Gospel Outreach International

What happens when Christianity shifts from being a living relationship with God to merely following a set of rules and regulations? This Bible study on Galatians 5:2-15 confronts one of the most dangerous tendencies in the church: transforming the freedom Christ gives us into the bondage of legalism. Through examining the “seven Ls”—loss, lock, love, little, logic, law, and loveless—we discover how easily we can slip from grace into rigid religiosity, and why love must be the defining characteristic that sets Christians apart. The central question is this: Are we living in the freedom of a relationship with God, or have we traded that for the slavery of religious tradition and rules?

and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. Galatians 2:9

• One problem of being human is our inability to follow guidelines—the Highway Code in Great Britain was originally drawn up as a guide for safe travel but has developed into laws you must obey
• Christianity is supposed to be a relationship—when we were saved, we became sons of God
• Every church of every age should rediscover the truth of God for themselves, not just accept it handed down as tradition—God doesn’t have grandchildren, He only has children
• If we truly believe the Bible is right, we should be able to have fellowship with anybody who’s truly born again of the Spirit of God, regardless of denomination
• The only laws we have to keep are basically the two main laws: love the Lord our God and love our neighbour—these are laws kept out of a heart of love from relationship, not religion
• The fruit of the Spirit is love (singular)—all the other items come out of that love because God is love
• “Charismatic” simply means “gifts of grace”—everybody who has a gift from God would be banned from that church by their own logic
• A friend used to say “the biggest church is comprised of Christians who’ve gone away”—somebody hurt them, insulted them, or treated them badly, so they stopped going
• One man speaking on one weekend on one subject led to the eventual downfall of the church—once you get off the narrow road (the highway of holiness), you wander all over the place
• The logical response to studying Scripture should lead us to walk with God—like Romans 12, after 11 chapters of what God has done, the logical response is to present your body as a living sacrifice
• The whole law is fulfilled in one statement: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. Galatians 2:11

Christ set us free, but we keep locking ourselves back into slavery. We’ve become narrow and sectarian when we should have fellowship with anybody truly born again of the Spirit of God. The whole law is fulfilled in one statement: love your neighbor as yourself. That’s what Jesus modeled for us—faith working through love. God doesn’t have grandchildren, only children, and each generation needs to rediscover this truth: Christianity isn’t about following rules, it’s about loving God and loving people. If we’re biting and devouring one another, we’re loveless, and the people outside can see we’re not practicing what we preach. Let’s get back to that relationship, back to love, back to the freedom Christ died to give us!

Bible References

• Galatians 5:2-15
• 1 John
• Romans 12