Blue Print for Success (2)
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Paul’s Salutation
Paul’s Salutation
300 Illustrations for Preachers Belonging Comes before Believing
Which comes first: believing or belonging? It makes perfect sense for some church folks to require people to share their beliefs before those people are accepted into the group. Unfortunately, some will never hear the message outside of the group setting. If the church requires people to believe before they make them feel like they belong, they may never have a chance to hear the message. In The Celtic Way of Evangelism, George Hunter writes, “Indeed, many new believers report that the experience of the fellowship enabled them to believe and to commit. For many people, the faith is about three-fourths caught and one-fourth taught.” Later in the same book, he states the principle quite succinctly: “For most people, ‘belonging comes before believing.’ ”
So what is the Blue Print for us to to successfully get people to belong and then believe
1 Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness,
2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,
3 but at the proper time manifested, even His word, in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior,
4 To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
First Key element to a Blue Print for Success is a Introduction
Paul Introduction
Paul Introduction
1 Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness,
A bond servant of God
Humbleness
ability to know who is his head
Enables the person he writing to know where he stands
A Apostle of Jesus Christ
explains his authority to be righting the letter
explains that he has seen the one who has all authority
Also introduces the fact that he also has the gift of planting churches.
Paul Introduces God
Paul Introduces God
2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,
3 but at the proper time manifested, even His word, in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior,
God never lies
19 “God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent;
Has He said, and will He not do it?
Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
God is always truthful
He always fulfill his promise
He always does what he says he going to
God offers a message of eternal life
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Eternal life is offered through the Gospel
Salvation leads to eternal life
God wants his message preached
2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.
Challenge to Timothy
Preach anytime
1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
Because the Lord has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners;
2 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
Who to preach to
to proclaim what God has promised
Paul introduces Titus
Paul introduces Titus
4 To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
Titus a true child in common Faith
Titus Paul’s Greeting for Titus
Paul’s greetings in Titus are the longest of any of his letters besides Rom 1:1–7.
There is a true Bond with Titus
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles Opening Salutation (1:1–4)
The salutation thus to some extent lays the doctrinal foundation for the practical teaching which is about to be given
1 Then after an interval of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along also.
2 It was because of a revelation that I went up; and I submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but I did so in private to those who were of reputation, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain.
3 But not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.
6 So we urged Titus that as he had previously made a beginning, so he would also complete in you this gracious work as well.
Conclusion
We ask ourselves a question in the beginning is about belonging or Believing?
Paul tries to answer this by a simple introduction
Who he is?
Who God is?
Who Titus is?
l All the introduction have to do with a relationship when these question are answered.
The blue print for success comes from learning who people are so they can belong and how they relate to you.
Some of you may have question about what to Believe But to part of the Ekkelesia all you have to do is belong.
Belong to God by accepting what he has done
Just like Titus be a true child common in the faith
Lets go build the Church with God’s Blue print