Christ: The Foundation of God’s Church

Introduction

We are blessed to be where we are, church. God is so good to us in so many ways that we so often simply take for granted. Who here has been on a mission trip before? Mission trips are awesome opportunities for us to go and serve and meet needs and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but you know that if you’ve ever gone on a mission trip before, you receive more from the people you serve than you give to them. That might sound backward, but it’s so often the truth. A couple of years ago, I was blessed to have the opportunity to help lead a mission trip to Guatemala with members from 4 different churches! We went with the intention of partnering with a local church and pastor to build homes for citizens in his town, lead a VBS for the kids, teach English at a local school, and support the ministry that this church is doing in this community. We arrived with Bible’s, soccer balls, lots of construction tools, and this plan to support this pastor and this church. Fast forward a few days and we had completed 10 homes, had led the VBS, and by God’s grace, 4 people had come to know Christ as Lord and Savior!

This is what struck me, though: Many of these people have next to nothing. Upper-middle class is an annual household income of $5,000 US Dollars. Their houses, in some instances, are more like 12 x 12 “lean-to” structures than an actual house. They don’t have the cars and clothes that we have… but you know what they do have? A love for their family. A smile on their face. A deep joy for Jesus as they walk miles, in some instances, just to come to church! Though their houses might be built on mud, their lives are built on a solid rock. How many in our country have that flipped? We build the temporary things like houses on a solid foundation of concrete, but we build the eternal things like our souls on a foundation of slippery sand.

Having a strong foundation is a big deal! As important as it is to have a strong foundation for our homes, it is even more important to have a strong foundation for our souls. As believers, we know that this is only possible because of the finished work of Jesus Christ. In Jesus, there is hope. In Jesus, there is strength. In Jesus, there is life! How can we gain this hope? Strength? Life? Not by trying harder, doing better, or acquiring more things… it’s all about grace. We receive God’s grace and we are called to share this grace with others each day because Jesus Christ is still in the business of giving people grace. Let’s dig into our need for God’s grace this morning in Titus 2:11-15 and see the good news that our good God provides!

Titus 2:11–15 CSB

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 14 He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works. 15 Proclaim these things; encourage and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

2000 years ago, God’s grace appeared as Jesus Christ was born into this broken world and lived a perfect, sinless life. Not only did Jesus live a perfect life, but Jesus continues to change lives today through His Word. He is our foundation. He is our hope. He has a perfect plan. And one day, He will return. Let’s pray this morning and give Him thanks for Who He is and what He has done

Jesus Saves Us (11)

The word safe can mean a lot of different things… in baseball, a runner slides into a base to avoid getting tagged by the defense and the umpire says “SAFE” and it means that the runner touched the base before getting tagged out. If a home catches fire and someone is trapped inside, a firefighter rushes inside, finds the person who is trapped, and gets them outside so they are “SAFE” from the flames. In a crazy and unpredictable economic world, whenever you transfer funds from one account to another you might feel like they are more “SAFE” in the sense that they are in a less risky account. Someone is sick and they are taken to the hospital and seen by a doctor in the Emergency Room, and they feel “SAFE” because they are being checked out. We use this word often in our world and we desire safety. Families spend hundreds on keeping their house safe. Schools spend billions each year on school safety. Our government spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year to keep our country safe. We desire to be safe from threats, but what about the threat of our own sin? How can we be saved from that?

Some dismiss this question by saying that sin isn’t a real problem, or that it is something that we don’t need to worry about. But deep down, we know this isn’t true. The Bible tells us that this is serious!

Romans 3:23 CSB

23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;

Romans 6:23 CSB

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sin, anything we think, say, do, or don’t do that displeases God is our greatest problem because it separates us from God and we are all guilty of it. No amount of money, power, relationships, or life change can fix this problem. Often we think of sin as just being actions that we make and we usually call them mistakes. I made a mistake. I had an accident. I messed up. The Bible shares with us though that the problem is much deeper than just occasional actions, the heart of the matter with our sin is the matter of our heart. We have a fallen heart. Our world tells us to follow our heart, but God’s Word tells us that our heart is deceitful and wicked and incurable. This doesn’t make us feel the best, but it’s necessary to understand because our fundamental problem in this life is not that we sin, but that we are sinners. Do you see the difference there? If the problem is just that we sin, then we can choose to stop, try harder, pull up our boot straps, and through hard work, dedication, and practice, we can be the solution. This isn’t the case though. We are sinners. We have rebelled against God and we are all guilty because of our sin and if self is the problem then self can’t be the solution. We need outside help.

Imagine being stuck in quick sand with nothing around you to grab onto for help. I’ve never been in quick sand, but I’ve been told that the more you move and struggle, the faster you sink. What a helpless feeling! This is our world… we are in a broken world, and we ourselves are broken people, and the solution is not more brokenness… the solution is something outside of ourselves. Something we couldn’t deserve. Something we could never earn. Hence, Titus 2:11 - the solution is God’s Grace.

Aren’t you thankful that you don’t have to wait to experience God’s grace? You can experience that right now, today! In a world of brokenness, you can experience what it means to be saved. This word “grace” means God’s unmerited favor. In other words, grace is not something we deserve or something that we could work for ourselves. The Bible is full of stories of grace, in fact, Jesus talked often about grace in His parables in the Gospels. This fall we’ll start to go through the book of Luke, and Luke contains stories of grace such as the Good Samaritan, Jesus healing the Lame man whose friends lowered him through a roof, and one of my favorites: The Prodigal Son. Think of the younger brother in Luke 15 - he squandered his inheritance by living a foolish lifestyle. He knew that he had no right to return home because he treated his father with such disrespect… but he came home, and when he came home his father ran out to greet him. The prodigal didn’t deserve this, in fact he didn’t deserve to even be allowed back in the home, much less have a party thrown and be restored to the family… but this is just a picture of God’s grace. This is a picture of our salvation - not something we deserve, but something God gives. Adrian Rogers once shared this, “Salvation is not a reward for the righteous but a gift for the guilty.”

God’s grace appeared 2000 years ago as Jesus entered this world of sin and brokenness and did for us what we could never do for ourselves: Live a sinless life and pay the punishment we owed! Who receives this grace? In other words, who is saved? We know God’s Word talks about this throughout the New Testament

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.

Acts 4:11–12 CSB

11 This Jesus is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.”

What have some done? They have rejected Jesus, and the Bible tells us that there is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ. What then do we do with the end of Titus 2:11 - salvation for all people?

Some view this through the lens of universalism - that every person who has ever existed will be saved. There are multiple or unlimited ways to God. Everyone goes to heaven. This is very popular in our world today. Others view this through the lens of Inclusivism - Jesus is the only way to be saved, but if you are a religious person or a good person, then God is inclusive and He will accept your version of religion and you’ll be saved. Finally there is the lens of Exclusivism - salvation is only found through personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This is the teaching of the Scriptures, friends. So what does Titus 2:11 mean? Does it mean that every person who has ever existed is saved? No - we see in the Bible that those who reject Jesus are not saved. What about people who believe in another religion that isn’t Christianity? Are they saved? No - the Bible tells us that those who reject Jesus are not saved. So what does Titus 2:11 mean? Verse 14 answers this for us - to redeem US. Who is redeemed? People are saved by grace through faith in Christ. That’s it! Remember last week in Titus 2:1-10? We saw different types of people, in fact we could say, all types of people who turn from sin and trust alone in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Older and younger. Men and women. Friends, because of Jesus, all types of people can be saved. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, what you’ve done, or what you look like, there is salvation and freedom available for you RIGHT NOW in Jesus Christ!

Have you been saved by God’s grace?

Jesus Changes Us (12-13)

Regardless of if you’re an older man, older woman, or a younger man or a younger woman, if you know Jesus, you know that Jesus Christ loves you enough to change you. In our world change is often seen as a negative thing. We think that there are things in our lives that are a part of who we are and that we shouldn’t “change” or we don’t want to change. Jesus changes those Jesus saves… and we see a list of things that Jesus does after we are saved in Titus 2:13-14. As those who are saved, there are some things that we are instructed not to do, and some things that we are instructed to do. Now, real quick, who here enjoys being told what to do? That’s not natural to us as human beings, we don’t want to be told what to do! In fact, some of us even don’t like having someone suggest to us what we should do! Yet, there are clear commands in God’s Word for God’s people. We are instructed as believers to deny godlessness and worldly lusts. Why these things?

“The attractions of this world do not shine so brightly when compared to the treasures of the world to come.” Whenever we realize how holy and good our God truly is. How sovereign He is. How wise He is. How He knows what is best. How He loves us perfectly. Then we begin to realize that anything that goes against His Word is a distant second place for us. The Bible says our best actions are like filthy rags - the best this world has to offer us apart from Christ is nothing short of a filthy rag. Compared to the treasure of eternity, the treasures of this temporary world all fall short. The things this world says to pursue, they all fall short. Godlessness and lust are nothing but vain things that will not satisfy. Drunkenness. Pornography. Immodesty. Immorality. These are godless things that Hebrews 11:25 calls the “fleeting pleasure of sin.” It’s fleeting. It’s here and then it’s gone. It does not last! We have to ask ourselves this question: Does God know what’s best for my life? Let’s break that down quickly. Does God know… what is the answer to that? God is all knowing, so of course the answer is yes! Does God know you? Yes, He made you! Does God know what is best for you? Of course! So, and I’m asking myself this too, why do we so often not live like we believe that? Why chase godless things? Why indulge in lust? Why? Because we don’t understand the second part of verse 12 - live a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age. We look at this instruction and we ask: WHY?

If we think the reason why is because of laws and regulations and just checking the box, then of course, we’ll get bored and frustrated because we view Christianity as a list of “do’s” and “don’ts” for us each day. DO: Read your Bible. DON’T: Curse. DO: Glorify Jesus. DON’T: Miss Church. We should read our Bible and we should glorify Jesus. We shouldn’t curse and we shouldn’t miss church. These are true things… but what is our motivation? Our motivation is not to obey in order to be accepted, our motivation is to please our Father because we have been accepted! This is why we do what we do as believers, not in order to be saved, but because we are saved! Jesus saves us and then He changes us… and this change involves us living out Luke 9:23

Luke 9:23 CSB

23 Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.

We take up our cross, die to self, and follow Christ. And we do this from the day we are saved until the day Christ calls us home. Did you know that Jesus is ruling and reigning right now? We don’t see that, but after Jesus rose He said that He has all authority. That His Kingdom is at hand. He is seated in glory on His throne. But this world is still broken. We see tragedy. Cancer. Sickness. Murder. Brokenness. Things are not as they should be! But it won’t be this way forever, friends. Jesus will return and whenever He comes, all that is wrong will be made right. Jesus doesn’t just change us, He will change this world. As we realize this truth, that from this day to the last day, Jesus rules and reigns and redeems and restores, His grace changes our lives.

Jared Wilson shares this story of how God’s grace continues to change us and help us grow in gratitude the longer we are saved:

Imagine you are driving down the road and your car stalls at a railroad crossing. You are understandably nervous as you try to reignite the car's engine, but you become even more so when you see a train turn the corner in the distance and begin quickly closing the gap between it and you. The train engine's horn is blaring and the engineer has thrown on the brakes, but you are too close and he's coming too fast. You move from trying to get the car to start to trying to unfasten your seatbelt, but fear has made your hands stiffen and shake. You can't get your seatbelt unfastened. The train is rushing toward you, and you know you're going to be hit. And you are. Suddenly and from behind. A man in a truck behind you has decided to ram into your car and push you off the tracks, even as he is destroyed by the impact in the very spot you once occupied.

You get out of the car, shaken and still frightened. You are terrified by the gruesome scene, in shock over your rescuer's sacrifice. You are grateful in a way that you've never been grateful before. … Even in your terrified awe, it feels good to be alive. You feel woozy, so you sit down on the trunk of your car, and as you're trying to retrieve your cell phone from your pocket to call 911 and marveling at how little damage the violent shove did to the rear bumper, you hear a whimper from inside.

You didn't know that before you'd left the house, as your kids were playing hide-and-seek, your youngest son decided to hide in the trunk of your car. As you open it up frantically and discover that he is miraculously unharmed, you suddenly realize the total greatness of the loss you almost suffered. Your gratitude, your amazement, your new outlook on life takes a giant leap forward. That is the difference between the gospel wakefulness of conversion and the greater wakefulness that often occurs later.

This is the process of sanctification. Justification is instant. We are immediately saved. We are gradually sanctified. We grow in gratitude for God’s grace!

The Bible doesn’t call for perfection, but it does call for a new direction for those who have experienced God’s grace! So, have you been changed by God’s grace? Has God’s grace sent you down a new direction?

Whenever we are first saved, we understand just a fraction of God’s goodness and grace… and as we grow in our walk with the Lord, we gain more and more perspective, wisdom, and spiritual insight and our appreciation for God’s grace grows as He continues to change us and as we continue to wait for our eternal home.

Jesus Uses Us (14-15)

Identity is a big word in 2025. People place their identity in a lot of things outside of themselves: friends, jobs, locations, interests, passions, hobbies, looks, the list goes on. Our identity eventually forms our worldview and impacts the way we view and interact with everything around us, so it’s crucial to get our identity correct! For the person who views their identity as a mistake or the product of chance, this impacts the way that they form relationships, the way they look at the world, and the way that they even look at themselves. If I’m a mistake, then life isn’t a big deal. There’s nothing special. There’s nothing more. There is no purpose. This impacts every aspect of our lives and this is why over and over in the Bible, we see how Jesus changes our identity. He changes our purpose. He changes our entire lives. The identity of every believer is IN CHRIST. It’s all because of Jesus, as verse 14 shows us. We can say that because of Jesus we have been saved from the penalty of sin, we are being saved from the power of sin, and one day we will be saved from the presence of sin! This is our hope, and it’s all because Jesus gave Himself for us.

Because God is just, every sin ever committed must be paid for. There are only 2 options: Either you can pay for them for all eternity… or, by being saved by grace through faith in Christ, those sins are already paid because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross! This is why we sing that Jesus Paid It All, church. He paid a debt He didn’t owe because we owed a debt we could not pay. This is what theologians often called the Great Exchange:

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.

Why would Jesus do this? Why give Himself to redeem us from our sin? Titus 2:14 gives us the answer! “To cleanse for Himself a people for His own possession.” Do you see how beautiful this is friends? The same God who created the 200 billion, trillion (20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) stars in the observable universe. The same God who positioned our planet in the perfect zone for life to thrive. The same God who created our planet on an axis so that we experience the different seasons. The same God who created the human eyeball with all of its complexities. This same BIG God, who spoke the stars and galaxies into existence, He knows you. He made you. If you are here this morning and you don’t know this God, you will not find peace and purpose in your life until you come to know the Creator of your life. As believers, we do a great job of trusting Jesus with the big stuff… We know that there are things out of our control, and we by and large trust those things to our gracious God… but if we believe that God created everything, and that God is in control of the big stuff, it follows that He’s in the little things too. That time you missed the stoplight and were 30 seconds late and just in front of you an accident happens that you would’ve been in otherwise? Coincidence? Bologna - that’s Providence. That breath you just took? Providence. That’s God’s grace in the little things, church. And our good God uses us as His people, to do good works.

We are saved in order to serve, Titus 2:14 is clear on this! But why? Why serve? Why work? This is where some turn to something called Legalism. The legalist says, “What I do leads to who I am.” If I live a righteous life then I will be acceptable before God. The Gospel corrects this by reminding us that we are acceptable before God only through the finished work of Jesus on the cross! There is another ditch called antinomianism and it looks at God’s grace and says this: Because of God’s amazing grace, it doesn’t matter how I live. In other words, “What I do does not matter!” This is the opposite of what Paul hits on in Romans 6

Romans 6:1–2 CSB

1 What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Legalism and Antinomianism are enemies of God’s Grace which says this: Who I am leads to what I do. Because I am saved by God, I desire to be used by God. Because I am redeemed by the blood of Jesus, I desire to see others come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior and experience His forgiveness today! Who I am in Christ changes how I live for Christ.

BECAUSE of the cross, I can live with self-control.

BECAUSE of the cross, I can love my spouse.

BECAUSE of the cross, I can listen to God’s Word when it convicts me.

If you are in Christ, you are a new creation. You were bought with a price. You are saved in order to serve and shine a bright light into a world of darkness. Sometimes we feel like we aren’t qualified to shine our light. We feel like we’re broken. Fallen. Incompetent. Unfaithful. Unfaithful might feel like your reality, but in Christ, it no longer has to be your identity! God does His best work with empty. He has used broken people and jars of clay to carry His Gospel message for 2000 years, and broken people are still the people that God uses to proclaim His message today because broken people are the only type of people in God’s service. We speak the truth in love. Speaking the truth isn’t always popular. It isn’t always easy. But this is our calling, church. We have work to do - in fact we can think of it like this, “We GET to work!” We are saved to work. Are we eager to work at South Gate? Are we eager to tell people about the truth of the Gospel? Are you eager to tell people about the grace that is available in Jesus? So often there is a temptation to put off hard work for a later point in time or to think that someone else will do the work eventually… Then years go by and we look back at all the things that we missed along the way simply because we weren’t ready. We weren’t prepared. We were too busy doing something else. Friends, there are people that God has placed in our sphere of influence who NEED you to be eager to share this Gospel message and do good works that demonstrate the love, mercy, and grace of our good God! This is what we are saved in order to do! Grace Generates Godliness.

Augustine, 1600 years ago, shared, “Pray as if everything depends on God. Work as if everything depends on you.” We get to pray to God and we get to work for God’s glory and the good of our community! These aren’t just suggestions or helpful ideas… Proclaim, encourage, and rebuke in the Greek are present imperatives, meaning these are commands for believers. Because we have been saved by Jesus, we are to continually be used by Jesus to share His message to those around us. The Gospel both encourages and rebukes. It encourages those who are in need of hope. It rebukes those who seek to abuse that hope. It encourages us to embrace grace. It rebukes those who want to boast in self. We all need God’s Grace!

Because God’s Grace Has Appeared:

I Can Find Hope in God’s Word

Wherever you find yourself at today, because God sent His Son, you can find hope at all times in His Word because God comes through on His promises. Whenever we read Scripture, we can always find hope because whenever we were separated from God, God sent His Son to save us and as we read Scripture we see that Jesus is better at saving than we are at sinning, and that’s just plain ole good news!

I Can Rejoice in God’s Work

As Christians, not everything that we go through feels good, but we can rejoice in God’s work in our lives because His Word promises that all things will work for our good as we become more and more like Jesus Christ! Because of God’s grace, there is joy available to us at all times, because of the miracle of the cross: not that we accept Christ, but that God accepts us because of Jesus!

I Can Trust in God’s Will

I can trust that God has a perfect plan not only for this world, but for my life. I can trust in God’s will for my life and build my life on His Word and join Him in doing His Work! Friend, have you trusted in Jesus today? If your answer to that question is no, we’re about to pray and our team will lead us in a song of response. As we pray, my question for you to evaluate in your life is this: What is my foundation built on? Is it built on God’s Gospel of Grace or is it built on anything else? God’s grace has appeared and God’s glory is coming - today, not tomorrow, not next week, today, turn away from your sins and trust along in Jesus and be changed forever!