This morning, we’re

continuing our message series entitled “Reclaimed” which is all about

becoming who you were created to be. 

This series begins our focus on the work of the Holy Spirit and His

ministry, the third core value of New Hope.

1 Timothy 1:15 

(ISV)

This is a

trustworthy saying that deserves complete acceptance:

To this world Christ

Jesus came,

sinful people to

reclaim.

We were each created

uniquely and intentionally by God.  We

were created on purpose and for a purpose. 

The process of being reclaimed is all about reaching that full potential

that we were created for.

God is ready and

willing to take any life, no matter how broken or run-down or undervalued it

may be, reclaim it, and do something beautiful and amazing both to it and

through it.  Like any reclamation

project, it takes time and sacrifice, it has moments of joys and frustrations,

it may be hard to see the finished product in the middle of the process.  It is a labor of passion and when it is

finished, it was all totally worth it!

God has that same

passion about doing a work in your life. 

He wants to reclaim your life, restoring you to your full

potential.  Sure, there may be moments

that we frustrate Him, but there are also moments when He rejoices over us

literally singing and dancing.  There may

be times when we can’t see what He is up to or why He is taking us through some

things.  Sure, it may take time and

sacrifice, but it will be totally worth it in the end!

All that we have to

do is give our lives to God and follow His lead.  In churchy words, making Jesus Lord of our

lives.

We learned a bit

last week about the reclamation work that God did in a man named Saul’s

life.  He was a devout Jew transformed

from leading a movement to stop the spread of the gospel to leading a movement

to reach gentiles with the gospel.  He

later wrote to one of the churches that he planted:

1 Corinthians 15:9-10

I am the least of

the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I

persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his

grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet

not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

Paul personally was

faced with a mindset change from the very beginning of his salvation.  Not only was he faced with this mindset

change internally, but it also followed him externally in most places that he

went.  This mindset change reached such

harsh points of conflict at times that people tried to kill him.  In fact, while in Lystra, they stoned him and

drug his body out of the city thinking that he was dead.

This mindset change

is the conflict of law versus grace.  By

law, we mean the law of God given in the Old Testament through Moses.  This mindset change is the conflict of doing

good works to earn and maintain God’s love versus doing good words out of

gratitude because you’ve already freely received God’s love.  This mindset change is the conflict of

religion versus relationship.

Of course, to God,

there is no conflict between law and grace. 

To Him, they are both good, they are both yes and amen!  The law is good and Jesus followed it

perfectly, the first human to ever do so. 

To be sure that there was no confusion about this, Jesus said:

Matthew 5:17

Do not think that I

have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them

but to fulfill them.

The law is good,

however, we are not.  The law is good,

but it serves to reveal just how sinful we are, just how fall we have fallen

from our potential, and just how impossible it is for us to follow it on our

own.  From this perspective, to us, God’s

perfect and good law simply serves to discourage us and condemn us to death.

We’re going to take

time this morning jumping around in the book of Galatians regarding this

matter.  For us to reach our full

potential, for us to be reclaimed, we need to change our mindset to see this

apparent conflict