesn’t act begrudgingly

6.      It doesn’t mind being treated like a servant

III.              The Purposes Unfulfilled (15)

“Paul demonstrates from the result how destructive internal disputes are for the church…If only we always remembered, when the devil tempts us to disputes, that the disagreement of members within the church can lead to nothing but the ruin and consumption of the whole body”-  John Calvin

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