TGP Distinctives: Motivation

I felt God speaking that as we finished up James and six months of talking about True Faith that it would be good for us to be reminded of who we are, why we do what do, and how we do it.

Last week we talked about our Mission.

I need to say that I made two blunders last week.

1. Somehow, the title on the screen read motivation, but we were talking about our mission. Sorry if that caused confusion for any of you.

2. As I was talking about Adam and Eve’s fall, I said that they ate from the tree of life. That is not correct. They ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was just a slip of the tongue, but I want to make sure I don’t mislead anyone.

As we talked about last week, our mission is to lead people to know God.

First, we lead them to know God by experience through salvation.

Secondly, we lead them to know God by experience through abiding.

Today we are going to talk about why we lead people to know God.

We are going to talk about our motivation.

I don’t know if this is something that you think about very often, but motivation matters.

Before we do anything, we must be motivated.

Have you ever thought about the need to be motivated before?

I bet you have.

It is talked about in science this way.

Newton's First Law of Motion (Inertia) An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force.

In order for anything that is at rest to move, it must be acted upon before it will move.

For example, when I finally get in the bed at night, something has to be really important in order for me to get up again.

You are the same way.

We need motivation to get back up.

Not only do we need motivation, but we need the right motivation.

For example, if I get in the bed and then Bethany reminds me that the laundry didn’t get put in the dryer, and I get up with a long sigh, while the laundry will get swapped, it will not be a good experience.

That long sigh means I’m only doing it because I should, but I don’t want too.

But, if instead, I say something like, “oh yeah, I’ll take care of it”, my experience will be much better.

Y’all tracking with me?

Following that same illustration of the law of motion, if an object is in motion, headed in a particular direction, it will not change unless acted upon.

For example, I was born in sin, and was headed towards death and eternal separation from God until I was acted upon by the Holy Spirit.

I was headed in one direction and then God reached out to me and changed the course of my life.

When we are headed in a particular direction, only a change in thinking or heart will deviate us from that path.

So what is it that motivated me and so many others to allow God to change our lives?

It was Grace.

What is Grace?

There are two kinds, special and common grace.

Special grace is the unmerited and irresistible favor of God by which he redeems and renews, saving sinners and restoring creation through the work of Christ and by the power of the Spirit.

Common grace is God’s general favor by which he restrains sin and its consequences, maintains human life and culture, and bestows a variety of gifts and blessings to all people indiscriminately.

To receive grace from God at all is to receive His unmerited favor.

I want to draw special attention to the word unmerited.

We do not deserve God’s grace, and there is nothing that we can do to earn it.

God gives it to us because He loves us.

Paul talks about this in nearly all his writings.

Ephesians 2:8–9 CSB

8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast.

Paul is making the point that we receive grace, which is a gift, through faith, not by acting or doing something.

We don’t work for gifts.

We will loop back to this again in a minute.

Look at what he also says about grace in Romans.

Romans 3:20–26 CSB

20 For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law. 21 But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. 22 The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. 26 God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.

I want to pause here and point out two things.

Paul says that God presented Him as the mercy seat by His blood.

I want us to remember or know what that means because it is significant to our understanding of grace.

The NET Bible First Edition Notes Romans 3:25

it refers specifically to the “mercy seat,” i.e., the covering of the ark where the blood was sprinkled in the OT ritual on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). This term is used only one other time in the NT: Heb 9:5, where it is rendered “mercy seat.” There it describes the altar in the most holy place (holy of holies). Thus Paul is saying that God displayed Jesus as the “mercy seat,” the place where propitiation was accomplished.

b. propitiation is the turning away of anger by the offering of a gift.

This is the practice that God instructed Israel to do for the forgiveness of their sin.

Think of giving flowers as an apology.

“I know I messed up, and I’m sorry.”

In the temple, the blood of the sacrificed animals was sprinkled on the mercy seat for the forgiveness of sins.

Paul is saying that Christ's blood has now been sprinkled on the mercy seat for the forgiveness of all sin.

He also throws in the phrase “God passed over the sins previously committed” to bring to mind the Passover that happened in Egypt.

He is tying together in people’s minds the work that God has been doing for generations to redeem his people.

2. We are justified by His grace and made righteous before God.

Romans: Nothing but Grace Romans 3–5

In English translations, it’s difficult to see that “justify” (δικαιόω; dikaioō) and “righteousness” (δικαιοσύνη; dikaiosynē) share the same Greek root. In Paul’s day, this terminology would have been common in a court of law, where it was used by the judge to declare an accused person “not guilty.”

Romans: Nothing but Grace Romans 3–5

Paul uses justification language in a similar way to explain how, through faith, the work of Christ makes it possible for sinners to be found righteous by God. This explains why justification and faith are mentioned together so often. In 3:20, 28, Paul explains that being justified through faith is the opposite of being justified by works.

Did you catch that?

Justified by faith is the opposite of justification by works.

This is one of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of Christianity, yet it is the most foundational part of our faith.

I want to say this as clearly as possible so there is no room for anyone to get it wrong.

You cannot impress God or improve His view of you in any way.

We are separated from God by our sins and even our best attempts fall disastrously short.

We do not deserve God’s grace, and to think that we could ever earn it is an insult to the sacrifice that Christ made.

He paid the price that we deserved in order that we might be made righteous once again.

Christ's death, burial, and resurrection have renewed our relationship with God.

Our pathetic attempts at righteousness will never come close to comparing to the perfection that is Jesus.

So this is grace; God has done for us what we could never do for ourselves so that He could restore what we destroyed.

This is our motivation, the grace of God.

We experience that grace in two ways.

The grace of God for salvation.

This is the first way in which we experience God’s grace.

2 Corinthians 5:21 CSB

21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

God has done all the work, and as we talked about last week, He draws us to Himself.

He sent his son, Jesus, which we will be celebrating in just a few weeks so that our relationship could be restored.

Jesus traded his perfection for our imperfection so that we could be with God again.

Do you remember Russ teaching on Israel’s search for the one that would crush the serpent's head? Exodus and Ecc study.

Jesus is the one. He came and concurred sin and death for us.

So how do we experience salvation?

Is it simply believing?

Paul would say no.

Romans 10:8–10 CSB

8 On the contrary, what does it say? The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. This is the message of faith that we proclaim: 9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.

We covered this not long ago in our James study.

James 2:19 CSB

19 You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe—and they shudder.

James and Paul would agree that to believe that Jesus was the son of God is only part of it.

We must also confess with our mouths.

It is not simply enough to believe, we must say it out loud.

Ideas become concrete when we speak them out loud.

And when we do that...

Romans 10:13 CSB

13 For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

This was in one of my devotionals yesterday morning.

The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary— nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.

Forgiveness doesn’t merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.-Oswald Chambers

Because of Jesus and the salvation that he offers, we have become someone new.

And so, now that we have become new creations, we experience...

The grace of God after salvation.

After we have been saved, God’s grace is not done with us!

Salvation is only the beginning.

It is like dipping your toe in the water and finding that the temperature is perfect.

Now that we have experienced that taste, we want to dive in!

Galatians 5:1–6 CSB

1 For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Take note! I, Paul, am telling you that if you get yourselves circumcised, Christ will not benefit you at all. 3 Again I testify to every man who gets himself circumcised that he is obligated to do the entire law. 4 You who are trying to be justified by the law are alienated from Christ; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we eagerly await through the Spirit, by faith, the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accomplishes anything; what matters is faith working through love.

Paul addresses the idea that after salvation, there is additional “work” that must be done in order to please God.

He states very clearly that if try, in our own power, to keep even one law, we must keep them all perfectly.

Remember, Jesus lived, died, and rose again because we could not be Holy without him.

There are thousands of years of history proving that without God’s grace, humanity was doomed.

I’ve been listening to a podcast, The Ten Minute Bible Hour, and the author, Matt Whitman is working through the book of Matthew.

He makes the point that all of Israels history is a record of God’s people failing.

He uses a well known tune to illustrate this point. bump buda bump bump - bump bump.

Israels history is a whole lot of bump buda bump bump and nothing.

God has saved us from slavery in Egypt, wow, look, God killed pharoah’s army let us sing his praises

A few moments later… Complain about food and water and say you want to go back to slavery.

bump buda bump bump

God’s presence is on that mountain and Moses is going to get direction. Yay!

Wait, he’s been gone longer than expected. Let’s make a calf to worship.

bump buda bump bump

There is the promised land! We can leave the desert! Wait, those guys in the promised land are big, let’s go back to the desert.

bump buda bump bump

This happens over and over and over again, humanity has proven that it is imperfect and unholy.

Jesus is the bump bump that has been missing the whole time!

Finally, after all those generations of failure, Jesus appears.

He is crucified and so many thought that it was again.

bump buda bump bump and then three days later, - bump bump.

The problem is that so many accept his salvation but then try to take back control and live by their own means.

Once again we have returned ourselves to bump buda bump bump

The whole point of Jesus living, dying, and coming back to life is that God is restoring us.

When we “do” church with any motivation other than love and gratitude in response to His grace, we are missing the whole point.

We are, as Paul said in Galatians, taking back up the yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1 CSB

1 For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.

God has made you righteous, and by his grace, he is going to keep you righteous!

1 Thessalonians 5:23–24 CSB

23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will do it.

God calls us, saves us, and keeps us.

There is no part in that process that we are responsible for!

"That which violates the law is flesh. That which attempts to keep the law, is also flesh." - Watchmen Nee

Our attempts at “being good” or acceptable are sins, just like our rebellion.

Both are different forms of disobedience.

"Your flesh life may not be defiant toward God. Walking after the flesh is simply relying on your ability instead of God's resources. Don't think of the flesh as something that you naturally find repulsive. It may be very attractive and look spiritual." -Steve McVay, Grace Walk

Our works do nothing but separate us from God.

We must fully rely on Him for our righteousness.

1 Corinthians 1:4 ESV

4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus,

1 Corinthians 1:8–9 ESV

8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

God will not only make us blameless by His grace, but he will keep us blameless by His grace.

We kicked this thing off by talking about Newton’s law of motion.

All of us were headed in one direction, but God has done the work to redirect us.

He is our motivation.

Closing

I want to close with two things today.

If you have been living your life trying to please God. Just stop.

Accept His grace and forgiveness.

God loves you just the way you are, and he proved it with a cross.

If you are here today and you believe that Jesus is the son of God who died for your sins, but you have never confessed it with your mouth, today is the day.

Jesus loves you and wants you to know Him and His gift of grace.

It doesn’t matter if you are ten, fifteen, or fifty.

God loves you and is calling you to Himself.

This morning God has given us the opportunity to know Him better than we did when we arrived.

If you are here today and you are ready to stop trying to please God with your actions or if you want to confess that Jesus is Lord, you can do both of those.

During this last song, I’m going to go stand over here.

If you find yourself in either of those two categories, come see me during that song and let’s talk about it and pray together.

If you feel God tugging at your heart, come see me.

Let’s pray.

To bear a cross, the Christian must take it up of his own free will. No authority can compel us to feed the hungry or evangelize the lost or pray for revival or sacrifice ourselves for Christ’s sake and the sake of suffering humanity. The ideal Christian is one who knows he is free to do as he will and wills to be a servant. This is the path Christ took; blessed is the man who follows Him.

Christ did not come to be served but to serve (Matthew 20:28). For us to follow Christ means exercising our freedom to follow Him and serve Him. Serving Him will result in reaching out to people in His name. - Tozer

Announcements

YEC is tonight and tomorrow. The gospel will be presented. Pray that God would draw kids to himself and that they would accept.

No youth activities Wednesday night.

Pray for our budgeting process and take this time to ask God about your giving.

This year we expected to bring in approx. 90k, but it looks like it will only be about 60k.

That is fine, God has provided for all that we need, but we also want to be faithful to do what he has asked us to do.

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