Guts of the Gospel
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
What is your natural tendancy when it comes to the Chrristian life?
Grace, grace grace, to the exclusion of truth and law? (Antinomian)
Work, work, work your way into God’s good books? (legalist)
Knowledge, understanding and theology?
Jesus is my invisible boyfriend?
As we go into the new year I want you to be well situated, founded on the Gospel as your guiding light.
We need to get this right, otherwise it all goes off the rails
otherwise we get deceived by other plausible sounding focii
First we assume the Gospel, then we forget it! So we need to be reminded of the truth on which we stand!
And this is also an opportunity, to put our cards on that table and make it clear who we are.
Why are we here?
Not for a social club
Not for self-improvement
Not for academic titilation
We are here because we need the grace of God through Jesus and we want to worship God. Any other reason? Thanks for coming - this is not for you.
We want you to stay! But not for the wrong reasons. Stay for Jesus!
Stay because you recognise that you are in desperate need of mercy and grace from God
Stay because you are willing to humble yourself before God
Stay because you
Letter from Paul to Titus
Titus an overseer in Crete.
Paul uses this letter to encourage Titus in his role in the first century as Christianity was spreading around the mediteranian sea.
The last chapter focuses on the crux of our faith, the basis for evertything that Titus was doing.
This section answers three questions for us.
Who were we?
Who were we?
Now our passage opens at 3:1, but I’m not going to start there. Instead, we’re starting in v3 and we will comeback to 1 & 2 later.
Paul is writing to Titus who is a elder/overseer/pastor (remember these titles are interchangable in the NT). The Good News about Jesus has spread around the medititeranian sea and changed lives of all kinds of people. The Church has grown
They have had fundamental shifts in their outlook of the word, they have had their lives
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
Paul includes himself - We
Passions & pleasures - our carnal cravings
Envy - jelousy, - a big problem for us.
Looking for reasons to hate one another
Outside of Christ we are lost in our sin. Totally depraved.
This is the life before Jesus - We were...
Is this your past or present?
What did God Do?
What did God Do?
But God di not leave us there. He acted through human history to undo this state of affairs through Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy...
Appeared in the poerson and work of Jesus Christ
Atoning sacrifice, triumph over death
NOt from us, all of God. We add nothing to our salvation!
Grace and grace and mercy!
How does God apply this salvation to us?
...by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
We’re dead in sin, we need to be made alive
HS poured out for making people live!
This all comes through Jesus,
What is Justification?
We are justified, not by our own acheivement, but through God’s grace.
Now we have the hope of eternal life - not flimsy casual hope, but deep secure hope. Secured by the resurrection of Jesus!
This is the guts of the Gospel!
Some of you will say in your heart - ok ok, I get it, but just tell me what to do. Just give me the practical: “That gospel stuff, i heard it when I became a Christian, but I don’t need that anymore, just tell me how to make my life better.”
This is the crux of our faith, and we can never move beyond it. Sometimes as we preach through the scriptures passage by passage we will come upon places where the only application is: God has done amazing things for you. Beleive it and be thankful. And that’s ok.
It’s ok because it is true and it is good.
It often cuts across our human nature to want to do something or contribute or to fix things our own way.
For some of you, you need to humble yourslef to just say. “Ok, I accept.”
God has done it, I can add nothing to it. I just need to rest in it.
How then shall we live?
How then shall we live?
Too many modern Christians are happy for the Gospel part, but not interested in the good works part. They see it as divisive because now we have to have discussions around the specifics of sin and actually live differently in the world.
While many are happy to take free grace, they are unwilling to give God a return on his investment. They are happy for the
But here’s the thing, one of the signs that you have actually been renewed by the HS is that you will grow in good works!
If the problem was that you were given over to sin, and then God has overcome your bondage to sin, we should see sins that you are free!
Imagine a slave in an ancient roman ship, forced to row in horrible condidtions for days on end. Now lets say you have been freed, given citizenship and are never required to row endlessly in squalid conditions ever again. Should you continue to hop on that ship, sit down on the bench next to other slaves and then take up the oar? Or should you leave the onld life behind and abandon the futility?
When it comes to abandoning the old life of enslavement to sin, it’s not just about “not sinning” anymore, it is about replacing sin with righteouness. Where eveil deeds were your natural action and affection, now you must love what is good and pursue it faithfully!
The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.
In light of the salvation we have received in Jesus, now we are to work hard for God. Not to gain salvation, but to live out who we now are!
Devoted - are you devoted?
Pursue what is good, avoid what is eveil - much like paslm 1.
Put away the old to inhabit ne identity
As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.
Pretty straightforward - this is usually going to involve the elders. Fits with Matt 18.
But there is a particular way that division can affect us.
Division
Usually when I think about division I think of someone creating factions in the church and trying to agitate for their hobby-horse issues. But that is not the only way to be divisive, one form of division
But there is a form of passive division that is a real problem for us here - dividing yourself from the body!
There are perfectly reasonable and Godly times to divide, such as when people reject the Gospel, however it is not ok to
Divide away from the body because it is uncomfortable or inconveneient - i feel judged, i feel like I’m not in the in group, I feel too far behind in my faith, it take alot of effort for me to get there and
Divide on the basis of unresolved differences - We have a disagreement about something, but instead of resolving it, or learning to live with each other’s differences, I’ll withdraw from aeverybody.
Divide by making yourself the arbiter of truth - I didn’t agree with something that happened, or something that was said, now I’m going to fade away.
Of course we understand that there are times of sickness and travel that will impede our ability to participate in the life of the church, but’m not talking about providential hindering, I’m talking about your own selfishness and willingness to undermine the body by withholding yourself from it.
As you read through the NT you will see a bunch of discussion about how the church is to opperate, but there is also a bunch of freedom around the specifics of implementation. What this means is that down through history and around the world there is going to be different implementation such as speaking different languages, meeting is different types of buildings, structuring our gatherings differently, arranging pastoral oversight in different ways and so on. All of this is done under the oversight of the local leaders God has appointed for the task.
As we have arranged our church life here we have followed much the same pattern of many churches down through the ages where there is a main weekly gathering where we come together and do a bunch of things commanded by God, including times of formal worship and teaching, but then we split up and go about our lives during the rest of the week. We have smaller gatherings for different purposes throughout the week.
No what can often happen is that somone realises that there is no mandate to attend church getherings a certain number of times a year, and that it’s often a tough time between my social-awkwardness and getting ready and travelling to church, and there’s this other event that I want to be involved in, and for whatever reason they decide not to gather with the church that week. It comes after much umming and arring, but eventually they decide not to go. And they feel uncomfortable about it, but they know the gospel and that they’re saved by grace and that we don’t have to be legalistic, they justify it to themselves.
But they do it, and then others miss them, but then they’re back and everything is ok next week it’s like nothing happened.
But then they do it again, disappear from the gathering of beleivers for a few weeks. But then they’re back again for a few weeks. Then before you know it that person is only gathering with the local church once a month or couple times over a few months.
And what they’ve done is divide the body, to splinter it and pull away from the rest.
While the church is still the church when we are separated, it is manifested, it is made visible in it’s gathering and it gathers in obedienbce to Jesus to live as Jesus calls us, and it gathers under the leadership of the elders that God want to lead his church. When we take it upon ourselves to continually refrain from involvment in the local church and resist it’s influence in our live we are being divisive, splintering off the body one person or one family at a time.
Dividing yourself off from the church is selfish
It puts your own wants and desires ahead of everybody else
It deprives other beleivers of your fellowship, your spiritual gifts, your voice in the assmebly of the righteous
It undermines unity when the primary gathering of the church is usually missing half their people.
It means you cannot build arelationships and support one another because you’re going longer time between seeing each other, and there’s people who never meet each other because they’re always showing up at different times.
It’s selfish because it expects the church to gather and be there and to be healthy and there to be good teaching when I want to be there, but then ignore them when it’s not convenient for me.
How much would you dislike it when you preapre a hearty healthy meal for your family only for them to not come home, or have already eaten or make comments about how the meal is not as good as the fast food we can get on youtube, or at the other fafmily in the next town over? We know how diresepectful it would be to treat a family that way, yet for some reason we think we can treat our spirituall family that way. It’s divisive and undermining.
But even apart from the divisive nature of all this, it’s not good for you, it’s not spiritually healthy to cut yourself off from your spiritual family, your leadership and the rythyms of church life.
The Good News about Jesus brings us together, we are saved into a family, into a kingdom, into a body and that body needs to live as a body with all its parts working together. And part of that is involves sacrificing ourselves for the sake of others, even like Jesus himself sacrificed for us.
So now we’re ready to get back to the opening verses:
Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.
Life together as Christians
Obeying proper authorities - Civil, Family & Spiritual. We don’t usually need help with the civil, but family & spiritual are big problems for us.
Always awkward as an elder to discuss this, but it is my job to teach you the truth: You must obey your Elders. They are watching over your souls and will give an account. I don’t wan to sugar coat it, because I feel like me dancing around this subject has lead to too much faff. This is not about me persoannly, but about the office that the elders collectively hold. There should be multiple elders in every church for accountablility and to stop rogue leaders, but whether on not you like what you’ve been asked to to you should do it on obedience to Jesus, whether that be clean up your room, pay your taxes, or make every effort to regularly gather with the church.
Not to slander people. Tell the truth, but don’t go about lying or reviling people.
Avoid constant arguing
Be gentle, kind, patient, understanding. Don’t mean we don’t say or do hard things, but we do it carefuly and respectfully.
So What?
So What?
Who were we?
What did God do?
How then shall we live?
One of the regular ways we comemerate and celebrate the Gospel, is the Lord’s Supper!
