[0:00] So they say the secret to a good sermon is to have a great introduction and a great conclusion and to make sure those two things are as close together as possible. All right?
[0:10] That's the challenge. But Titus here has just a great introduction. That first four verses that I've already read for you is just one sentence. And it is just so full of truth.
[0:21] We've given two Sundays to it, but we could give several more. And it is personal, but it's not private. It's written from Paul the Titus, but he knows that the other people will hear it.
[0:33] The people inside of the church, the people that it speaks about around verse number 10, those that are causing problems, they will hear it as well. And that you will hear it. All the people will hear it. Sometimes maybe with your wife, you're talking about the kids and you know that they're hearing like, Dear, I don't know what we're going to do with these kids.
[0:49] If they don't pick up their clothes, we're going to have to do something. And they're overhearing it. This letter, the church there would have been overhearing it. But by God's design, we get it as well.
[1:00] And we should take heed. Paul has an obvious love for a church. A man who once persecuted the church. The one that when he did, Jesus says, in persecuting the church, you are persecuting me.
[1:10] That's how Jesus, we are the body of Christ. It's one and the same as he speaks. And then, so he goes to persecuting the church, is loving it tremendously. And in this letter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, he says some things to them that he's wanting this church to be.
[1:26] He wants this to be a church that is tidy. It's decently in order. He says, to go and set things that are in order, or set things that are wanting. There's a way in which, as a church, we should live that God has laid out for us.
[1:41] And that was really important to Paul. You shouldn't just be making this up as you go. As a church, we should be submitting ourselves to God's Word. So he wants it to be tidy. He also wants it to be healthy.
[1:52] In 1.13, he talks about maybe sound in faith. He wants the church to be things done healthy. He also wants it to be done decently in order, in a tidy way.
[2:03] But he also believes that the church is just lovely. And it's just wonderful. When we get to Titus 2, verse 10, as it speaks about a way in which we're supposed to be living out our faith one to another.
[2:15] It says, so that you may adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior, in all things. As a church, it ought to be tidy. It ought to be healthy. And it should be lovely.
[2:26] And that's the work that Titus has given himself to. As the church is here, he's helping them live out what God would have for them. I think it's the most wonderful thing in all of the world. I love the church.
[2:37] Sometimes people think, well, you love the church because you work for a church. But it happened the other way around. As I tell about one Mother's Day when I forgot to get my mom a gift, which happens occasionally. And I call my sister and I'll say, what are we going to get, Mom?
[2:49] And I'm meaning, what did you get, Mom? And can I sign my name to the card? All right? How much do I have to send you? What's the buy-in on this? And she said, well, I got my mom. We got, Mom, an apple tree. But when we were at the landscaping place, they said, you don't need them.
[3:03] If you get one apple tree, you really need two apple trees. Because they go together better. And I said, I don't know if that's true. The guy sells apple trees for a living. Of course he's going to tell you that you've got to buy them in pairs.
[3:16] And so you kind of are suspicious of it. I understand when I tell you that I just absolutely love what God does in a church. And you're like, well, of course that's what you feel. But I've felt this way since a teenager.
[3:28] It's the reason that God worked in my life and gave me a desire. And I see it in God's Word. I see it in Paul's letter to Titus that the community needs a church to live out what he has called us to be.
[3:40] We need to be healthy. We need to be lovely. We need to adorn the doctrines of God our Savior in all things. So this personal letter, it comes to Titus.
[3:50] And it would encourage somebody who is just getting thrown back and forth through the cultural problems that he's facing. On every corner, he's facing influences. And he has people that are trying to pull the church away from a proper understanding of what's going on.
[4:06] And so he says to Titus, mine own son after the common faith. Shared with you last week that Timothy came to know Christ, influenced by his mom and his grandmother.
[4:18] And so Timothy being a believer before he met Paul. But believing that Titus came to Christ through Paul's ministry. Today in here, we have someone that I did not lead to Christ, but she is our sister in Christ.
[4:32] And Lord willing, next Sunday night, you will get to see her baptized. And though I will preach to you all, today I have this new believer in mind. This sister in Christ.
[4:45] And I want us to marvel in one single word. And it's this word, grace. You heard in verse number 4, grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father. That's grace from our Savior.
[4:57] Chapter 2, verse number 11, it says, Grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared unto all men. And then verse 3-7 tells us that we are justified by his grace.
[5:08] We should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. And then grace is that the very opening of this story, or this epistle, and it's in the closing words, 3-15. It says, Grace be with you all. Amen.
[5:22] Paul was writing here to a spiritual son, Titus. Somebody that he had led to the Lord. And he just keeps ringing this note of grace over and over again.
[5:33] We sing about it. We sing about the grace of God. You get some of those songs that you knew when you were younger stuck in your head. I get this one set of lyrics stuck in my head a lot of times. It's all about saving grace, all about living love, being Jesus to those who came to save, sharing life and giving our own away.
[5:50] It's all about serving God. It's all about saving grace. If David and Miss Jeda was here today, I'm sure they would know that song. But also, we share it with others.
[6:02] Today, Greg's grace, that's his wife, all right? Greg's grace is sharing about God's grace with little children. That's what's being taught about and emphasized. We share about what God has done.
[6:14] We extend it, and it shapes our lives. Our understanding of God's grace not only changes what we will do for all eternity, but it changes the way that we live together in unity.
[6:24] I am able to forgive you because of the grace of God I have been forgiven. There are so many things that I'm now free and liberated the doom because of the grace of God in my own life.
[6:35] And then every Sunday, we rejoice in it. And today, I rejoice with the daughter in the faith who has received it. Titus here is a trophy of God's grace.
[6:46] Titus was a young Greek. He wasn't Jew. He was Greek, which would mean he would know how to say gyro instead of gyro or gyro instead of gyro. I'm not sure which one it is, but he would know, all right?
[6:56] And so he did not come being brought up in maybe Timothy, being grown up in that same Jewish culture. And in Jerusalem, there was a big debate whether the Gentiles could be saved without keeping the law.
[7:10] And so Paul took Titus in Jerusalem, and he became exhibit A that Gentiles could be saved and that they were saved by grace. In Galatians chapter 2, the whole book of Galatians covers this, but I'm just going to give you a summary of Galatians 2.
[7:22] See, Paul in Acts 11, he comes to the church in Antioch, and there's a great famine that's spreading throughout the land. And he comes and he asks for help, for financial help, which is a reminder to us, as was shared so well about faith promise, that our compassion is not limited by borders, that we want to help where we can help.
[7:45] And that's what Paul's calling them to do. But 15 years after he comes, he comes back, and now he has Titus here with him. And Titus is going to get a front row seat to just a lively discussion that happened.
[7:56] And Paul shared with them how they've been sharing the gospel among the Gentiles. He even took a few of the leaders of the group, and he dealt with them privately, because he knew what he was saying would be so shocking to them, that he was allowing them to kind of save face as they were processing this information, as he was talking to some of his Jewish religious leaders.
[8:15] And Paul wanted them to see that as Peter had been committed to sharing the gospel among the Jewish people, he would have been called unto the Gentiles. And then we get to verse number 9 of Galatians 2, and it says, When James and Cephas, that's Peter and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived that, here's the word again, the grace that was given unto me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, and we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.
[8:42] They perceived that the grace had been given. And the last part of this chapter is one of my favorite stories. In chapter 6, verse number 11, it says, When Peter came to Antioch, Paul withstood him to the face because he was to blame.
[8:59] And if Titus is standing there, it's got to be more than he expected, right? He shows up, and they're like, yes, Gentiles can be saved. Here's Titus, all right? And then now here's Paul withstanding Peter to the face, and he's talking to him.
[9:14] And he's saying, you're not living out this conviction that the grace of God comes to us simply unmerited, that you don't earn it, that it isn't because of our upbringing, it's not because of anything we did, it is just simply God's unmerited favor from us.
[9:29] See, what Peter was doing is he was distancing himself from Gentile people. When the religious crowd rode into town, he separated from them because he wasn't clear on his conviction that God was saving them by his grace.
[9:44] And so then Paul confronts him to the face. And this is what he talks to him about. He talks to him about justification. He says, don't you know that we're not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, that we have believed in Jesus Christ, may be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of law, for by the works of law shall no flesh be justified.
[10:09] That's Galatians 2, 16. And so that's such a good definition here for us of what grace is all about. Not being justified by law, not being justified by works, it is unmerited favor from God.
[10:24] And as Paul tells that to Peter face to face, like, do you even understand justification? I can hear some teenager in the background said, oh, no, he did it. All right. He escalated.
[10:35] I cannot believe that the apostle Paul told Peter, do you even understand justification when Peter is writing and teaching and all these things are coming? But we need that sometimes, right?
[10:47] You need a person that says, I know that you know the truth of God's word, but your life is not reflecting that you know it. Peter should have known doctrinally about the grace of God and that justification came by the death of Christ and not was it merited by works of law.
[11:04] But the way that he was treating other people was not demonstrating that. So the Bible said he was not walking according to the gospel. Kind of like if you had a sobriety test.
[11:15] When we first moved here, I always got lost. I'm from a small town and I didn't have a smartphone or a GPS, all right? Nobody did then. And so I'd always get lost when I was driving from Mark Coffey's house back over to this apartment that I lived in.
[11:27] And one time I got pulled over by a police officer and they gave me a sobriety test and they made me walk the line and talk and everything. And I couldn't do the alphabet backwards. Can't do it today, all right?
[11:38] And finally one of the police officers says, man, this young boy, he's more sober than you are. Let's just let him go, all right? But I just remember walking that line and just showing that I was walking.
[11:49] Well, the gospel tells us to walk a certain way. And there's times in which we live as if we don't understand it. And grace is one of those ways that show if we're going to walk straight according to the gospel or not.
[12:01] You've probably heard this acrostic before that grace is God's riches at Christ's expense. God's riches at Christ's expense. It's more than just being pardoned in the courtroom.
[12:12] It is the fact that when you came into the courtroom guilty and then now at the expense of Jesus in your place, God has pardoned you when you walk out, you got into the ride that Jesus showed up in.
[12:23] The great blessings that are there. And so there's many silly and unworthy things that cause a division inside of the church that people would fight over. But grace is a worthy fight.
[12:34] Grace is a hill that we would die on. It's because of the grace that Jesus, he died upon Calvary's hill and it should always be of the most importance, the utmost importance to us.
[12:45] And so Titus was standing. He hears the testimony of the grace of God was given to Paul. His testimony does not prove that Paul was good and faithful, but it certainly shows that God is good and faithful.
[12:58] And Titus is a trophy to God of his grace in this world. And Titus was an irrefutable evidence that God was saving the Gentiles. And so I'll just pause here a moment and ask you, do you have any children in the faith?
[13:13] Are you a spiritual father or mother? Is there anybody that you can look at and say that you have the great pleasure of showing them Jesus?
[13:24] And we cannot do anything that is more wonderful than to share our faith and to bring somebody else to Jesus Christ. The story there in Galatians 2 ends like this. It says, 221, I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
[13:45] It says, I do not frustrate the grace of God. That's a strong statement. How would we go about frustrating the grace of God? Well, the answer, like so many Bible questions, are always going to be found in the context around it.
[13:58] Look what it says in verse number 20. It says, Faith calls our attention to grace and magnifies it.
[14:17] And when we live by faith, we are not frustrating the grace of God. But when we don't live by faith, we are nullifying or frustrating it. We're living with an attention to say that we do not risk, we're not just supposed to live according to faith, but we have to add to this and that our works are going to contribute to our salvation or to our sanctification.
[14:41] So let's get back to Titus, chapter 1, verse 16. So there's a tension here inside of this church. There's those that profess that they know God, but their works deny Him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work a reprobate.
[14:57] You see, the false teachers are such, they're detestable nuisances here because they're unfit for any good work. And that's such a strong statement, but the reason that they're unfit for any good work is because it is good news which provides the basis for good deeds.
[15:17] It's good news that provides the basis for good deeds. When people don't understand the grace of God, then they're not able to live out the gospel in the way that it should be lived out and not to live out.
[15:30] And so in all of the areas of life, we come back and we see that our behavior is going to be affected by our understanding. So the Christians don't understand or believe the good news, therefore they're unable to live out the good news.
[15:41] A false religion, regardless of what it is, you've probably heard it said, there's only two religions in the world, right? There's one of grace, and then there's one of works. Where a false religion says, do good works and God will accept you.
[15:52] But the gospel of Jesus Christ says, you're accepted through the one securing work of Jesus. Therefore, because you're accepted, do these things. So in creed and in any culture, the grace of God is often under attack.
[16:08] And people, false teachers, would have you to have a false understanding of what God would teach. And so we have here, we either have a denial of grace or we have a distortion of it.
[16:19] A denial of grace is referred to as legalism. Every time there's a trophy of grace like Titus, there is a desire of the devil to tarnish that trophy, to create confusion.
[16:31] That is the part in which Paul writes Timothy in Titus chapter number 1 and verse number 11, and where it ends, where it says, teaching things they ought not for filthy lucre's sake.
[16:43] That there's people that are teaching things that should not be taught, and Titus is supposed to stop them. He's supposed to tell them, this is not what you should be teaching. And so, when the devil sees anybody celebrating liberty and enjoying grace, he moves in to stop it.
[16:59] And then verse number 10, Paul speaks of those of the circumcision. Judaizers who are saying to the Gentile believers and others, that in order to be accepted of God, they would have to put themselves back underneath the Jewish law.
[17:12] And that's legalism. The entire book of Galatians was written to deal with this problem. They're endeavoring to put people back underneath the Mosaic law. And Paul said that the liberty in Christ is worth fighting for.
[17:24] He says, their mouths should be stopped. He called them unruly because they did not put themselves under the authority of God's word. He called them vain talkers because of what they said was not true. And he called them deceivers because what they said was error.
[17:38] And these false teachers are subversive. They were very young Christians are very susceptible to legalism and this teaching. And Titus is told to be on guard.
[17:50] We can preach the gospel and people can come to know him by grace, through faith, plus nothing. And these people will be saved. And then will come along people, a legalist, who will lay down a lot of rules and rituals and laws.
[18:05] And these new Christians, being insecure in their liberty that they have found in the Lord Jesus Christ, they will go back underneath legalism because they feel secure there. And so don't allow anyone to make a legalist out of you.
[18:19] We're not saved by keeping the laws. I'm going to grab this water bottle. Stephanie's wondering why I'm coming to her in the middle of this. We're not saved by keeping the rituals. We're not saved by keeping the laws and the same faith in the work of Jesus Christ that he has done is the same way in which Jesus Christ would sanctify us.
[18:38] And so Dwight Moody was preaching. I love Dwight Moody because he just butchered the English language, they said, or the king's English. He honored King Jesus, but he wasn't very eloquent.
[18:49] All right? And they said he was the only person that could say Jerusalem with two syllables. All right? So think about that. His English was worse than mine. All right? And Dwight Moody is preaching. And when he was preaching, he started with a glass of water.
[19:03] And when he had this glass of water and he asked people, what is the best way to take the air out of this glass of water? And people began yelling different answers.
[19:14] And one person said, well, take a vacuum, the air out of it. And he said, well, that would crush the glass of water. And then as people were giving answers, he took out the bottle of water and he filled it up completely.
[19:26] And as he did that, he said, the best way to fill the glass of water is to fill it completely. And he taught this, that victory is not found by focusing on our sin, but by being filled by the Holy Spirit.
[19:42] And so it's not focusing on the sin, but is allowing the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us, to be filled by the Holy Spirit. And so that's the answer.
[19:53] And so it isn't just, it's good to know what's right and wrong. I want to know what's right and wrong. I need it. The Bible is my guide. And so anybody that will show me what's right and what's wrong, I would say, thank you. I need to see that.
[20:05] But what I need to see if I'm going to live that out is I must be empowered by the Holy Spirit because if not, I'll be just like I was before, which is completely without hope because I need the God to fulfill in me what he has called me to do.
[20:19] And so we need a feeling of the Holy Spirit. And so we reject this denial of grace that says, you've done that. That's a common teaching. In the Mormon church is that God would, he has forgiven you of that original sin, but now it's on you to maintain it.
[20:34] And so there's a poster that I saw one time in studying that where it's a picture of Jesus and it says, I never said it would be easy, but it is worth it. And I'm thinking that is the most unmotivational thing I've ever seen in my life.
[20:47] If you're telling me that Jesus had forgiven me of all my sin up to the point of salvation, but I have to maintain it from here on out, I'm in a lot of trouble. All right? But that's not what the Bible teaches.
[20:57] It is the grace of God in our lives. The Holy Spirit leading and guiding us to live out what he's called us to do. The second way is not a denial of grace, a legalism, but it's a distortion of grace.
[21:11] It's what Paul speaks about in Romans 6, 1 and 2. Very familiar passage. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Hey, I love grace so much, let's give more occasions for grace to abound.
[21:24] There's plenty in our lives without us intentionally creating more of those. But how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer? Every road has a ditch on both sides of it.
[21:36] And so if you cannot, if the devil cannot get us off on the road and put us in this ditch of legalism, he'll be glad to take us off and distort the message of grace. And we call this license. A distortion of grace is its license.
[21:49] License is this philosophy that says we're saved by grace and not by works. Therefore, we have a license to sin. It says that we can live any way that we would like. It says that we can do anything we want and go to heaven.
[22:02] It says we can have sin and heaven too. But if our relationship with sin has not changed, then our relationship with God has not either.
[22:13] If your relationship with sin has not changed, then our relationship with God has not either. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer? The Holy Spirit constrains us from sin.
[22:25] It brings conviction. And then after sins, it brings conviction, which ought to lead to repentance. That ought to be inside of you. There ought to be war inside the life of the believer.
[22:36] I love Romans chapter number 6. It talks about no yield and reckon. And I didn't plan to tell the story, but I love this story so much. When I was in Kenya many years ago and I was talking about that and I said, it no longer has any place in your life.
[22:53] And I said, Jeff has his mother-in-law here and I would said, you know, like a mother-in-law suite, all right? I want my mother-in-law to visit, but I don't necessarily wonder the things she should live there. And so the mother-in-law suite says, there's a place for you to live here, all right?
[23:07] He loves his mother-in-law and they're building one for you as we spell, all right? And so there's no longer any place in that. And so in Kenya, there's a lot of tribal things going on and fighting and I took this young man was picking up his hands and he was doing what he was told to do and then I stopped picking up his hands and I just looked at him and I told him what to do and I said, but now you have the power not to do what I tell you to do.
[23:29] You can decide what to do. And I said, raise your hands and he started to raise his hands and then he threw him down real fast and he had a big smile on his face because now he could reckon sin to be there.
[23:39] He could live out what God has done. There's no longer any place in life. It may visit but it ought to get pushed out. Our relationship with sin has changed. We do not want to do that because it's not pleasing to the one who has saved us.
[23:55] And so we go on and we ask, how do we receive this grace? The best way to fight a lie is to know the truth. We cannot know all the lies that can be created about God and his grace. We could go all day long and have conference after conference where I'll talk to you about all the different lies that different false religions teach about the grace of God.
[24:13] But that's not the way it should be done. Just like a person who studies money forgery, they don't study all the ways that money can be made but they understand what a real hundred dollar bill looks like and what it feels like and they know it.
[24:26] And so you need to know what the Bible teaches about grace. In Genesis chapter number 6, God has saved people the same since human history. It's unmerited favor.
[24:37] It's the grace of God by faith put in Him. It's never been different. There's never a time in the Old Testament where Jewish people were earning it by their works and now in the New Testament it's the same. It's always been by faith and the God of heaven and that we receive it by grace.
[24:52] And Noah, it says in Genesis 6, 8, that he found grace in the eyes of the Lord because Noah believed the Lord. It's said about that about Abraham. Abraham, in Genesis 15, 6, and he believed in the Lord and it counted unto him for righteousness.
[25:08] He believed the Lord and because of that he received the grace of God. He received forgiveness of his sins. And so they both trusted what was revealed or what appeared to them about God, what was revealed to them about God.
[25:21] And that's what we see back in Titus chapter number 3. How was the love of God appearing to those here in Titus? Genesis 3, 4 and 5. But after that, the kindness of the love of our God, our Savior, towards man appeared.
[25:36] The kindness and love of God, our Savior, the grace of God, it appeared, not by works of righteousness which you have done, but according to the mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
[25:50] Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Abraham believed the Lord counted on the righteousness. Here in Titus' day and our days, the grace of God is shown to us in the person of Jesus Christ. His life, His death, and resurrection, and not by works that we have done.
[26:06] John 15, 24, or 5, 24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death unto life.
[26:21] William Shedd in his book Dogmatic Theology says this, When God calls upon people universally to believe, He doesn't call them to believe they are elected or that Christ died for them in particularly.
[26:33] He calls upon them to believe that Christ died for sin, for sinners, for the world. The atonement is not offered to an individual either as an elect man or as a non-elect man but as a man, a sinner, simply.
[26:48] I know that Jesus Christ died for sinners and I know that I am a sinner and I know that Jesus Christ died for me. That is the grace of God. And don't let it be distorted in any direction.
[27:00] It's universally available to all people because sin was universal and Jesus died for all men. Which means that the grace that you found should be offered to all indiscriminately with hope believing that they can and will respond.
[27:13] There's people that would teach things that they should not and they should stop and the thing that we would say is that you should share the gospel and Jesus doesn't issue a call to the elect of God to waken up and come to Him.
[27:24] He issues a universal call to all and any to come to Him. And so what does God's grace in your life do? Titus 2, 11 For that grace that bringeth salvation has appeared unto all men.
[27:37] The gospel is good news. It doesn't tell us to straighten up and do better. If so, we would all be lost. Some say that we're saved by grace and works but that's wrong. It's said repeatedly throughout the Bible Romans 11, 6 If it's by grace then it's no more of works.
[27:52] Otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works then it's no more grace. Otherwise work is no more work. That's why it can't be mixed with anything. That's why we fight so much as Baptists to say that baptism is demonstration of what He did but it's not added to salvation.
[28:09] That we should live a holy life but you're not maintaining your salvation. You cannot add anything to grace and it continued being grace. It is unmerited favor by God because of what Jesus Christ did.
[28:22] And you can't add a little to it or without changing it completely. And so it provides for us in Titus 1, 2 in hope of eternal life. Hope doesn't mean it might happen but it's a bedrock assurance by the Word of God.
[28:35] It's how He speaks about the second coming. The second coming is called the blessed hope. It is certainly going to happen. That glorious appearing speaks about us in Titus 2, 13. It's not a maybe but it is certainly.
[28:46] And our eternal life is this blessed hope from a God who cannot lie who promised us. And God chose or elected those who will put their trust in Christ to receive the grace.
[28:59] And He chose us before the planets who are ever swung in the space. Titus 1, 1. Paul is servant of God and apostle Jesus Christ according to the faith of God's elect. God chose or elected to put their those who put their trust in Christ or receive the grace that He gives.
[29:16] And then we end here in verse 4 where Paul links grace and mercy and peace together. After the common faiths grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.
[29:27] Grace is God giving us what we do not deserve. We do not deserve His goodness because while we were yet sinners He died for us. Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve.
[29:38] It's more than that but it's not less than that but we deserve judgment we deserve time and grace and mercy are linked together and it's followed by peace. That's God's order.
[29:48] The Bible never says peace and grace it always says grace and peace because you cannot find peace until we know grace. We have the peace of God and peace with God because of the grace of God.
[30:04] Grace and peace is what He has given us and that is the result peace is the result that we have because we received His grace and we received His mercy now we live a life that has peace.
[30:17] peace. So many people are wanting peace in this world but they're not looking for grace and mercy. They're trying to skip it. They're trying to get the one without the other. There's no peace without grace and mercy without realizing that you're a sinner receiving what He has for you and then there's just tremendous peace.
[30:35] I love the testimony of new believers that share about just a tremendous peace and what God is doing in their lives and it comes after grace and mercy. Paul loves Titus and he points to these things in his life and he says it's a common faith that we share together in this room.
[30:52] It's a close relationship. All the dear people lovingly pointing to Christ and it's a family. You know this weekend I had such a good time. You know my favorite meal we had a rehearsal dinner and I had my favorite type of food and my favorite type of food is the food that my brother-in-laws pay for.
[31:07] Alright? And so Friday night Mark paid for the meal and I was just trying to find things to order that weren't even on the menu just seeing what you know what I could do there because it's my favorite type of meal. And I was just thinking there's nobody in the world that has more fun than God's children.
[31:22] Just Luke and Audrey doing things right. Christian families on both sides. Understanding that marriage can be a picture of the gospel. You can't buy box seats at the Mercedes stadium.
[31:34] You can't find any event in all the world that would have given you a better view of what I got to see in that. It's close. It's not like family. It is family.
[31:45] We're not like family. We are family. And that's what that common faith in receiving His grace. Common faith here. We agree there's one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and one mediator, Jesus Christ, our Savior.
[31:58] We receive our faith as a gift from God and the tie that binds us together. None of us will get to heaven and ask how did you get here? Alright? We all know that there's only one way and that is in Jesus Christ.
[32:09] And there's this mutual benediction. There's mutual blessing. Paul asks for grace, mercy, and peace for Titus and he wants us all to have grace, mercy, and peace for each other and we want it for you and you want it for me.
[32:20] And here's why. We need grace from God or we would be undone. We need mercy to forgive us and perhaps the more leadership and more authority you have, the more mercy you need.
[32:31] And we need peace to comfort. We long for the comfort of peace of mind, restfulness of heart, and a quiet spirit. And so we have the same blessings upon our life and it comes from the same source, the blessings.
[32:42] Whatever grace, mercy, and peace come to us, they come from the same place which is the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. And we are united in Him. It's our common reality. We're joined together in life.
[32:55] Christ is our Savior. He's not just a Savior, born this day in the city of David, a Savior. He's not just my Savior. Mary is saying, my spirit has rejoiced in God. But He is our Savior.
[33:07] And we have a great reason to be knit together in love and we share Christ. And as we leave the day, leave, call somebody brother or sister. Not just because you forgot their name, but because you know that it expresses the reality of the fact that we have both found grace in the eyes of the Lord and we're now the children of God.
[33:28] We have found grace and mercy and because of that, we get to live a life of peace. And we gather together on Sunday mornings and we rejoice in that fact. It's so wonderful. I'll leave you with this quote before I pray.
[33:41] And they can put it on the screen by Adrian Rogers. And he says this, The devil wants us to get us away from the delight of grace, which is the liberty in which we have been given, into the denial of grace, which is legalism, or into the distortion of grace, which is license.
[34:00] An old Native American man who lived a very wicked and cruel life, he came to know Christ. And a missionary was standing up in front of a group of people and he was asking this man if he could tell everybody what grace means and what does it mean.
[34:14] And the man, he was quiet and he looked around and he went and he grabbed this worm and he laid it in this pile of leaves and he set the leaves on fire. Oh, right, this got intense here, didn't it?
[34:26] All right. And he set the leaves on fire and as the fire got closer to it, to the worm, he reached in and picked up the worm and he just said, Me, worm.
[34:37] Now we, without any effort or our own, without any merit or anything we have done, we have received the grace of God and it should change our lives.
[34:47] Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch, that saved a worm like me. If that was the only story, it would be most miserable but that is not the only story.
[34:59] That is just the beginning of the most wonderful story is that we were undone and unworthy but he is worthy and he saved us. So I rejoice in that but also before I pray, I also find it sobering because when we consider those coming to Christ around us, that means that there's also maybe some around us today that have never received the grace of God in your life and you still resist it or you're still working or you're still trying to figure out how this works.
[35:28] If you're wondering that maybe I need to do a little bit more and you're not 100% sure of the day that if you were to die that you would spend eternity with our Father in heaven, I would like for you to see the grace of God that comes to us by Jesus Christ.
[35:43] Today is the day of salvation. Stop working, and yield yourself to him and submit yourself to him. Cry out for mercy and receive grace and mercy and the most wonderful of peace.
[35:57] Would you bow your head with me just for a moment? As the musicians will play, I just want to speak to believers here first before I give an invitation to those in here who may not know Jesus Christ today.
[36:11] Believer, would you be aware as in the book of Titus that there's so many things that are taught that want to deny or to store grace. There was a time in history where you would have to go somewhere.
[36:24] You'd have to go to some type of building. Somebody would have to invite you to some kind of seminar. Somebody might have to do something to introduce you to something that would deny or to store grace.
[36:36] But now it's available on phones and on television and false teachers have an audience 24-7 among many people and they're constantly being confused.
[36:48] And I would like to encourage you be part of this having them to stop by showing people what the truth is. Helping people. Allowing God to equip you from His Word to sit down with that co-worker that when you talk to them they just don't seem to understand what the gospel is.
[37:06] They just seem to believe that they have to continue in their work. To sit down with that friend or family member who thinks that grace is cheap and they just continue a life of sinning. God could use you to show them the Word of God and He could help people wonderfully.
[37:22] And have that pray with me if you will today. Let's pray. Do you have children in the faith? Have you ever been able to take God's wonderful Word and open it and show somebody the grace of God and be involved in that work?
[37:35] There's many ways to be involved in that work. I pray that you'll make that commitment today. That is the most wonderful thing that you want to be involved in. As believers pray, if you're in here today and you've never put your faith and trust, and the day you say I'm tired of trying and working, I just want to rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
[37:53] I'm going to cry out to Him. I'm going to ask for grace and mercy. I'm going to receive forgiveness. I'm going to receive that unmerited gift from Him. I'd encourage you to do that right now.
[38:03] Don't put it off for another day. today is the day of salvation. If you do that, I'd encourage you to stop by Next Steps Table. We'll give you a Bible, some material, set you up with a meeting and help you get more information to grow.
[38:16] We'll close the day in a word of prayer and then we'll stand and we'll sing a song and we'll rejoice in the Lord for the grace He has shown us. Heavenly Father, I thank You for the book of Titus.
[38:28] I thank You how peace comes after grace and mercy. I pray that all my brothers and sisters in here today are enjoying and recognizing the peace that they have was a gift from You to them and they would have never found it on their own.
[38:43] Father, I pray for those that have not found that peace that they're going to recognize that it comes on the other side of grace and mercy. Lord, I pray for new believers or maybe believers in here that have been saved many years but not grounded.
[38:56] Lord, I pray that they will not get distorted in their view of grace. They will not deny grace and look to lesser things but they will look to Your Word and receive grace, mercy, and peace.
[39:10] We thank You in Your Son's most precious holy name. Amen. Let's stand together and and we thank You