Good morning, my name is Chris. If you don't know me, I'm on the pastoral staff here.
You're very, very welcome this morning.
And it's interesting, just even as we're thinking about election and thinking about the city,
because this book of Titus that we're going through as a series that Graham started us last week,
and I'm just going to raise this a little bit, is a story, a letter that is written in a city
which is going through turmoil in much the same way as in Hong Kong.
Our city is often feeling like it's in turmoil as well.
You see, this letter that we're looking at is a letter which is all about how to be a healthy church in an unhealthy world.
That's why we're looking at the letter.
We're looking, how do you be healthy? How do you be godly?
How do you live as Christ wants us to live in a world which is anything but?
And the context of this book is just, I don't know if you know where Crete is.
Crete is a beautiful island in the Mediterranean.
It's a Greek island, and there are no dangerous animals on this island.
It is a fantastic paradise of an island.
But Paul, in the letter, he quotes a Greek historian who says,
Cretans are always liars, beasts, and lazy gluttons.
Now, that's not very pleasant.
But he's not being racist here.
He's being ironic.
What he's saying is, the most dangerous animals on the island are people.
Because we know from history, and other historians tell us, that the people were obsessed with money.
Here's what one guy says.
He says,
Money is so highly valued among them that its possession is not only thought to be necessary,
but in the highest degree, creditable.
And in fact, greed and avarice are so native to the soil in Crete that they are the only people in the world
among whom no stigma attaches to any sort of gain whatever.
This is a guy who's writing near the time of Jesus.
And to get money, they'll lie.
They'll stab you in the back.
It's a dog-eat-dog world.
There's political division.
You can't trust anybody.
There's corruption.
And to capital, many of the towns, their leaders are filled with pirates.
Now, I don't know if you can imagine, but what about having your boss being Jack Sparrow?
Because that's the kind of place...
Now, maybe you feel that's what your boss is just like.
But that's the kind of place that Crete was.
And so Paul's chief aim in this book is to say,
How do you live in a godly way?
And he starts off in verse 1, which we looked at last week.
He says,
I'm here on a mission.
I'm writing this letter because there is a truth which leads to godliness in an ungodly world.
And, you know, how do you get to this godliness?
Well, if you look in the verses here and have your bulletin here,
there's a whole list of things which Paul says that elders should be godly about.
And, you know, the list is kind of, ooh, okay.
And not arrogant, quick-tampered, drunkard, violent, greedy for gain.
But you must be hospitable, lover of God, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.
And you think, how on earth do I get the fruit of godliness like that in my life?
Because the elders were meant to model what everybody in the church was to be like.
And the thing is, Paul is saying, the fruit of godliness in your life always comes from the seed that you plant in your life.
You know, if you plant a tomato seed, you get a tomato plant.
If you plant a durian seed, you get trouble.
But if you plant the gospel and you water it in your life, you get godliness.
And you live a life that displays the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.
And so, I want to look a little bit about how do you live in a godly way today?
How does your faith, is your faith, if I looked at it, does it produce that kind of fruit?
So, there are a couple of types of people.
And just recapping a little bit of what Graham said here, there's two kinds of people that are contrasted here.
Two kinds of teachers.
There are the elders who, in this city, they're to hold firm to a trustworthy word.
And there are some false teachers who are coming in and teaching something else.
That's in verse 10 to 16.
So, let's think about this in two ways.
One is, what is the seed, the transforming power to live in a godly way?
And secondly, it will be, what is the seed that can destroy godliness in your life?
Okay?
Seed which brings godliness, a seed which destroys godliness.
Okay?
So, let's dive in to the passage.
Have it open with you.
5 verse 9.
The elders are chosen to protect the church and their choice is not based primarily on how gifted they are,
but it's based primarily on two things, their character and their doctrine.
Okay?
Their character and their doctrine.
And it's both the public and private life of the elders is meant to be that of a lover.
Some of the characteristics.
Hospitable.
That means somebody who loves strangers.
They're to be a lover of good.
They're to be self-controlled, upright, wholly disciplined.
They're to have an integrity.
Not perfection, but an integrity that shows and displays a love for God.
And it comes from holding firm to the trustworthy word.
Elsewhere, it calls that the doctrine of God as Savior.
The grace of God that brings salvation.
So, in other words, the elders' job, it says, verse 9, is to instruct or to encourage people in this sound gospel doctrine
so that the church also becomes lovers,
and they are also to bear the fruit of godliness in their lives so it overflows into the church and into the world.
That's God's mission strategy, by the way.
Your life is God's mission strategy for attracting people to see how good the gospel is.
Okay?
So, how does this happen?
How does the gospel produce godliness?
I want to tell you two things that the gospel does.
The gospel changes what you love,
and it changes what you hate.
Changes what you love, changes what you hate.
The elder is a lover, a lover of good,
who knows that the ultimate love of God is in the gospel.
So, 1 John 4 says,
We love, we love because He first loved us.
In other words, all love for God only ever comes out of a response to seeing His love for you first.
Do you get that?
You've got to see His love for you first before you can respond in love for Him.
And the gospel tells you that by saying,
You can only see His love if you realize two things.
One, you're far worse than you dare imagine you could be.
You're far worse than you are.
If you think you're okay, you haven't understood the gospel.
You are far worse than you think you are.
Your sin deserves this, but you're far more loved, secondly,
than you could possibly imagine you are.
You're worse than you think you could be.
You're more loved than you could imagine and ever dare you could be.
And in the cross, when you see the cross,
and as Christians we talk about the cross all the time,
but we see that there's a God who chases after us
even when we're running away from Him.
He loves us to the point that He would die the death you and I deserve.
And if you trust in Him,
you can be utterly secure,
knowing that nothing you've done,
no merit you've done,
no achievement can ever change the security that you find in His love.
You're a child of God.
Your past is wiped out.
The shame, the guilt is gone.
Your future is secure.
You're held in His arms.
There's no need to fear, no need to worry,
no need to live in guilt.
He holds you.
Like a mother with a newborn child,
whatever you're going through,
He holds you.
That's the gospel.
But if, I don't know, like you or me,
I've been in church a long time.
I've heard that.
I know that.
And every day, I forget that.
Every day, I forget,
because stuff happens.
Stuff happened this morning.
Stuff happened this week.
You know, I make poor choices.
I get frustrated.
The life kind of overtakes me.
And I forget that God loves me.
I forget that there is this amazing gospel.
And I just kind of get back into me.
That's where it goes.
And John says in his book, Following On,
he says, I want you to realize
that when you run back to God
and you see again,
in the midst of your craziness,
you get a glimpse and you see His love for you,
His preciousness of your life.
Do you know what happens?
It changes you to want to obey Him.
Because love always expresses itself in obedience.
And the reason I don't obey
is because I don't get His love.
And my heart hasn't been changed by His love.
And the thing is,
if you don't see the depth of your need of God,
if you don't see,
if you're kind of so wrapped up in the world
and what's going on in your life,
and you don't see regularly, day by day,
this gospel message of the love
and the grace and the mercy,
you're worse than you could believe,
but you're more loved than you could imagine,
if you don't see that day by day by day,
what happens is,
we begin to go astray.
And when you begin to see,
well, maybe I don't really need God that much.
Maybe you're going to be like the French philosopher Voltaire who said,
of course God forgives.
It's His job.
And you don't see how costly God's love for you is.
And if you don't see how costly His love for you is,
then you'll never get a lifestyle of radical love
that is called to be a shining light in the world around.
I don't know if you've,
have you ever seen somebody who was addicted to their job
and then they fall in love.
You ever seen that?
You see,
I think it's very funny
because you see this guy or this girl
and they're just hardworking,
they work late,
you can't get them to go out,
they've always got to finish work,
and then one day,
something happens.
Everything changes.
Suddenly,
they're trying to sneak out of work early.
Suddenly,
they are kind of sneaking out of the office
to take kind of private phone calls in hushed tones.
Suddenly,
you know,
before they were kind of miserable,
so and so,
but then there's this kind of little cheeky grin
which comes on their face
and they're kind of nice to everybody.
It's amazing.
Do you know what I mean?
And you're thinking,
what do they have for breakfast?
But you know,
you know what's going on,
right?
You know what's going on
because their love for their job
has been replaced by a greater love.
And when they begin to have this greater love,
their behavior changes,
right?
And that's the way the gospel is meant to work in your life
because we love ourselves,
we love our comfort,
we love our ambition,
we love all this stuff,
and that's where sin,
the selfishness is.
But when you experience the love of God in the cross,
through His care,
through His working in your life,
when you experience it,
not just know it here,
when it actually hits you down here,
you know what it does?
It changes you.
It cannot but change you.
And it changes what you love.
It changes how you spend your time.
It changes the people around you
you want to serve
and love.
And the gospel gets displayed
not just in the kind of cheeky grin,
but in the fruit of love,
joy, peace, patience,
all the other stuff.
That's what happens.
And the more that you see
the sin in your life,
the more you repent,
the more you realize
how amazing God's love for you is,
the more it begins to change you.
You don't become perfect,
but you begin to bear that fruit
because you have that seed in your life.
So let me ask you,
are you increasingly seeing
love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, gentleness,
self-control in your life?
Are you seeing evidence
of that regularly?
Not perfection?
Because if you're not,
then the chances are
that the gospel might be here,
but it's not here.
That you haven't understood
just how amazing
his love for you is.
Richard Sibbes,
who was an English pastor
500 years ago,
he says,
if Christ has once
possessed the affections,
that means the love,
what you're passionate about.
If Christ has possessed
your affections,
there's no dispossessing
of him again.
A fire in the heart
overcomes all fires without.
So do you have that fire
in your heart
which is kindled by his love?
Because if not,
then we need to pray
and repent and say,
God,
I want you
to rekindle my cold heart
and make me
that bearer of fruit
who loves you
from the heart.
That's the first thing
the gospel does.
The second thing
the gospel does,
it changes
what you hate.
There's some strong language
in this text.
It says things like
detestable,
disobedient,
and when God's people
see God's goodness,
their desires change
from loving what was wrong
to hating it.
You begin to hate it.
You see,
when you love your child,
you hate what causes them pain.
You hate what causes them sorrow.
And when you love God,
you hate what causes him pain.
And you increasingly hate sin.
You don't want to get close to it.
You're not kind of like
creeping up to it
just to see how far can I go
before it bites me.
You know,
if I was to put a cobra
in your bed
and ask you to lie down
next to it,
would you be saying,
oh,
I wonder how close I can get
before it bites me?
I don't think you would.
I think you'd be saying,
don't let that thing near me.
Get it out of here.
Even if you put it in the cage,
I don't want it in the room.
Defang it,
just throw it out.
I don't want it there.
Right?
Because you don't,
you hate something
which you know is dangerous
and something you know
is going to kill and destroy.
But that's often
how we deal with sin.
We say,
let me just,
you know,
I'll just get next to it,
but I won't touch it.
I'll smoke,
but I won't inhale.
Right?
You know?
But people who love God
have the same reaction
as you would have
to having a cobra
in your bed
towards sin.
The more God changes
what you love,
He changes what you hate,
sin becomes less appealing,
good becomes more lovely.
That's what the gospel does in you.
So that's
what God is wanting to happen
in these elders
as they're teaching
and living out this gospel
that's to flow into the church.
But there's a problem here.
And the problem in this church in Crete
is there's another seed
that's being sown.
There are insiders
in the church here
who are planting a seed
which if it's left unchecked
would be worse than a durian farm.
This is a seed
that destroys love,
destroys joy,
destroys peace
and kindness.
And it's a seed that
if it's sown in the church
becomes so unappealing
to the world around.
You know,
the reason why
many non-Christians
do not want to be Christians
is not just the gospel message.
It's because of the lives
of Christians
which are being planted
in a seed
which is not the gospel.
And here's that seed.
Do you know what it is?
Religion.
Self-righteous
is performance-based religion.
This is the seed
which destroys
the power for godliness.
We're going to look at
verses 10 to 16.
You see,
Paul is like a doctor here
who's diagnosing
a common condition.
You know,
I call it
the PBR virus,
the performance-based
religion virus.
And it's got to be,
it's like a cancer
that's got to be rooted out
in your life.
Otherwise,
it will suck you in
and destroy you.
Verse 10.
Here's how Paul describes
people sowing
this seed of religion.
There are many
who are insubordinate,
empty talkers,
deceivers,
especially of the circumcision party.
Now,
that sounds like
the rest of Cretan society.
Verse 16.
They profess to know God
but deny Him
by their works.
They're detestable,
disobedient,
unfit
for any good work.
Now,
I'm thinking as I read that,
Paul,
that's not very nice.
Can't you be a little bit more
peacey,
a little bit more tolerant?
But this challenges me
because actually,
the Bible is never tolerant
of what will destroy
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
and all the rest of it.
And, you know,
Jesus,
as well,
uses His strongest language
to describe
the Pharisees,
the religious leaders,
who are also infected
with this virus.
Now,
let me give you
a little bit
of information
about who
these people
are in the church.
Verse 10 says,
they're of the circumcision party.
Now,
I don't know about you,
but putting the word
circumcision
and party
in the same sentence
doesn't sound
like a good idea to me.
But the Cretan church
here were Jewish Christians.
And some of them,
they came in some teachers
who were also
Jewish Christians
who claimed,
okay,
you can be saved
by faith in Jesus.
That's good.
But to be a good Christian,
you've got to keep
this list of rules.
You've got to be circumcised.
Don't eat this.
Don't eat that.
Okay?
Keep yourselves
ritually pure.
Okay?
People who break
those rules,
they're the bad Christians.
People who keep the rules,
they're the good Christians
and they can look down
on the bad Christians
and kind of condemn them occasionally
because that's what good Christians do.
And these teachers
were bringing division,
not peace,
division,
upsetting whole households,
it says in verse 11.
And Paul says,
it's the job of the elders
and Titus
to silence them,
to stop them
sowing these seeds
because these are toxic.
They will rip the love
and the joy
and the peace
out of this church.
It sounds strong,
but actually,
it's what a doctor would do
if there is a disease
where he's riddling a patient.
So I want to share with you
four results
of this performance-based religion
because we might look at this
and think,
well, that's,
okay,
I'm not tempted
about circumcision personally.
Okay?
That's not things
which we struggle with.
Well, let's have a look
at some of these things.
The first result of PBR,
performance-based religion virus,
is it makes you proud
or despairing
because PBR appeals
to every one of us
just like the circumcision party
appealed to the Jewish people there
because every one of us
has performance tendencies.
Right?
We live,
whoops,
okay,
I'm not performing.
We live in a culture
which basically
from the time when you're born
to the time when you die,
you kind of judged
on your performance,
right?
You judged on your grades,
you judged on your job appraisal,
your pay,
your marriage,
your kids,
you're judged on performance
and if you're successful,
you're elevated
and if you're failure,
you're demoted
and that's the way it works,
right?
Okay?
That's the culture
we live in.
But what we subtly mistake
is the need to perform
in society
with our ultimate identity
and worth
and value
and we kind of,
that's where we get in trouble
because we define ourselves
by our achievements.
We compare ourselves
to everyone else
just to check
that we're okay
or not
and we never compare
with God
but just with each other
and you know,
if we've achieved
our targets,
we kind of think that,
you know,
my spiritual condition
is pretty good.
You know,
if I've read my Bible today,
I feel like
I'm good,
right?
and we can become
self-sufficient,
proud.
I kind of,
my sense of need of God
becomes like my need
for ice cream.
It's kind of cool
and refreshing
but I don't really,
I can kind of live without it
because when you're operating
like this,
if you think you're doing okay,
you've chicked
the Christian boxes,
you've come to church,
you've given the offering,
you think you're okay
but then,
if you're operating like this,
you talk to a friend
and they say,
do you know what time
I get up every morning
to read my Bible
and then you're like,
man,
I'm a lazy bum
or like,
that guy is like,
he heard from God
three times last week
and then he went to,
he quit his job,
went to help in a soup kitchen
and 150 little babies
got saved
and I just stayed in last night
and all week
and I just watched Netflix.
Right?
And you compare yourself.
Right?
And we either get to the point
of saying,
okay,
so I've got to be
a better Christian,
okay,
let me go and feed
some more babies somewhere
or we get to the point of,
oh,
I know I'm going to be
a second class Christian.
You feel that kind of despair
and whenever you see
you're kind of,
you're not quite meeting up
to the mark,
then what happens is
it heaps this ton of guilt
and condemnation on you
and you either try
and work harder
or you give up
and you know what?
I've never met
one person
in my entire life
who feels trapped
under guilt
and condemnation
who's filled with love,
joy and peace.
Never met one.
They don't exist.
Do you know why?
Because that's not
the seed of the gospel.
because performance-based
religion never leads
to godliness.
It leads to just
keeping rules
but it doesn't
change your heart
and some of us here,
I know,
live under this guilt
and you wonder
why you haven't
got any joy
and it's because
you've listened
and you're believing
and you're infected
by this virus
and the gospel's
coming to you
and saying
it's not on your performance
that Christ has died
for you
and you're accepted.
It's only his performance
and you need to be
free from that
but some of us
have settled
for being mediocre Christians.
God's standards
are too high
so I'll just kind of
live down here.
You know,
it's too,
you look at these lists
and you feel,
wow,
I can't get there.
You feel burdened
and so you choose
to perform
in other areas
where you think
you can be successful
like work
or family
or those other things
but you're missing out
on joy
and purpose
and peace
and love
because you're not running
back to the gospel seed.
It makes you proud
or despairing.
The PBR virus
is powerless
to change the heart.
That's the second thing.
You see,
the circumcision party,
they had their rules
to keep everyone pure
from the culture
around them
but the crazy thing is
that Paul in verse 15,
he says,
to the pure,
all things are pure.
To those who've been washed
by Jesus' blood,
they're pure
but to those who are defiled
and unbelieving,
nothing is pure
and then he goes on
to call them detestable,
disobedient,
unfit
for any good work.
What's he saying?
He's saying,
these people
are advocating
keeping all these rules
to stay pure
but inside
they're just as dirty
as defiled
as anyone else
out in the culture.
And you know,
Jesus says something
very similar.
He says,
woe to you teachers
of the law
and you Pharisees,
you hypocrites
because that is what it is.
It makes you a hypocrite.
You clean the outside
of the cup and dish
but inside you're full
of greed
and self-indulgence.
And I think
all of us
in some way or other
have,
including myself,
I see this hypocrisy
in my own heart.
I say what I believe here
but in my life
there's this gap.
You see,
if I come to you
and I give you
a nice watermark
and I,
as you look at it
I've kind of cleaned
the outside
and I come to you
and I say,
hey,
would you like
a drink of water?
Maybe you're not thirsty.
And you say,
okay,
yeah,
I'll take it
and then I say,
oh,
yeah,
just one thing.
I produced a urine sample
before,
just before
and I haven't cleaned
out the inside.
Would you like a drink?
Now,
the outside of the cup
looks great
but would you want
to drink anything
from the inside
of the cup
if the inside
is dirty
and defiled?
The thing is,
much of our Christian lives
we spend polishing
the outside so well
and we forget
about the inside
because the thing is,
if you clean the inside,
the water's going to splash out
and it's going to
transform the outside anyway.
But we can be so busy
in church
doing activity
after activity,
reading our Bibles,
serving,
doing all these
different things
and you think
you're okay
because you think
I'm doing all this
for God.
But if your heart
is not being propelled
by God's love for you,
God looks at that
in the same way
that you would react
towards a urine sample
being in the drink of water.
It's detestable.
And I know this for myself
because it's so often
I come to the point
of saying,
have I done enough for God?
What must I do for God?
Have I reached the standard
so that I'm okay?
But if God's love
is not propelling you,
you'll be like a husband
who dutifully serves
one wife
but secretly wishes
he was with another.
Because what happens is,
you know,
have you seen
a dutiful son?
I've seen this.
I've seen a dutiful son
go and visit his mother
in hospital
but there's no love.
And you know,
there's a coldness.
There's just a clinicalness
to the way they go
about their duty.
They've done it.
They visited their mother.
But there's,
the warmth is missing.
The joy is missing.
And as a church,
a church which is going to live
must be a church
which is filled with joy.
And joy,
not because I've got
a whole load of duties
that I've got to get through
to be a good Christian,
to read my Bible,
to do all these things
because I have to.
But because God's love
compels me,
draws me
in a relationship with me.
And I wonder
if you are like that with God.
I wonder if you are.
And don't mishear
what I'm saying
because it doesn't mean
that you have to always feel
this overwhelming passion
to serve or to give
or to do all the things
that as Christians
we should do.
You know,
a mother who has to,
who loves their child
will change their nappy,
the diaper,
and they're not thinking,
wow, this is amazing.
But there is a love
and a duty
which go together.
It is not just
we obey out of love for Christ
and not out of duty.
Duty without love
is deadly.
But love always
involves duty.
And if you clean
the inside of the cup,
you will see
that even though it's,
sometimes you just don't feel
like you want to read your Bible.
Sometimes you just don't feel
like you want to serve
or you want to give.
Or before you do it,
you,
before you do it,
ask God to change it.
Do it anyway.
But ask God to change your heart
in doing it.
Don't just stop doing it.
Ask Him to change your heart.
Ask Him to refuel
and refire your love for Him
as you do it.
Okay?
It makes you proud.
The PBR virus makes you proud.
It makes you,
it's powerless to change your heart.
Only the gospel
can change your heart.
Third thing is,
performance-based religion
blinds you to your own condition.
It says in verse 16,
they profess to know God
but deny Him by their works.
That's a strong statement.
They profess to know God.
They profess to know God
but they deny Him by their works.
You see,
performance-based religion
stops you seeing your need
for God and His grace.
And you can see
everyone else's need for grace.
You can see everyone else's need
for change
but not your own.
You know,
you listen to a sermon
and you think,
I wish my husband or wife
could hear this.
Right?
And you don't see
how it should apply to you.
I was sitting in a,
I was sitting in a restaurant
the other day
and I was listening to two,
two women
kind of gossiping
about their colleagues.
And they were saying,
oh,
they're so judgmental,
they're so this,
they're so that.
And I was listening to them
and thinking,
you're so judgmental
and you're like this.
And then I stopped
and thought to myself,
do you see,
all the time,
performance-based religion
is one of the things
that just gets me every time.
And we're just infected by it.
And we need the gospel
to keep reminding us,
to keep reminding us
you are more,
you're worse
than you can imagine you are,
but you're more loved
than you could dare believe you are.
Let me speak to some of you.
It's worse,
performance-based religion
is worse
than if you think
you are not a Christian,
if you're not a Christian.
If you're not a Christian,
you know you're not a Christian.
Right?
Okay?
You know where you stand.
But if you're in church,
week in,
week out,
listening to sermons,
giving money in the offering,
going to community group,
and you think you know God
because you've done
all those things,
you're in trouble.
You're in trouble.
Because just as
sitting in a garage
doesn't make you a car,
sitting in church
doesn't make you a Christian.
Because why do you think
God would accept you
if you say,
because I'm not a bad person?
Look at all the things
I've done for God.
I've got a loving heart.
If you say any of those things,
you're not a Christian.
You're not a Christian.
Because God looks on the inside
of the cup
and He says,
that is disgusting.
Whoa, that's strong.
But Christianity says,
though you're worse
than you think you are,
God,
through no merit of your own,
through the blood of Christ,
has come
and He has washed you
through His death
on the cross.
It is only
through His blood.
It is only
through His grace.
It is only
through His death
for you,
not because of how great
your performance was,
that you can now stand
to the pure,
all things are pure.
You can stand before God
pure in His eyes,
beautiful in His sight,
valued,
loved,
holy.
And He says,
I am pleased with you,
not because of your performance.
Your performance sucks,
but because of His performance.
That's the gospel.
So if you're living
on your parents' faith,
you're living
on any other thing,
you need to come
and talk with me
or talk with a community group leader
or otherwise
because you need to get right
with God today.
So where do we go with this?
Where do we go with this?
A couple of things.
You see there are these two seeds.
And the thing is,
we need to always,
in Hong Kong,
it's so easy,
I see it all the time,
that we go to churches
and choose churches
because we like the music
or we like the programs
or we like all kinds
of other things.
But this passage is telling us
you need to evaluate
a church,
a community,
all those other things.
You need to evaluate
your own life
on not just whether
something works for you
but is the gospel
being taught
in that church?
Or is,
you need to,
we're pragmatic here.
We want to work out
what works for us.
But there is,
doctrine is important.
What you believe
is important
because it always flows
into your life.
And so you've got to,
you've got to know
how do we evaluate
what different people say?
Because if you don't,
your joy is at stake.
Your joy is at stake.
The godliness,
that fruit,
that mission
to the world
is at stake.
But here's the difference.
When you hear this kind of,
you see this list of things
that we should be
as Christians.
You see it for elders.
You can see it
in all kinds of,
how do you stop
just kind of falling back in
as I do regularly
into PBR virus,
into this performance-based religion?
One of my mentors,
a guy called Tim Chester,
he wrote this.
And he calls
performance-based religion
legalism.
He says,
legalism says,
you should not do this.
The gospel says,
you need not do this.
Legalism says,
you should not sleep
with your boyfriend.
You should read your Bible
every day.
You should not get drunk.
You should witness
to your friends.
You should not lose your temper.
None of these
are good news
to someone struggling
with these issues.
To them,
it is condemnation
and sounds oppressive.
What the gospel says is,
you need not get drunk
because Jesus offers
a better refuge.
You need not lose
your temper
because God is in control
of the situation.
Sin is always making promises
and the gospel exposes
those promises
and false promises
and points to God
who is bigger
and better
than anything
sin offers.
That's the gospel.
I don't know what
you're struggling with
this week.
I don't know what area
of godliness
you wrestle with
but what I know
is this.
You don't stop worrying
by simply telling yourself
to stop worrying.
Right?
Try it.
You don't stop
porn addiction
by simply surrounding
yourself with
accountability partners
or security measures
on your computer.
Those things are good
but they're still
outside of the cup.
We need a clean outside
but they're still
outside the cup.
because if you hear
the Bible's command
which says
don't do those things
and then suddenly
you realize
you are doing those things
you know what happens?
You just feel worse.
You feel condemned.
You feel like
oh, done it again.
And that doesn't
bring you to joy
because the command
then becomes
like the judge's hammer
that condemns you
but there's one old writer
who wrote this.
His name was John.
He said,
run John
run the law commands
but gives us
neither feet
nor hands.
Far better news
the gospel brings
it bids us fly
and gives us wings.
It's not Red Bull
that gives you wings.
It's the gospel
that gives you wings.
The way to stop worrying.
The way to deal
with porn.
Yes, have other stuff
around you
but you need to
massage the truth
of the gospel
every single day
into your heart.
You need a community
around you
who are also
telling you the gospel
day in, day out
because you're going
to forget.
And when you come
and run to God
and say,
God, I need you
to change me.
I need you to show me
your love.
Do you know what happens?
Something beautiful occurs.
You begin to see
that fruit
that you're always wanting
that you would produce.
Spurgeon,
the preacher,
said this,
When I thought
God was hard,
I found it easy
to sin.
But when I found
God was so kind,
so good,
so overflowing
with compassion,
I smote upon
my breast
to think that
I could ever
have rebelled
against one
who loved me so
and sought
my good.
My prayer for us
as a church
is that we
would not be
a joyless
burdened,
condemned,
guilty,
shame-filled church,
but one
which knows
the joy
of being forgiven,
of being cleansed
by the blood of Jesus
and we're living it out
in radical love
for others
and for Him.
Let's pray.
Amen.
Lord I pray for us
I pray for our hearts
I pray for those here
who are actually laboring
under that sense of guilt
and condemnation
I pray Lord
that you would speak
to their hearts now
you would help them
to see you
to see the one
whose blood was poured out
for them
for the sins
that are held in them back
you died for those very sins
I pray for those of us
who kind of don't really care
we've given up trying
we're just content
we think we're okay
Lord I pray
would your word
would it shatter
those false pretenses Lord
show us what we're really like
pray for us
who
just are feeling burdened in life
Lord I pray that you would
give us that joy again
that we would see
afresh
not that the gospel
is just some news
what I heard
a long time ago
but every time
every day
it's producing joy
make us a joyful people Lord
show us
again and again
the depths
of your grace
in your name
Amen
Yeah
Amen