Be Ready for Good
Notes
Transcript
Who wants good in their life? I do! I want good food…, good friends…, good kids…, I’d say a good wife, but she’s really can’t get any better!
What good things do y’all want?
Well not only do I want good in my life, I want to do good as well. I want to do good because the Bible says that Christians do good…
Titus chapter 3 talks about this and we’re going to find out more about it tonight.
God saves by grace, enabling his children to do good.
God saves by grace, enabling his children to do good.
Jesus changes your life.
Jesus changes your life.
Becoming a Christian makes a noticeable difference in your life.
Think about when you got your first phone. It changed almost everything about your life right? Before you got your phone… And after you get your phone...
Getting a phone makes a change in your life that is huge for you and people around you will notice it.
Putting your faith in Jesus will change your life or already has changed your life. Paul talks about the difference.
vv1-2; This is what the Christian’s life looks like...
“The second is: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.”
v3; This is what the non-Christians life looks like…
This sounds futile and frustrating to me!
Becoming a Christian makes a change in your life. It may be a huge, overnight change, it may be a more gradual change, but if there has been no change in the way you live, the way you treat others, then you need to examine your heart and find out why, cause Scripture tells us this...
The one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked.
Don’t worry though, the next word is the best word in the Bible!
Jesus saves your life.
Jesus saves your life.
read v4- beginning of 5
Only by his grace, through our faith, Jesus saves!
When our youngest son Dawson was two, he figured out how to crawl into the refrigerator. There was a key thing he didn’t figure out though, how to crawl out. He was helpless. He’d just stand there and cry. I’d leave him to let him learn a lesson!
When he was younger, he was even more helpless. Some of y’all have had or have baby siblings, so you know what I’m talking about...
Or maybe you have a pet…
We are just as helpless to be saved from the consequences of our sin, spending forever apart from God in Hell. Verses 5-7 explain a little how He saves us and what we receive…
For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— not from works, so that no one can boast.
If you haven’t yet, place your faith in Jesus to be saved from the consequence of your sins and to live as you were created to…
brief Gospel presentation
And when you are saved, that’s just the beginning! Jesus gives your life a new focus.
Jesus focusses your life.
Jesus focusses your life.
He focusses your life on things that are about his Kingdom, and gives you good works to do for his Kingdom and your benefit. But you must first give your life to Jesus. You believe in him, then you do good works.
Think about SCUBA diving. You go swim around, or even walk around, under water and check stuff out for an extended period of time. It’s pretty cool, I got to do it one time. I got stung by a sea urchin.
You have to do something before you dive down though, what is it? PUT ON THE GEAR!
Same thing with sky diving, you can’t go until you put on the gear.
God has things for us to do as his children. We don’t just get saved and sit there feeling holy!
For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.
On the flip side, Paul says we need to make sure we don’t get caught up in foolishness. There were false teachers who had come to the church in Crete and were trying to spread false teaching about salvation and how people are saved, and Paul is saying we need to send these people packing if they continue trying to push a false Gospel.
Our focus should be on doing good works powered by the Holy Spirit.
The last verses
The last verses
This is the close to the letter. I think the thing we learn from this is that it’s important to have people we can lean on. The Christian life isn’t easy and we need each other!
But the meat of is that God saves us in his grace and gives us the ability to do good works. But we’ve got to be saved first. If you need to find out more about that tonight, talk to one of our volunteers.
If you’re a Christian but you haven’t been doing these good works, it’s time to get it going! You can find what your instructions in Scripture. If you need to talk with someone, we’re here!