TGP Distinctives: Message

1 Because I love Zion, I will not keep still. Because my heart yearns for Jerusalem, I cannot remain silent. I will not stop praying for her until her righteousness shines like the dawn, and her salvation blazes like a burning torch. 2 The nations will see your righteousness. World leaders will be blinded by your glory. And you will be given a new name by the Lord’s own mouth. 3 The Lord will hold you in his hand for all to see— a splendid crown in the hand of God. 4 Never again will you be called “The Forsaken City” or “The Desolate Land.” Your new name will be “The City of God’s Delight” and “The Bride of God,” for the Lord delights in you and will claim you as his bride. 5 Your children will commit themselves to you, O Jerusalem, just as a young man commits himself to his bride. Then God will rejoice over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride. 6 O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen on your walls; they will pray day and night, continually. Take no rest, all you who pray to the Lord. 7 Give the Lord no rest until he completes his work, until he makes Jerusalem the pride of the earth. 8 The Lord has sworn to Jerusalem by his own strength: “I will never again hand you over to your enemies. Never again will foreign warriors come and take away your grain and new wine. 9 You raised the grain, and you will eat it, praising the Lord. Within the courtyards of the Temple, you yourselves will drink the wine you have pressed.” 10 Go out through the gates! Prepare the highway for my people to return! Smooth out the road; pull out the boulders; raise a flag for all the nations to see. 11 The Lord has sent this message to every land: “Tell the people of Israel, ‘Look, your Savior is coming. See, he brings his reward with him as he comes.’ ” 12 They will be called “The Holy People” and “The People Redeemed by the Lord.” And Jerusalem will be known as “The Desirable Place” and “The City No Longer Forsaken.”

Amen.

Over the last two weeks, we have reviewed our distinctives as a TGP church.

Today we will cover our third distinctive, the Message of the Gospel of Christ.

I love that as we are talking about the message, it is also the Sunday that we begin celebrating the arrival of Christ.

That Hope that God’s people longed for is coming, and we get to share that message!

On the heels of spending half a year in James learning what it means to have True Faith, God wanted us to remember who He has called us to be, why we follow Him, and why we do what we do.

This is a refresher on who we are as a church and followers of Christ.

Two weeks ago, we talked about our Mission.

Our mission is to lead people to know God.

The goal is that you are growing in your relationship with God by experience, and as you are growing, you are sharing that with others.

We looked at Phil 3:10

Philippians 3:10 CSB

10 My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death,

The word Paul uses here that is translated as “to know” is Ginosko.

γινώσκω - Ginōskō – to know (experientially) v. — to know or have knowledge about (someone or something); normally as acquired through observation or the senses.

What Paul is communicating is that we know God by experience, which is a progressive process.

This means that if we are actually following Christ, we will be lifelong learners.

Our understanding of God will grow and change throughout our lives as we abide in Christ.

God wants us to know Him.

First by salvation and then by experience.

This means that God has put people in our lives that either need to hear the gospel for the first time or that need to understand what it means to know God by experience.

That experience comes only through obedience.

1 John 2:3–6 CSB

3 This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commands. 4 The one who says, “I have come to know him,” and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete. This is how we know we are in him: 6 The one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked.

When we obey God, we know Him better.

This is our goal, that first you know God by experience, and then you share that with others.

Then the goal is to help that other person have their own experiences with God.

One of the many issues facing the church and what has perpetuated “Christian Culture” is people regurgitating what they have heard yet lacking their own experiences.

Rather than promoting Jesus, they are promoting someone else’s ideas.

This is what happened with the religious leaders in Jesus' lifetime.

Matthew 12:33–37 CSB

33 “Either make the tree good and its fruit will be good, or make the tree bad and its fruit will be bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. 34 Brood of vipers! How can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. 35 A good person produces good things from his storeroom of good, and an evil person produces evil things from his storeroom of evil. 36 I tell you that on the day of judgment people will have to account for every careless word they speak. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

The truth about where we are with God will be revealed by our words and actions.

If you are in a vibrant, growing relationship with God, the world will see God’s activity and be drawn to God.

If you are pretending, the world will see that and be repelled by it.

Today we are going to talk about our message, and if we are just repeating what you have heard Glen or me teaching for the past decade, you have missed the point.

God’s desire is for all of us to know this message by experience.

Our Motivation for sharing this Mission and Message is the Grace of God.

Last week we spent a lot of our time talking about Grace.

We did this because we have to understand it before we can give it away.

When I was in High School I was on a welding team.

We would go to cometitions and compete against other teams to see who could weld the best in a series of different scenarios.

The first year we had the team, our teacher realized that the team very quickly surpassed her knowledge base and so she arranged to have another ag teacher come in once a week to teach us.

Had she been too proud and tried to go beyond what she knew, the team would not have grown or been competitive.

When we don’t know something, we shouldn’t pretend that we do.

Rather, we should seek out someone who knows more than we do and ask them to teach us.

You can seek out other believers and go directly to God.

Too often, when it comes to matters of faith, people don’t try to learn the basics of their own faith.

As I stated last week, grace is the most misunderstood facet of the Christian faith, yet it is the most foundational part of our faith.

We are made right with God, not by our works, but by grace.

In fact, justification by faith is the opposite of justification by works.

Yet, most professing Christians in the US today will tell you that right behavior is what makes us right with God.

This is simply not true and, according to Paul, the opposite of the gospel.

Romans 3:23–26 CSB

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.

Jesus is the only one who can justify us, and it is done through faith, not works.

This is our motivation.

Jesus did what we could not do for ourselves.

Because of His love for us, God gave His son so that we could be redeemed, renewed, and restored.

The cost of our salvation was Jesus’ death on the cross.

Our works will never compare to what Jesus has done for us, and we should never try and compare our feeble attempts at goodness to what Jesus did.

Once we understand our Mission and we are properly Motivated by grace, it is time to share.

Our Message is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This message of grace that we have experienced for ourselves is what God has called us to share.

I know, even thinking about sharing your faith starts to make you nervous.

Hopefully, the past few years have shown you that sharing the message of Christ begins with your story of God’s work in your life.

You share the experiences you have of coming to know Christ through salvation and as you are walking in obedience.

As I look around this room, I know that you have experienced God’s grace firsthand.

You understand the incredible gift you have been given.

Start there!

1 Corinthians 2:1–2 CSB

1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, announcing the mystery of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom. 2 I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Paul says it right there.

It’s not about some perfect message that you have rehearsed.

It’s about sharing what you know by experience.

It would be good to talk about this at LG to get some practice and get comfortable.

What is your story/experience of understanding God’s grace?

What was it like to know that you didn’t have to earn God’s acceptance?

How has that understanding and experience changed your life?

These are things that should be very easy for all of us to talk about and share.

Now, if you are prone to crying when talking about what God has done in your life, GREAT!

Letting your emotions come through as you are sharing brings authenticity and power.

Ephesians 2:1–10 CSB

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! 6 He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 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. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

You and I were born in sin and lived accordingly. v 1-3

God, because He loves us, gave us eternal life through Jesus’s death and Resurrection. v 4-7

This is a gift that only asks that we believe. v 8-10

Romans 8:1–4 CSB

1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, 2 because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, 4 in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

This is a message of freedom!

God sent his son to fulfill the law and to take renew, redeem, and restore us to God.

Jesus did all the work, and all we need to do is believe that.

As we come to understand that grace, by experience, our hearts will naturally follow God, and we will want to know more.

You can use your own life as an example and show them the truth in scripture.

Eph 2.1-10 and Romans 8:1-4 is an easy place to start.

Tell your story of coming to know Christ as savior.

This should be a story that is memorable and easy to share.

Don’t feel pressure to make anything happen.

It is not your job to save your friends.

It is your job to share your faith, and God does the work of saving.

Often your story will be one of several catalysts that God will use to reveal himself to someone.

Remember that Paul said it isn’t about having a fancy story.

It’s about having an authentic one.

What God did in your life moved you enough for you to choose to believe in Him.

And what God has continued to do in your life motivates you daily to continue to follow Him.

Just share that.

Here’s my story.

When I was in Junior High, the pastor of our church gave an invitation one Sunday morning.

I remember that specifically because that afternoon I was on the tractor disking the arena and mom and dad came out to talk to me about it.

As the pastor was talking about salvation that morning, I could feel in my heart that I needed what he as talking about.

I nudged Eddie, who was my cousin/best friend, and told him we should go down there and pray.

He said, “no, we will get in trouble.”

It was a fair statement, I was a trouble maker.

It didn’t matter to me though, I knew I needed it and it seemed in the moment that it was worth any punishment that may follow.

(We were not supposed to get up during church.)

I went down and prayed with the Pastor and gave my life to Christ.

That is how I came to know Christ as Savior.

My story isn’t some radical, life-altering event.

I was a kid who grew up going to church, and one day it clicked that I needed Jesus.

Again, Paul said it isn’t about a fancy story.

For much of my life, I thought my story wasn’t good enough.

I knew people with crazy stories about their life and how God swooped in and changed everything.

That isn’t my story.

I was a kid who heard the message.

Now, while I was saved, there was lot I didn’t know.

For years I was stuck in the cycle of thinking I needed to rededicate my life to Christ.

Every time I went to a youth conference and the speaker would preach salvation, I would think I wasn’t really saved or at least I wasn’t doing what I should.

So, I would go down and rededicate my life.

One time that even included destroying all of my “non-christian” CD’s because the speaker said that those were probably keeping us from God.

Man, I miss that Alan Jackson CD.

My understanding of what it meant to be a christian was to just go to church and youth group.

If you were really dedicated to God you would also stay for the Sunday night service after youth group was over.

That incredibly shallow understanding resulted in a lot of pranks, apologies, more pranks, getting in trouble, etc.

It wasn’t until my Junior year of High School that I heard some teaching from our new youth pastor that changed everything I thought I knew about being a Christian.

He began to teach our leadership team about grace.

Now, I had heard of grace, but I didn’t really understand what it meant in general or for me.

As God opened my heart and mind to understand what He had done for me, I realized that for all those years I had missed the best part about my relationship with God.

I was stuck in that rededication cycle for so many years because I thought that God’s view of me and His nearness was fully and completely dependent on my behavior.

As I said before, I was a trouble maker and therefore, I always thought that God was mad at me.

That YP also taught me how to experience God’s presence and all of the sudden my life was transformed from thinking that God was mad at me, into knowing and feeling God’s love and approval regardless how well I “performed.”

That year redirected my life and set me on course to discover the beauty of what God has done for me.

Over the last twenty five years I have learned that not only does God love me, but that he loves me enough that he wants to be included in every part of my life.

In big things like what job to take to little things like where to eat lunch.

God wants to be involved.

All of this has lead me to be the follower of Christ that I am today.

I’m far from perfect, but God loves me anyway.

Closing

All of us have a story.

Yours will be different from mine, but they all begin and end the same.

This is the message that we share.

We were sinners, but God sent Jesus to deliver us.

He was born, lived a perfect life, showed the world the truth about who God is, was crucified, dead, buried, and rose again three days later.

Jesus conquered the power of sin and death so that we could know God personally.

Sometimes we will share the story of our salvation, or sometimes it will be the thing God did that week.

That part is determined by the Holy Spirit, and when He asks you to share, you will know.

The enemy will try and convince you that your story isn’t good enough, but don’t listen.

Your story is life-altering.

It is the story of your life being changed by the grace of God.

No matter how simple it may seem to you when God tells you to share it, He intends to use it to change someone else’s life.

The power is not in your words but in the movement of the Holy Spirit.

As you obey and share, God will do what only He can do.

His exclusive activity will change the hearts of all those who hear the message of Jesus.