Best Present Ever

One of the best ways I annoyed my children was at Christmas, I would refer to Santa Claus as the fat guy in a red suit.

This caused my kids much anxiety.

They were concerned my disrespect for the jolly old elf might have repercussions on Christmas morning.

Of course my insolence towards the fat guy in a red suit never caused any harm.

Christmas at our house has always been a rather lavish affair.

But Christmas comes and Christmas goes and really nothing essential in life is changed by it, really.

I think back on our forebears and the stories they told.

Christmas morning came and they might have an orange for a present.

It was the only fresh piece of fruit they had all winter.

One elderly relative told me one Christmas they got an orange, a few walnuts and a pair of socks.

They were grateful for those presents.

But even then, Christmas came and Christmas went, the fat man in a red suit made his rounds, and really nothing essential in life changed.

But see, somehow, we’ve missed a little something.

When Jesus was born, the world changed.

The whole world changed.

Calendars were revised to revolve around Jesus’ birth.

Even with the new designation of Common Era and Before Common Era - a rose by any other name, right?

The pivot point of history was that one baby out of 107 billion babies born.

It’s kind of fun for me to imagine - we portray the night of Jesus’ birth as a “Silent Night, Holy Night,” but in the heavens, a cataclysmic thing was going on.

After 2,000 years, the promise was delivered.

Messiah was born.

And I’m telling you absolutely nothing new - it’s what you came here this morning to hear.

A retelling - a reminder - that what you and I believe is true.

It’s the fulfillment of a promise.

Empirical evidence of sorts in a world of faith.

Jesus was born.

But something else happened that day too.

The way we look at Christmas is kind of a ‘one-and-done’ kind of thing.

Jesus came, he lived a perfect life, he died and was raised on the third day.

Today He sits at the right hand of the Father and His Holy Spirit fills the earth.

We believe that but really, the way we see it, nothing essential in life changed.

When we trust Jesus as our Savior, some things do change typically.

We try harder to do better.

But other than that, what changes?

It could just be that we are missing the greatest gift ever.

Our scripture is Titus 2:11-15.

Titus is a short letter written by the apostle Paul to a man named Titus.

Titus was an elder on the island of Crete which is located south of Greece.

I believe Cretans could have been precursors of Baptists.

Everyone had their own, very strong opinions about how things are supposed to run.

Church life in the fledgling church was tumultuous.

Titus needed some encouragement and direction from someone who knew what they were doing.

So Paul wrote a letter to Titus to help Titus know what they should believe and how they should operate.

Our scripture is part of the letter telling Titus, this is what we should believe.

Titus 2:11–15 ESV

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

I read the greatest quote this morning.

It’s from Rosario Butterfield in her book, “The Gospel Comes With A House Key.”

And this is what it says, “Because Christian conversion always comes in exchange for the life you once loved, not in addition to it, people have much to lose in coming to Christ - and some people have more to lose than others.

Jesus is not in addition to, He really comes instead of.

The grace of God appeared.

What is Grace?

Grace is something God has done for us solely because he loves us and he knows there is no way under the sun we can ever meet His standards.

Grace is God doing something for us -

God the Father sent Jesus the Son.

Our baby in a manger, our “Silent Night, Holy Night,” our “First Noel,” our “O Holy Night.”

Sent to save our lives, to rescue us from ourselves.

Verse 14 says “who gave Himself for us...”

He gave His entire life - His whole life - from infancy to death.

Lived sinlessly although He was tempted just like each of us are.

He faced constant discrimination.

He was tried and sentenced by prejudiced people.

Executed unjustly.

All for a reason.

He endured things you and I can’t even imagine.

And He endured it all to “redeem us from all lawlessness.”

Redeem - a 50 cent church word - but a word with a crazy special meaning.

When you redeem someone, you set them free.

The way Paul writes the verb redeem means it is something that happened in the past, it happened to us - we didn’t cause it and, we were hoping all along that it would happen. (Aorist Middle Subjunctive)

We were stuck somewhere we didn’t want to be but we had no clue how to get out.

Jesus redeemed us - He set us free.

He set us free from lawlessness.

We think that means that Jesus freed us from living like heathens and He gave us the right rules to follow but that’s not exactly it.

Lawlessness means that a person has a complete disregard for God.

Let that soak in for a second.

Jesus didn’t free us from our heathen-hood to now follow the right rules.

Jesus freed us so we would no longer disregard God.

Think of all of “those” stereotypical sinners we caricature - those people and the things they do.

What do they have in common?

It’s not their actions - it is they disregard God.

Now, replace them with us.

Jesus redeemed us so that we would no longer disregard God.

To put it positively, Jesus redeemed us so we would have the privilege of regarding God.

Of seeing Him and realizing just how good He is.

Jesus purified us.

Think of it this way - if you invited a homeless person into your home to live - what would you do?

You’d provide him or her with clean clothes.

You’d show them the bathroom - provide them soap, shampoo, deodorant.

You’d give them a towel and a washcloth and you’d make sure they had plenty of hot water to shower with.

Wouldn’t you?

Or would you simply invite the person who has lived under the second street bridge in Macon to live in your house, in the same clothes.

Just tell them to sack out on your couch and make themselves at home?

Maybe you do that for a meal - you don’t do that to stay.

You would want them to be purified so they could live at peace with everyone else.

Our sins stink to high heaven.

The ones we so easily say, “forgive us of our sins,” they stink to high heaven.

And Jesus purified us to make us His possession.

Now, I don’t care for how the ESV rendered the word possession.

I like the New English translation better - “He gave himself…to purify for himself a people who are truly his.”

Jesus frees us from sin, He makes it so we can regard God and He purifies us from our sins to make us special and treasured people who can live at peace in His Father’s house forever.

And we feel so special and we feel so treasured, we are so grateful for what we have become, that we become zealous - we really, really want to do good works.

Works like Jesus.

Works that will make Jesus smile.

Like a 3 year old coming home from preschool, “Do you like my picture mommy? I made one for daddy too - do you think he’ll like it?”

Zealous.

Titus 2:11 ESV

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,

Felicia Skinner and my Awana class is really struggling right now with the question of why would God create people knowing what they were going to do and knowing how much suffering it would cause so many people.

I asked the question of why do a mom and dad have a baby?

Now, Felicia quickly realized we might be in deep waters and we quickly moved into other areas - we weren’t talking how’s, we were talking why’s but if I caused any of our parents any uncomfortable conversations, I do apologize for that.

But the question is a good and relevant question - in God’s economy, why do a mom and dad have a baby?

They have a baby in order to love the baby.

Now you may have had a oppie or whatever, but we’re talking God’s economy.

We have a baby because we want to love the baby.

The way I read the scripture, it really is that simple.

God’s plan from the beginning was to have a multitude of babies to love.

Listen to God from Exodus - a book that was written 1,400 years or more before Jesus’ birth.

Exodus 19:5–6 ESV

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

God’s plan from creation was to create a people who are truly His - that are devoted to Him and Him to them.

But like every kid alive, we rebelled against our Father.

We ran away and, what did we do?

We disregarded Him.

But what did the Father do?

Now listen closely - “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation FOR all people.”

Not TO all people.

FOR all people.

It’s yours if you want it - but you have to receive it - and many won’t.

Notice something else too - our salvation, our freedom from bondage, our release to be special comes from outside of us.

This is the exact opposite of what the world is teaching our children and us right now.

I am gay/straight, I am Black/White, I am rich/poor, I am pick one.

We are told, if we can discover and embrace our identity, we will be free.

But you won’t see that in the Bible because that’s now how it works.

When you find out what you are - when you stake out your identity whatever that might be - you’ll find that you are still hungry.

Because, what you are hungry for isn’t in you - it’s outside of you.

You are hungry for the “grace of God.”

And when we taste this grace of God, then we are changed.

Look what Jesus does to change us.

Now listen, He is doing this with His people right now.

Are you ready?

What are the first two words of verse 12.

Training us.

Do you hear that?

Training us.

Who is training us?

The grace of God is training us - Jesus is training us.

You, me, us, individually, corporately - us, together.

Jesus is ACTIVELY training.

Today - this minute, tomorrow, next week, from now on.

Training us.

To do what?

Five things.

He is training us to renounce.

Renounce is a good word.

We tend to think that renounce means we stop sinning - I’ll never do so and so again.

That is not what Jesus is teaching us to do.

Jesus is teaching us to deny any relationship - that’s what renounce means - it means to deny any relationship with something.

In this case, the something is lawlessness - Jesus is teaching us to deny any relationship with lawlessness.

Do you remember lawlessness from a moment ago?

Lawlessness is the complete disregard for God’s law.

Listen, Jesus isn’t changing us from a rule breaker to a rule keeper.

Jesus is training us to be aware that there is a way that God designed life to be lived.

And God’s design will give us the most content life we can have and bring the most glory to God.

And as we become aware of that, we begin to want that.

Jesus is training us to deny any relationship with anything that completely disregards God.

That includes renouncing - denying any relationship with - worldly passions.

Mention passion and our minds immediately run to sex - that’s wrong here.

Passions are simply those things that we desire greatly.

So let’s try to make this simple, Jesus is training us to see that God has designed a most satisfying way for us to live and He is training us to desire that way to live.

Stated in the negative, He is training us to deny any relationship to anything that disregards God and He is training us to deny any relationship with anything that would draw us away from God.

He is training.

He is opening our eyes and causing us to desire a life that is so superior to anything we can dream up.

He is training us to live a self controlled life.

A life of moderation - a life that is sensible - that doesn’t run to the extremes.

He is training us to live a just life.

Listen, every one of us is called to be an activist.

If we see injustice, we should say something.

Just because it doesn’t affect us, doesn’t mean it won’t affect us.

Every human being from conception until natural death is a being created in the image of God and deserves to be treated, by virtue of their creator, with dignity and justice.

We can’t stand idly by.

We can’t say we don’t like politics or that’s none of our business.

Jesus is training us to live a just life.

And Jesus is training us to live a Godly life.

It’s the opposite of lawless - instead of having a disregard of God, now we learning to have a total regard for God.

To see Him everywhere, in every thing.

Titus 2:13 ESV

waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

The blessed hope is the second coming.

We are to live with a very real expectation of that Jesus will come in our lifetime.

Because He will.

Maybe not book of Revelation return.

But one day, if Jesus doesn’t make His grand appearing, an angel of His will take my by my hand and lead me to Jesus.

You can count on that.

Our job until then, is to anticipate His appearing and to remain true to our calling.

One final thing.

Titus 2:15 ESV

Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

Let no one disregard you.

Some of you are going to have a relative challenge you over the holidays.

Try hard to remember this with me, ok?

When they jump at you, don’t get defensive and start trying to explain why you believe what you beleive.

You’ll fail - I guarantee it.

Simply ask them, “What do you believe,” and follow up with, “Why do you believe it?”

You don’t have to prove anything to them.

Let them do the proving for you.

And let them see that you do love them - no matter how different you are.

Don’t try to change them - it’s not your job.

Who does the training?

That’s Jesus’ job, right?

Jesus’ coming changed the course of everyone’s life forever..

We simply have not been raised to believe that our corporate trainer is Jesus.

We are raised to do it ourselves.

Make a plan and work the plan.

Form a team - teamwork makes the dream work.

We can do this.

But we forget - or maybe we never understood.

Part of the goodness of God isn’t that He just saved us and nothing more.

No, Jesus took us to raise.

He saved us to train us so our lives now and our lives to come can be unimaginably satisfying.

In another letter, Paul wrote this:

Ephesians 3:20–21 ESV

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Jesus can do far more abundantly than we are asking or even thinking He could do.

As good as Jesus has been to us, I’m beginning to wonder just what more He wants to do with us?

Maybe - we ain’t seen nothing yet.

It sounds that way to me.