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Welcome to the Hope Community Church! Hope is a multi-site church community with locations around the Triangle in Raleigh, Apex, Northwest Cary, Garner, and Fuquay-Varina. We are here to love you where you are and encourage you to grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ! We strive to speak the truth of the Bible in a way that is easy to understand, helpful in your current life circumstances, and encouraging. No matter who you are or where you come from, you are welcome here!
Hey, we're gonna go ahead and get rolling into things.
Uh, so if you have your Bible, go ahead
and open up to the book of Titus.
Uh, we are gonna continue in this series that we've been in
for the past, uh, few weeks,
really since the summer got here called Field Notes.
Um, if you are looking through your Bible,
Titus man, it's a tiny little thing.
It's really easy to lose it.
So I'm gonna give you a little bit of a pro tip here.
Uh, it's in the New Testament,
so it's easier to find it from the back.
So start from Revelation
and kind of start flipping your way through.
Here's like a little like Bible veteran trick for you, okay?
Uh, Paul has all of his letters, um,
and then there's a bunch
of 'em that start with the letter T.
So there's first and second Thessalonians, first
and second Timothy Titus.
It's in the middle of all the, the T books.
So go ahead and start flipping around for that.
Uh, and if you still need more time,
let me stall a little bit more by catching everybody up
to speed if you haven't been following along with us so far.
So we've been walking through the book of Titus slowly verse
by verse, uh, intentionally to see what's going on here.
Um, this is a letter written by a man named Paul, who
after an encounter with Jesus was sent out into the world
to go and, uh, spread the gospel, he's, uh,
sent out on a mission to spread the gospel to the people
who didn't know that these rules now apply to them to go
to the Gentiles, the people who were considered outsiders
for so long, who said, yeah, even you,
the gospel is good news for you as well.
And so he goes all around the Mediterranean region,
he's setting up these different Jesus communities.
And, uh, upon visiting a place called Crete, he says, Hey,
this place is gonna need a little bit of work.
So what he does is, uh,
he leaves a young man named Titus there,
and he says, Titus, listen, I see some pitfalls.
I see some potential red flags in this Jesus community.
Which honestly, I think the easiest way
to describe it is they're saying they're Christians,
but their behavior doesn't really line up.
They're claiming that they're followers of Jesus,
but I'm seeing all this stuff, man,
that if they keep taking this path,
they're not gonna end up in a good place.
So he says, Titus, I want you to go to Crete.
I want you to spend some time there
and I want you to bring some order
to the church that's there.
And so, over the past couple of weeks,
we've been looking at all the instructions that Paul gives
to Titus and all of those instructions, uh,
some 30 some odd rules and decrees.
Um, lead us to what we're gonna look at today.
So it says Titus chapter two, verses 11 through 15.
I'm gonna go ahead and read the entire chunk.
I am in the ESV translation if you wanna follow
along, but let's go for it.
It says, 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.
That was all one sentence.
I dunno if you noticed, there weren't any
periods in there the entire time.
And that's because the ESV takes Paul's original Greek
and it tries to, um, include the same way
that the language compounds on each other.
So there's a lot of things that Paul talks about here.
They're all connected,
and we're gonna see that in a minute
as we continue to walk through this.
And he closes out this little chunk with verse 15
where he says, declare these things exhort
and rebuke with all authority.
Let no one disregard you. Let me pray for us.
Father, thank you for your word.
Um, this is such a rich piece of content
that we're gonna be going through today.
Um, and so, Lord, I just pray that you, uh,
that your word would resonate with us.
My prayer is that we would, uh, glean upon this passage
of text and that it would transform us,
that you would open our eyes to, to the goodness
of your grace and of your love today.
Um, and Lord, I pray
that we would just find encouragement here.
We love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Um, ministry is not
a lucrative career path, especially when you're part-time.
So when I first got started in ministry right outta high
school, uh, the church, that was my home church, you know,
they, they took me on as a, in a part-time role, uh,
to help out with the middle school ministry there.
And so I did that, but I couldn't really make ends meet
with just that part-time church job.
So, uh, I got a job also serving
tables at the Cheesecake Factory.
It was great. Lemme just go ahead and throw that out there.
Uh, I've been outta the food service industry for a while.
Um, but if I'm honest, like you can even ask my wife about
this, there's still times where I kind of miss it.
Um, and the reason why I kind of miss it is
because I genuinely enjoyed like being in the trenches
with my, my coworkers,
the other servers, the other bartenders.
You know, like there was something about like, man,
you felt like you were going to war
during like the dinner rush.
You know what I mean? And so, uh,
if you've never been a part of the food service industry
before, let me explain to
you a little bit of what it's like.
Okay, you're working, you're doing your thing,
and then somebody, let's just say you, for example, comes in
and you sit down at a table
and you find what you want on the menu.
And then you start saying, Hey, I want this,
but I wanna change this.
I wanna change this. I wanna add that.
I wanna take this out. And as a server who's worked there
for a long time, gonna say, Hey, listen, I,
I know you wanna do all that stuff,
but I don't really recommend it.
Like, uh, people have done that
before and they don't really like it.
And you just say, Hey, listen, I know what I want.
Can you just gimme that? Okay,
we put it in, we go back to the kitchen.
Hey, just so you know, I know I rang it in this way,
but they wanted some
modifications, some tweaks and all this sort of stuff.
And they're like, all right, we'll do it. And then we bring
it back out to the table, put it in front of you,
you take a bite of it and say, I don't like that.
And then you send it back. So we go back
and we spend the next 30 minutes talking
to some line cook saying, Hey,
can you please fix this order for us?
I know you got a long list of
tickets, but we need to fix this.
These people are waiting on food.
We finally get the fixed order.
We bring it back out, we set it on your table,
then you don't tip, repeat that like 30 or 40 times.
And then when the shift is over, all of the workers
as the food service industry go to a bar
and we talk about you.
And we exchange stories about can you believe this crazy
woman at table 47 or this obnoxious guy at table 53?
And we share those things. And if I'm
honest, I kind of miss it.
I kind of miss it, not just
because of how therapeutic that time was at times, but also
because it was an opportunity for me
to share the gospel with people.
Like honestly, somebody comes out
and they're, they're beat down, they're worn out,
and they're like, man, I just had the worst day of my life.
And then that kind of rolls into me
and I just had the worst week of my life.
And they would open up about things
and I would use that as an opportunity
to talk to people about Jesus.
And so we would sit down at these places
and I wouldn't judge, I would just listen
and I would pay especially close attention.
And there was one guy who I worked with who, uh,
I'm gonna need your, your help for this.
I don't want to use his real name.
So can somebody just shout out like a random male name?
Steve. Steve, all right. He knows the Steve.
Uh, I would sit down with Steve
and Steve would start talking
and uh, he would just tell me about the latest shenanigans.
He would tell me about the last week of his life
and how he's dug himself into some
sort of hole or something like that.
And I'd be like, man, you know, I,
I really think you ought to try Jesus out.
You should try to find a church. If you
wanna come to church with me, you can.
He goes, no, no, thank you.
Uh, but he was a really smart guy.
He was really philosophical guy, a deep thinker.
Um, but he kind of had this like, he was one of those people
that would describe himself as,
uh, spiritual but not religious.
So he kind of had this like mosaic
where he had taken decent things from all these different
religions and pieced them together.
And that's kind of how he tried to shape his worldview.
But as I continued to listen to Steve over the weeks
and months and years that we worked together,
I started catching on to something
specifically when he would talk about the
advice he gets from his mom.
He would tell me about some who he dug himself into,
and then he would say something like, he goes, man,
you know, you know, I, I I've just tried
to stop making promises.
I just wanna be a man of my word.
It's like my mom always used to tell me, she said, you need
to be the type of man that lets your yes be
yes and your no be no.
And I go, man, Steve, I think
that's a great piece of advice.
And then another week we
go by and he starts sharing something.
He says, man, you know, I, I just wanna be all in.
You know, it's like my mom always says, she says,
you should be the type of person that's either hot or cold,
but you shouldn't be lukewarm.
I was like, man, that sounds really familiar.
There was another time he says, man,
I just wanna treat people better than they treat me.
You know, it's like my mom says, like,
if somebody slaps me on the cheek, you know what she says?
She says, I should turn the other cheek.
She says that if somebody asks me to go
with them a mile, I should go with them too.
And then one day I just go, Steve, is your mom a Christian?
And he goes, yeah, how'd you know?
I'm like, dude, your mom's been stealing all
of Jesus's best content your entire
life and feeding it to you.
And he was mind blown. He genuinely had no idea.
And it was so funny to me
because he would apply these things
and he would actually reap some
of the positive benefits from them,
but he wanted nothing to do with Jesus.
And so I kind of sat back
and I watched his life from a distance
and I just thought, man, he's applying this stuff,
but why is his life not changing?
And I realized over time it's
because, uh, Steve was doing a
real, I'm gonna use his real name.
Steve was doing a really good job of taking the rules
of the Bible and applying to them li his life without
the relationship with Jesus.
What Steve was doing was he's saying, Hey, listen,
I would love to live a life that kind of looks like Jesus,
but I don't want Jesus to be the
one to teach me how to live.
And what I learned was is that someone can follow the rules
of the Bible, they can follow the rules of Christianity
and actually reap the positive benefits of some of
that stuff, but still not have a deep level of heart change.
And what I realized was, is that rules
without relationship will almost always lead to rebellion.
Because for him it was all about,
well, let me just try the rules.
Well, the moment it feels like the rules aren't good enough,
well then he's just gonna try something else.
Right? Now, there's actually a term for this.
The reason why he was able to apply some of this stuff
and actually reap some of the benefits for from this,
it's called common grace.
Can you say that with me? Say common grace, common grace.
Common grace is just the goodness of God
that pours out to all people.
It's the reason why right now you can go on YouTube
and find, uh, someone
who has an entire YouTube channel dedicated to talking about
how much they hate God and how God's not real, uh,
and how religion is the worst thing that's ever happened.
But common grace is God saying, yeah,
I'm still gonna give you breath in your lungs
to wake up and see another day.
Common grace is the reason why both the just
and the unjust can experience any sort
of good in this world is because God is so good
and he's so loving that even for rebellious children,
he still pours out his love on all of us.
It's a common grace that applies to everybody.
And it's this grace, this goodness of God, this,
this unearned goodness of God that Paul arrives
to When we get to Titus chapter two, verses 11 through 15
that we looked at, and this is the reason why I believe
that this chunk of text is essential
to understanding the rest of the letter.
Because if you're not careful, you'll read the rest
of Titus thinking, man, there's a whole lot of do, do, do.
But what's happening is,
is Paul is more than likely assuming, Hey,
I know this guy Titus.
I know that he knows the gospel.
I know that he knows the truth about Jesus.
So there's actually probably some assumed
knowledge about Titus.
So when he is, gives him all of these instructions
and gives him all of these commands,
he knows there's a deep, rich theology about the goodness
of God and the grace of Jesus that informs this.
But because Paul has been so, uh, deeply enveloped
by the goodness of God, he can't help
but for the gospel to spill out again.
So after giving these 30 some odd commands,
he starts off this portion of text with this line.
He says, for the grace of God has appeared.
Who's he talking about? He's talking about Jesus.
Jesus is the grace of God who has now appeared to all of us.
And this is so important to recognize.
And I think this is the thing that Steve was missing
because just like Steve,
before Jesus arrived on the scene, the world was just full
of people trying their best and failing
before Jesus arrived on the scene.
We have people who thought they were doing a pretty decent
good job, excuse me, until they receive the law.
In the Old Testament, the Israelites, God's chosen people,
they are given, uh, what we know today as the Mosaic law.
And this is all the really weird stuff
that you read in the Old Testament, right?
These are all the laws about what to wear
and uh, what to eat when and when not to work,
and, uh, don't mix these types of fabrics
and don't eat this sort of food.
All those sort of things, right? The things
that maybe you've seen before and you're getting a little
confused by, uh, there's 613 of these commands
that are found in the mosaic law,
and uh, they can really be broken up
into three categories, okay?
There's the judicial law, there's a ceremonial law,
and they're the moral law.
And boy was this a lot to keep up with, 613
of these different laws.
And I just wanna be clear, like we,
thankfully we don't live in a world where
that's like the amount of pressure
and weight that we feel on us,
but like, even on our best day,
like everybody in here is like,
we've all probably done something to break our law.
Like even if it's just speeding, you've broken the law.
There's actually a professor, um, at Rutgers University
who wrote an article that estimates that 70%
of American adults have committed a crime that could lead
to imprisonment, 70%.
Now, this feels a little bit extreme.
Like for example, the example that he gave is,
let's say you go to the doctor
and they prescribe you antibiotics.
And so you go to the pharmacy, you get your antibiotics,
you come home, you put 'em on the kitchen table,
you go get in bed and you're sick.
And so one day you go, honey,
can you go grab the antibiotics off the
table and bring them over to me?
And she says, yeah, surely.
So she walks in, she hands you, well, she could be in prison
for dispensing a controlled substance without a
license like legally.
Now, because we don't hold to the letter of the law
that clearly she's fine,
but if she wanted to, here's the, here's the point.
We all have claimed to be guilty
despite if we think it's a big deal
or just something small, there's something we have all done
that could make us guilty.
And so maybe you've read those 613 laws in the Old
Testament, you think, well, why don't we do that s anymore?
Or how come it feels like we only pay attention
to the 10 Commandments and we ignore the other 603?
Well, there's a reason for this.
It's because a portion of the laws,
they're called the judicial laws, right?
And these were governing, governing rules specifically
for the Israelites in that period of history.
So these were rules that God gave to them specifically
for their nation, specifically for their time
and their moment in history.
Uh, then there are the moral laws.
This is where the 10 Commandments falls into play.
And the reason why we still listen to the moral law is
because this is God's eternal code.
Don't lie, don't steal, don't cheat, right?
These are things that stand for all of time.
But then the third category is the ceremonial law.
These are the sacrifices. These are the purification laws.
These are the steps you have to go through,
the work you have to do in order to be made right with God
and see, you say, well, why
don't we do those things anymore?
Now, this is where doctrine is important,
because a bad doctrine would say, well,
we just threw all that stuff out.
That's not true. Good doctrine says all
of those rules still applied,
but Jesus has covered all of them.
So we don't need to do anything
to make ourselves ceremonial, cl ceremonially clean anymore.
We don't have to do the things to make our, uh, to,
we don't have to make any sacrifices
because Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice.
He has done what we couldn't do on our own.
We looked at the law and said, man, I don't stand a chance.
And so Jesus steps in
and he says, Hey, listen, I'm the only one
that can perfectly meet all of these demands.
So as you've been trying your best,
as you have been getting up and stumbling and falling
and realizing that you're not good enough, guess what?
You don't have to be because I am.
And so now we are righteous, not because of what we do, but
because of what Jesus has done for us.
So now, when Paul tells us that we are
to put on righteousness, the reason why you can do
that is not because you have a righteousness of your own.
It's because you have Jesus's righteousness
that is clothed on you.
And that is what people were waiting for for so long,
to which Paul writes, now the grace of God has appeared.
The grace of God has appeared after all of the waiting
because of Jesus.
We received the grace of God that we didn't deserve
as we are clothed in his righteousness,
and we don't have to do the heavy lifting.
He does that, and he's continuing to do that in our lives
as we commit to him
because of the grace of God, there's a way
to put on righteousness now
that we were never capable of before.
Now, yes, our behaviors and our attitudes do need to change,
but they don't change because we try harder.
They change because we try something different.
I've been doing the same thing my entire life
and I keep seeming to blow it.
Well then try something different.
Allow the Holy Spirit to infiltrate your heart
and to begin a work inside of you.
Yes, Titus, I want the pupil of Crete to live good lives,
of good works, but not
by white knuckling and gritting their teeth.
But because God's grace is our motivation for good works
and obedience, when we see the sacrifice of Jesus,
when we see the surrender that he made for us, our humble,
reasonable heart posture is yes, Lord, yeah,
I'll adhere to all the rules
and the law that you have given me because I trust you
and you gave yourself for me to be righteous.
And the beauty of this gift is that as, as verse 11 goes on
to say, is that this gift brought salvation to all people.
Now, I do wanna take a little bit of a sidebar here,
and I want to make a, a, a clarifying statement
that this doesn't mean that all people are saved,
but it does mean that salvation is made
available to everyone.
Um, we're talking about sound doctrine,
and there is a false doctrine that's circulating around,
and Jason even mentioned it a few weeks ago.
It's called Universalism.
And it's this idea that, uh,
because Jesus died on the cross.
Well, everybody gets to go to heaven.
And I, I, the reason why I call that out
as false is not just because I think so,
but it's, it's really hard
to read the Bible and come to that conclusion.
If you don't believe me. Just read Matthew
and just read the words of Jesus alone
through the first few chapters to realize, man,
there actually is an eternal punishment
and an eternal separation from God for those
who don't put their faith in him.
And so you're like, man, well, if the Bible says that,
how do people reach this conclusion?
How do they think that everybody just gets in?
Well, it's because they take verses
like this one out of context.
I mean, it says that he's bringing salvation for
all people, right?
I mean, unfortunately, many people will try to use the love
of God as an argument against the warnings that Jesus gave.
They'll say things like, well,
a loving God wouldn't actually send somebody to hell,
would he like, come on, man.
We're we're talking about grace, of grace
of God has a period if, like, if, if God was really full
of grace, wouldn't everybody be allowed in?
And recently I heard an interview, um, with an apologist,
his name is Wes Huff, who, uh, he was on a recent podcast.
And he, he shared this that I,
I thought was just so powerful.
He said that if somebody spent their entire life rejecting
God, it wouldn't be loving for that God to then force them
to spend eternity with 'em.
Like imagine some guy was hitting on you
and you said no for like years,
and then you end up in a retirement home and you
and that guy, a roommate, you'd be like,
this is the worst thing that could have possibly happen.
I'm gonna end like this. God wouldn't do that.
I've also heard people use the argument,
but yeah, like hell just seems so extreme.
Like, doesn't that feel like too harsh?
Or like, does the, does the punishment really fit the crime?
And again, I think this is something
we need to flip on its head.
Like, we think that we're too good to deserve hell,
but we don't realize that we're way too
bad to ever deserve heaven.
Like the reality is, man is like it.
Here's, here's the thing, because God wins as bad as hell,
is the the actual worst thing that any
of us can experience to that same degree.
And even beyond that, heaven is so much better.
And the fact that God would allow any of us to experience
that man, that's his grace.
The fact that none of us deserve it, the Bible tells us
that all of us have fallen short of the glory of God,
of God, despite that He still says, man, listen,
I'm going to let you in.
All you have to do is believe and put your faith in me.
We're all guilty, not 70% of us, all of us.
That is an immense level of grace that is
beyond our comprehension.
And what Paul's life mission was, was to let everybody know,
Hey, listen, all these people who were far way off,
they weren't, they weren't born into the line of Abraham.
They don't have any, uh, uh, genealogical reasons
to be grafted into this family.
Instead, God did it anyway.
And that's called his saving grace. Say that with me.
Say, saving grace. It's the grace
that saving us from ourselves.
It's the grace that saves us from
the punishment that we deserve.
It's the moment that we put our faith in him. He saves us.
Now, we've been using this word grace a lot.
And uh, as we move forward, I do think this is important
to know that grace is God giving us his help, his love
and his power, even though we don't deserve it.
His love, his help and his power.
And I think that's important, an important distinction
to make, uh, because so many times we all minimize grace
to merely forgiveness.
I love the way that John Piper puts this.
He writes, grace is not simply leniency when we send,
grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin.
Grace is the power, not just the pardon.
I love that Grace doesn't just say, I forgive you.
It says, I forgive you. And now let me help you.
It's not just the gift that saves us, it's the gift
that trains us.
It is a training grace, say, training grace, training grace.
God's grace doesn't just save us, it trains us.
That's where verse 12 goes.
It says that it is training us
to renounce ungodliness in worldly possessions.
How many of you know that saying yes
to following Jesus doesn't make living
out righteousness easy?
Like just because you said yes to following Jesus,
it doesn't make everything automatically easy, right?
We still wake up with old desires and old habits
and sin that gnaws away at us, things that we struggle with
and cravings that we want to kill,
but it feels like we can't on our own here.
This is the training grace of God
that even when those things start to creep back in,
he doesn't leave us on our own devices
to try to figure it out.
Again. This is training grace.
Now, I want to ask you, how many of you
have ever shared the gospel with someone
and talked to them about the training grace of God?
Not very many of us, if any of us, like
that's not language that we use.
Very common, right?
But it is an essential part of
what it means to follow Jesus.
It's like trying to bake a cake without an oven to take away
training grace from this process.
I just want you to think about this for just a second.
Like, it takes humility
and brokenness to be able to go to God
and say, God, I can't figure life out on my own.
I need you to save me.
But what we do is, is we take that saving grace
and then we live our lives as if, okay,
I think I could figure it out from here.
Like it was all terrible my entire life.
I had this encounter with God, my life has changed.
And then, okay, I think I, I think that's fixed.
Now lemme ask you, how many of you have a gym membership?
Okay, how many of you have a gym membership
for a gym that you do not go to?
I like our hands went up that time.
Like, actually, wait, I do have a gym membership.
I forgot about it. I think sometimes we think about our
salvation, kinda like that gym membership.
Like if you, if the goal of the membership was just
to get you into the door, well, you could do that.
But the purpose of having the membership is to be trained
to become a healthy person.
And the same way some of us have our salvation
and we have it like that card of like, oh,
this'll get me into heaven, but I
don't need the training grace.
I don't need that to do anything for me.
I don't need that to, to change or,
or transform my life at all.
I'm think about this. Imagine you go to the doctor
for your annual physical and they ask you
that question like, Hey, do you,
how do you, how often do you work out?
And you're like, I, I think I went in the nineties.
Yeah, but I'm healthy. I'm I'm a gym rat.
You know what I mean? Like, I, I get it done.
Like no one in their right mind would call that person
a healthy gym rat.
But in our spiritual lives, we think it's completely okay
to be like, yeah, I said a prayer in the nineties.
I don't really let Jesus work on me like day
to day, but I I did it once.
So I'm, I'm a healthy Christian. Listen to me.
The beauty of the grace of God is
that it's not a one time thing that you receive
and then you move on from and leave it in the back burner.
The beauty of the grace of God is that it's a grace
that walks with you.
It is a grace that met you on your worst day
and continues to walk with you towards eternity.
It is a grace that saves you and trains you.
It is a grace that allows you to wake up
every single day on a daily basis
and repeat that same hard posture that says, God,
I surrender and I want you to transform me.
I need your training grace, it trains us
to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions
and to live self-controlled, upright,
and godly lives in this present age.
So we have this coin on one side is saving grace.
On the other side is training grace.
And back on the other side, we have sustaining grace.
I realize the coin analogy doesn't really work that well,
but the, the grace of God is just that full.
It's the gift that keeps on giving.
There is a sustaining grace.
And why do we need this sustaining grace?
Because we are, as the next verse, puts it, waiting
for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory
of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
Why do we need sustaining grace?
Because of that first word in that verse. We're waiting.
Does that sound familiar?
What Paul has done is he has given us this,
this grace filled sandwich that says,
this whole thing started with the people waiting for God
to come, waiting for Jesus to arrive, waiting
to impart his righteousness dis on us waiting for salvation.
And now we are waiting again for the day
where he will come back and make everything right.
Now here's the problem. We find ourselves in that in between
and we're like, man, I don't,
I don't know if I'm gonna make it.
Well, guess what? The same grace that saved you
and the same grace that trains you is the same grace
that will sustain you.
It's the same thing that will encourage you
and tell you to keep up going.
And we wait with this, this sustaining grace for the day
of Jesus's second arrival.
I, I have a, a tattoo. It's on my shoulder.
It'd be weird for me to show it to you now.
Uh, so we made a little bit of a mockup
of it that you can see here.
Uh, and me
and some friends, we have this, it's a matching tattoo.
And uh, the idea behind the tattoo is that it's the gospel.
Um, and so one day I was at the, the lake with a couple
of our pastors and Gary Vett was there, and I saw him.
He was just kind of staring. Gary does this thing when
he's like processing something.
He's such a concrete thinker that he'll look at you
and kind of tilt his head like a dog, you know?
He's like, I'm processing.
And uh, anybody who knows Gary knows that that's true, but,
but he's looking at this and,
and he goes, uh, he's, I think I'm, I'm tracking with you,
but, but what does your tattoo mean?
And I go, oh, it means Jesus came
down, he died on the cross.
He rose from the grave, he ascended.
And he goes, yeah, but what about that last era?
I said, oh, it means that he's coming back.
And he says, I'm so glad that you have
that last part on there
because so many people forget
that the gospel includes Jesus coming back.
We remember that the gospel means that Jesus came,
but man, the gospel is, it's, it's this full
holistic picture that there's another grace waiting for us.
And that is God's grace of completion.
That one day, his grace,
the way it has been poured out on us,
will be continually poured out on us where I,
where his strength is made fully perfect in our weakness.
And that sustaining grace, man, it,
it's not this pat on the back,
you can do it sort of keep going.
It's this footprint in the sand.
I'll carry you when you can't walk.
I'll pick you up, turn you around,
place your feet on solid ground
because we're going somewhere.
We're going to the day in the place when you will
be made whole.
And this is a grace that we receive from God directly.
But man, we also receive it through community.
We receive this grace through our
community and through our church family.
When we remind one another of the goodness of God.
I I had this moment earlier this week.
I was, um, I was driving in my car
and dude, I just had, I don't know any other,
I know this is gonna sound alarming,
but I don't know any other way to put it.
I had this like existential dread of like,
I want Jesus to come back now.
Not in like a righteous your kingdom,
come on earth, da da in heaven sort of way.
It was like, bruh, I'm just tired.
Like I don't wanna deal with this stuff anymore.
We've got wars and rumors of wars.
We've got, dude, I saw a video the other day about
how people are using AI chatbots like chat GPT,
and like they've turned it into a religion.
Like they genuinely think they're talking to God.
I got an email the other day
that my Netflix subscription is gonna go up again.
And I'm like, well, I want to cancel it,
but then I lose all the movies I've been paying
for for the last 20 years.
I don't really own anything.
I'm raising my daughter in this world thinking, man,
everything's just a rip off.
Like, what's the point? Jesus,
can you come back and save me from Netflix?
Like that was genuinely where I was coming from.
And I texted this to my wife
and she said, this is the reason why now more than ever,
your calling and the call of all Christians is so important.
And she sent me that text message
and I went, Ugh, I don't wanna hear
that right now, but I needed to hear that right now.
I needed my wife in that moment to gospel as me.
You know what that means? It means it is
what we should all do to gospel
as others in the world around you.
And even the parts of our own heart means
that we live a life that is consistently looking
for darkness and say, how do we bring light to that
and declare the same way that Paul did?
The grace of God has appeared even right there.
I need to allow the gospel to touch the deepest,
darkest resets of my heart.
Listen, as we grow in our gospel,
understanding it will impact the way that we behave
as we begin to understand the depravity
and the mess that we're in, that we're hopeless
and helpless in our sin, and that we can't rescue
and save ourselves.
That God and his great kindness and his love
and his tremendous mercy sent his son on a rescue mission
to bring us back and set us free.
Does that sound familiar?
That quote that I just read is from
Clay's message last week.
Anybody remember it?
This is why we need to remind each other,
because seven days ago you just heard the truth
and the beauty of the gospel,
and already you're like, oh, man, that's,
I wish I would've known that sooner.
It happens to all of us. We're all prone to forget.
So we are to be a people who remember
and remind one another
that grace has come and it's coming again.
That's what a family looks like.
Sin tries to creep in almost every second that I'm awake.
And man, I, I need the gospel even more than ever.
Like I love that we do this, but between now
and next week, I need the gospel like 8,000 more times
just to make it through a Tuesday.
And so Paul, he, he closes out the letter with, with this,
this gospel reminder for all of us to remember
that Jesus Christ who gave himself for us
to redeem us from all lawlessness
and to purify for himself a people for his own possessions
who are zealous for good works.
And I want to just, I wanna kind of give you this diagram to
to, to kind of make this this verse bite sized,
because I think in this one verse,
Paul is actually summarizing what it is that he wants
to articulate to everybody.
It is, it's this God gave.
So we are redeemed from sin
now we are purified, we have become his own possession,
and now we do zealous good works.
And you know what's so important
about this particular order?
So many of us try to do the zealous good works,
but we forget that the only way we get there, the first step
to reach, to be the type of people who behave right, is
to start by understanding
that this whole process began when God gave.
The only way that we can do zealous good works is to
remember that all of this started out
of God's generosity he gave,
and his multifaceted grace has been poured out on all of us,
and it refracts in every direction like light
reflecting off of a diamond.
That's how rich his grace is.
Titus two 15, this last spot here, Titus gives,
I'm sorry, Paul gives Titus one final charge.
He says, declare these things,
declare these things like make these things known exhort
and rebuke with all authority.
And don't let anyone disregard you.
Titus the same message that I'm pouring into you.
I want you to pour it into everyone else.
I want you to go around and gospel as the people of creed
everywhere that you see darkness bring the grace
and the goodness of God to that place.
And so as we come to a close, I just wanna put this list up.
We've talked about, um, the grace of God.
We've talked about the different ways that we see this.
Grace lived out through common grace, God's goodness
to all people, his saving grace, the coming
of Christ in our accepting of the gospel, his
training grace, the lifelong gospel transformation,
the sustaining grace, the the hope filled anticipation
of Jesus' return, and then that grace of completion,
or as some people call it his finishing grace,
the day when all of this will be made whole.
Now, I put this up for two reasons.
One, because some of you're
a note takers and you couldn't keep up.
So this is my gift to you except that gift of grace.
But man, I I also wanna put that up
because this is available to everyone.
It's an invitation that's extended to everyone.
And maybe you've never experienced this
grace before for yourself.
Maybe you've, you've stopped somewhere along the way.
Maybe you're not a believer
and you didn't even realize that the breath in your lungs
is the common grace of God.
Maybe, uh, you are a believer
and you've accepted the saving grace,
but you just prayed that prayer one time
and there hasn't really been any life change.
Maybe maybe you are allowing God to work in you
with his training grace,
but you're like, man, I don't know
how much longer I can do this.
Well to you, he pours out his sustaining grace.
And then maybe you, you feel that sustaining grace
and you're like, yeah, but I'm still looking forward
with anticipation to the day when all will be made whole.
Listen, no matter where you are in this list,
there's more grace for you.
There's More grace to be received.
And so as we close, I just
want everybody to close their eyes.
And I just wanna pray, um,
that maybe for the first time you can feel the grace
of God wash over you.
Listen, whether you're here in the room or
or if you're watching online, there's grace for you.
And it's overflowing, it's abundant,
it's multifaceted.
There's no end to it.
It's unearned. It's the love
of a father and it's available.
So here's what I want you to do.
If you're in the room and you have never said yes
to following Jesus, maybe you're,
you're like my friend Steve.
You've been trying to apply all the good, the rules
of being a good person through your life,
but you haven't seen any real life change.
You haven't really felt the warmth of the father's love.
If that's you and you want to, uh, just say, Hey, God,
I'm open to receiving your grace.
I just want you to raise your hand.
And if you're watching online and you say, Hey, that's me,
and I wish I was there in the room right now,
but for whatever reason God brought me to this live stream,
I just want you to go ahead and drop it in the chat.
Let somebody know, man, I want to receive the grace of God.
Lemme pray for you. Father, thank you for giving us
what we don't deserve and what we can never earn on our own.
Lord, thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your grace.
And God, I pray that that grace
that we receive in this moment of saying
that we put our faith in the finished work of Jesus, God,
I pray that that grace, we would experience it in every
aspect of our lives,
that your grace would touch the darkest part of our hearts
and of our lives and of this world
and just pour out freely so
that we are reminded that we are loved.
We are sons and daughters of the kings.
We are co-heirs with Christ.
We receive all the promises
that you give us in your word God,
because that is just you being you.
Help us to recognize who we are.
Lord, we thank you for the best decision
that some of these people have ever made.
And then Father, for those of us
who we have placed our faith in you,
but we just need your strength.
We've tried doing it our own and we know we can't.
Lord, fill us, fill us with your grace.
Surround us with people that we need to remind us
and point us to, uh, remembering what it is that you've done
for us, that you are so good.
God, in those moments, when we are struggling at the darkest
depth, pull us back to Titus two 11 through 15
and remind us of the grace that has finally appeared
and point us forward to the grace that we're all waiting on.
Lord, we love you. Thank you for your grace
in your Son Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
So God's grace is truly amazing
and we thank you for that, Jesus.
Um, I will tell you if you have made a decision
to follow Jesus today,
or if you said, I, I need that grace, come and let us know.
Come and talk to us. Tell a friend as well.
We think it's important that you do that together.
We people, and we'd love to help walk alongside you
so you can come out to our next steps area If we're
online, indicate that there.
And we would love to come alongside
of you in your next steps.
Uh, I I just wanna say, man, what an awesome message.
It was great to hear this.
It was great to to experience this all with you.
Next week, we are not going to have this experience together
because it's the 4th of July weekend coming up.
And every year at hope we take off the 4th of July weekend
because we go on a, instead of like church happening here,
we want it to happen where you are.
So we want you to go
and be the church where you are next weekend.
So next Thursday night, the third, also on Sunday the sixth.
We will not have any services at all.
We won't have online go and be the church.
We want you to connect with neighbors.
That would be a very important thing to do.
So go and be a missionary where you are.
And speaking of that, uh, we actually have missionaries
who are going out this coming Sunday, July 6th.
And they're going to be some of us going to far away places.
There's a group going to Nicaragua
that's 25 people going to Nicaragua.
That's a big team. You can pray
for our sleeping arrangements.
Uh, and then on top of that, we've got 25 people going
to Lighthouse, which is the Emerald Isle.
A wonderful ministry, a family friendly ministry.
Uh, and so we're excited about that
and I thought it would be good if we prayed for those folks
who are going and we pray for
what God's gonna do this weekend
as you be the church where you are.
So let me pray for that. God, thank you
so much for your love.
Uh, we pray now that you're paving the way for saving grace
for people who are going hear the gospel, for people
who are going to experience that.
Because missionaries are going
and they're going to to share the good news
with their actions and with their words.
And we pray for that time. We pray you keep them safe.
We pray that uh, you help them bond together.
Uh, but we help we pray
that you would help them see you in all of it
and see the work that you're doing around the world.
So we pray for those trips. We pray also for the triangle.
We pray for, for wherever people are going
to be on July 4th weekend, that we might be a light,
that we might be able to share some
of the grace that we have.
And uh, just as Aaron was sharing earlier, that
as we encounter people who see you differently, God,
that we might give them a right doctrine, a right theology,
a right way to see you in light
of the grace that we've heard about today.
So use us and help us God to do that.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Well, before you go, I got one more thing to say.
So, man, God has been on the move in big ways at Hope
and we've seen a hundred over a hundred baptisms already
this year at Hope Community Church, which is unbelievable.
This is far more than we usually see.
We know God is on the moon. He's doing amazing things.
We actually have a baptism happening here tonight,
and that's gonna be happening right outside.
As you go out into your left, I'm gonna invite you
to do this Garner style.
And what that means is,
and Garner, what we do is everybody,
everybody goes out there
and everybody enjoys that time together
as we celebrate new life
and people being surrounded by the church
that they're stepping into.
And so we encourage you to go out right after the service.
Let's all of us go and let's celebrate new life together.
Can we do that? Yes. Okay. You got the time. I promise.
Not only that, we're gonna reward you
with a Popsicle 'cause it's hot out there.
All right. Love you guys. We will see you not next week.
We'll see you in two weeks. Have a great.