Taught by Grace

Introduction

As soon as Ernest sits down, we’ll get started. It is good to see everybody here this morning. We have along with our members here a number of visitors, and we are so very glad you’re here this morning to be with us. We are about to worship our God. So my request is that you keep that in mind and put away all the thoughts and distractions, if you will, of this world, and focus on worshiping our God. Please bow with me in prayer before we begin. Lord, we come before you into your presence, and we offer you our worship. Let our hearts and our souls be fully devoted to you in praise and honor. Help us to worship you in spirit and in truth, lifting up your name in all sincerity.

Father, you are worthy of all glory, and we desire to exalt you with our whole being.

Amen.

The goal of our songs this morning is to focus our minds around the ideas of grace and mercy, and how we have access to those through the gift and sacrifice of Jesus. So our first song this morning will be number three hundred four before the throne of God above.

Our next song will be four hundred and forty-five. His grace reaches me. After we sing the song, we will have a prayer, the contribution, and our scripture reading. Typically, when we sing this song, we sing it a little more slowly, a little more somber, but this is a song of how incredible it is that God’s grace reaches even us. So this morning I want us to sing it with fervor, sing it with graciousness at this gift of grace that is offered to us.

Let’s pray together. Most glorious Heavenly Father. We are in awe of you who were before creation, and you who are eternity. We thank you, Lord, for this day together that we may sing praise to you and study your word. We thank you for your grace and your love that you would consider us and unclean to be your children that you would offer your son to cleanse us and give us a place in heaven.

We share in the sorrow of loved ones lost and the joy of new babies born. We pray that you would strengthen those that are downhearted and give strength and endurance to those still seeking work. We thank you, Lord, so much for all your blessings.

Amen. This time we’ll say a blessing for the contribution. And visitors, don’t feel obligated to give. We’re just glad you’re here. This is a blessing for the members of this congregation here. So let’s say a prayer and we’ll do that. Our wonderful Creator God, we’re so blessed to be in your presence this morning, and we understand that because of the rich blessings you have given us and your wonderful grace that we have the things that we have. It’s all because of you that we are living so bountifully and rich in this country that we are residing in, and we’re so thankful for that. We know that without you there would we would have nothing. And we’re just so blessed to be able to give back some of that financially.

And we ask that it goes to further your word here locally and abroad. But let us also remember that there’s there’s plenty of ways to give and give of our time and just be available to those that need it as well as monetarily if we can and we’re just so thankful for these opportunities and it’s in your son’s name that we pray. Amen.

This morning’s scripture reading is from Galatians chapter five, beginning in verse thirteen.

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out, you are not consumed by one another.

And I have been one and I shall go and come and not I butt through my sand. No pain I dread I know I am forgiven the future has been made for Jesus well and suffered for my heart and he was raised to over to this I hope my sin has been defeated Jesus never is my beautiful chains are released I can sing I am free and not I but who I should need with every breath I want to follow Jesus for he has said that he will bring me home and day by day I know he will remove me until I send with joy for the road to this I know my love is only Jesus all the war to him when the races complete till my lives shall be This morning I want to finish up a short series we’ve been doing through the topic of grace on the concept of grace.

We’ve introduced some ideas about what grace is, the reciprocal nature of it, how it’s not just what God has given, but also what we return to Him. And I want to work through a few different books of the Bible, actually covering some concepts about grace, but mostly talking about the book of Titus and some things that are said there, particularly in chapter two and a little bit in chapter three. It’s good to be here with you this morning. I know we have some visitors with us this morning. We’re so glad that you have come our way. We are just a group of people who are seeking to follow Jesus. That’s all we are, and if that’s what you want, we hope that you will want to be a part of this group who is trying to do the Lord’s will and seek him in everything that we are doing.

If you will, read with me in Titus chapter two. Titus chapter two, beginning in verse eleven. It says, Titus chapter two, verse eleven, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness, and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hop of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.

1. The Grace of God Has Appeared to All

In the opening verses of the letter to Titus, Paul tells us that he left Titus behind in Crete to set things in order, to go to the churches on that island and make sure they had elders. This is just a small island in the Mediterranean. And apparently both of them had been present at some point, but he had other work to do, and he left Titus there to continue that work. Crete was a difficult place.

Epomenides goes on to say the human inhabitants of the island made up for the lack of wild beasts. And that Crete was full of greedy, selfish, dishonest people was a well known fact in the first century world. To be a Cretan was synonymous to being a liar. Paul tells Titus, God’s grace has appeared to all, even to these Cretans, to these people who struggled with greed and selfishness and sin, the ones that Titus was laboring among. The grace of God has appeared to all men, even the people on the island of Crete. This is an epiphany. That’s the word there actually in Greek. It’s something that’s sudden, a moment of sudden and great change. That’s typically how we use that word. Sometimes we think of it have an epiphany of a thought, maybe a thought that comes to our mind.

And that’s what happens when the grace of God appeared. It is this amazing thing that suddenly happens. That God himself came in the flesh as man. And he gave himself, as he’ll go on to tell Titus toward the middle of our reading this morning, for our sins, to save us, to deliver us, and that is for everyone. And so I want to look through Titus, but I want to also talk about some of the language of grace throughout Scripture, kind of set up getting to the book of Titus. If I told you to think about where do we find the subject in grace in the New Testament, what books would you think about? You don’t have to answer out loud. I just want you to meditate on this.

2. The Language of Grace Throughout Scripture

We’re going to talk about grace. What book would you go to? What texts would you think of? Well, I think some of the ones we might typically think of are good. I think the most common thought I would hear from people is to go to the book of Romans. Interestingly enough, Romans mostly talks about grace in two chapters. It’s Romans 5 and 6. There are some other places scattered throughout it. But this is an interesting chart broken down per thousand words in each book. You may be surprised to see the books that actually have the most concentration on the concept of grace. And I think this is backed up by even more language. But what I really want you to see, although we’re going to talk about some of these, is why don’t you see how grace, even the word itself, is just used thoroughly throughout the Bible.

But the language of grace, which contains words like honor and glory, those kinds of concepts are tied in to grace language, are also everywhere. And as you read through scripture, particularly if you understand the reciprocal nature of grace, or as we talked about before, the three graces to join hands, and how grace is kind of this circle that continues. When you see this talked about in scripture, it’ll just start popping out everywhere. Right? And in fact, the biblical writers actually house most of their teaching through this concept. Right? This is the way you should live. Why should you live this way? Because Jesus did it for you. Right? It’s this cycle that continues. And that’s much of how Paul argues a lot of times in many of his epistles.

Interestingly enough, grace, we’ve already talked about in Ephesians, but Titus and Philemon have the greatest concentration of grace language in all of the New Testament. Not sure if you would have known that without seeing this fancy chart here. But it is kind of a neat thing to see Peter’s right there with them. That’s not maybe what we would think would be the center of grace language and talk in the New Testament, but that’s where it is. Romans does have some things to say about the idea of grace. He talks particularly about the idea of grace and devotion. If you look at Romans chapter six, you are probably somewhat familiar with this text. He starts with a similar line of reasoning back in chapter one, and so I want us to pay attention to this, thinking about the whole concept of grace we’ve been working through.

Paul says this. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? You know, is this just a free gift, and then we don’t we don’t have to do anything? Of course not. God forbid, it says in some of your versions. May it never be. This completely misunderstands the concept of grace to have this perspective that God would give us this free gift, and then we just don’t have to do anything. That’s not at all how this works. Down in verse 15, he essentially asks the same question again. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.

But grace be to God that you who are once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, having become slaves of righteousness. This is the paradigm he’s using, the idea of slavery. You were once a slave to sin, but God redeemed you. Christ redeemed you by his blood, and now you have a relationship with him, and grace be to God for that. There’s devotion that comes from this. Philemon is a just a small little book in the New Testament, right after really where we’re looking at in the book of Titus.

We could go into a lot more detail about this, but I’m just gonna show you a few verses. What Paul’s doing in this letter is completely dependent upon concepts like benefaction and reciprocity or patron client relationships. He is trying to persuade Philemon based on their relationship, how they are connected, and he uses language that will reveal this as I’m about to read to you to demonstrate. He’s he’s pleading with him to take back Onesimus, and he’s gonna use a line of reasoning that is completely connected to everything we’ve been talking about. Alright, so in verse 17, he says, So if you consider me your partner, right? There’s the first word. We’re partners. We have a bond, right? If you consider us to have this bond, receive him.

He’s speaking of Anisimus here, as you would receive me. If he has wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand. I can guarantee I’m sending this message to you. If he owes you something, you put that on me. But notice the next line.

Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. Benefaction, reciprocity. All over this letter. That’s the whole point. He’s saying, I’m because of who I am and my relationship with you, this is what I’m asking you to do. I’m not gonna make you do it. I’m not commanding you to do it, but you do even owe me your whole life, right? So do you see how he’s leaning on this concept and on this idea? All throughout the book of 1 Peter, there is language, it’s not as direct as some of what we see in Paul, but there is language that connects to this. Essentially, what he’s saying is, you were redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, therefore you should live a certain way with that knowledge.

Because of what God has done for you, there should be a return of thanks and gratitude. You should be holy just as he is holy, and kind of this crux of the third first chapter, the one of the main concepts where he turns and begins to talk about some of the things they need to think about based on what Jesus has done for them. He says in verse 13 of chapter 1, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children. Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you as holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.

Verse 17. And if you call on him as father, if you have this bond, if you have this relationship, if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourself with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you are ransomed from your futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. It’s all tied together. This is the gift that He’s given you. That’s what Paul, the Peter’s telling them. And so, because of that, there’s a way you should live in response during the time of your exile. During this period of time, before we are with him forever, and we have this ultimate salvation. If you’ve been redeemed by him, then there’s a certain way you respond in the way that you live.

Titus does much of the same thing in his letter. His is actually focused if you were to read through it beginning to end, you would see a major focus on self-control that keeps popping up, the way that you live and how you control yourself based on who you are now in Christ. And also the phrase good works just keeps surfacing. Right before the section where we read, he’s talking to older men and older women and younger women and younger men and directing them and how they should live and the sort of life they ought to have. And then he gives this causal statement. Right? All of this, all the things that we ought to be doing, wherever you find yourself, whether you’re an older man or an older woman or a younger man or a younger woman, the ways you ought to be living, are based on verse 11.

For the grace of God has appeared. This is why we do this. The grace of God has appeared in bringing salvation to all people. But where I want us to go next with this is not just the recognition that God’s grace has appeared and has blessed us and has brought us salvation to any who will receive it. Not everybody does, but deliverance. Maybe deliverance is a good term. He’s brought deliverance. If you want deliverance, you follow him. It’s kind of like Moses coming back, and he says, Hey, God told me to come back and get you. If you want to be delivered, you walk out with me. If you don’t, you stay. That’s the idea. God has brought deliverance. And it has been this appearance of God’s grace that made all of this happen.

3. Grace Trains Us to Renounce Ungodliness

And if you want that deliverance, if you want to leave slavery not to Egypt, but slavery to sin, you will follow his son Jesus Christ. But the next line is interesting if we haven’t thought through the concept of what grace actually is, deeper, something deeper than just unmerited favor. It tells us that grace has trained us. How does grace train us? Well, in the common Western concept of grace, where you just receive something and there’s not much you give back, there’d be no training. There’s no teaching in that. But of course, that’s not what they’re dealing with here. And so grace is understood to have this back and forth relationship. And what Paul is saying is the blessing of God and what God has done for you, when you really consider that, when you look at that, it’s now going to transform who you are.

It’s going to shape you, it’s going to make you different. And part of that is going to be the training and how you live. And he gives us a couple ways to think about this. Grace is meant to lead to transformation. Paul says the kindness of God is meant to lead us to repentance in Romans chapter 2 and verse 4. God’s grace, his mercy, his kindness is not meant to just sit on us and stop there. It is meant to change who we are and make us somebody different. And that’s why we have all the imagery in the New Testament have you are an old man, the man of sin, and now you’re becoming a new man. You’re dying to your old self, and now you’re a new creation.

It’s the image over and over again in various ways. And baptism itself fits this, as we’ll see here in just a minute. But the idea is if you’re going to respond properly to the grace of God, it’s going to train you in certain ways of life. The first of those is you’re going to get rid of some things. If grace is really affecting me, if it’s transforming and changing me, then I’m going to realize I need to deny ungodliness and worldly lust. I need to renounce things.

I can no longer live for me. I’m no longer living for the things that seem important in the world. Some of those things we have to take part in because it’s part of life, but those are not the priority anymore. Me getting the things that I want or seeking the pleasures of the world that seem like they would be so good for us, we look through scripture, we can look through wisdom literature and see from the mind of God Himself the dangers of some of that. And what he’s telling us is the best life to live, whether you enjoy things in this life or not, because sometimes we suffer and we go through difficulty, but the best life to live is a life in which we have renounced the things of the world.

We are denying or refusing or we’re willing to say no to ungodliness, which is a lack of piety, and to passions, to passions that are not housed in biblical thinking. That’s the idea. God created us with desire, with passion, and in Greek the word for lust and desire is the exact same word. It’s all context. And so desire can be a good thing if it’s what God has built me with, enacted in the right way, in the right format. But if I try to go off on my own and do things my own way and follow my own passions, not housed in God’s paradigm and God’s structure, now I’m following worldly passions, lusts, as we often call them. Those are different things. He’s saying we need to leave those behind.

And Paul says in more detail this sort of thing in Colossians 3 and other texts where he goes into more depth about what those might be. But here it’s pretty simplistic. He says, if you’re going to follow Jesus Christ, if you’re going to be delivered by this grace, you’re going to have to renounce some things. Get some things out of your life. The Cretans, they’re notorious for their wickedness and their indulgences. And part of this message that Titus was going to have to teach them is that just had to change. They could not continue on in this type of lifestyle. No matter what the people around them thought or how they lived. Grace calls us to self-denial, and Jesus himself says this numerous places, but you can find it in Matthew 16, 24 through 25.

As I referenced earlier, it’s also demonstrated quite well in baptism imagery. I mean, that’s the whole message being sent. But when we come up here and someone submits to baptism for the glory of God, what they’re saying is, I’m getting rid of my old self. It’s dying. I’m killing the old man. This is language from Colossians 3 and from Romans 6. This is not some, as our modern concepts sometimes promote, some work to try to earn salvation. It’s the it’s quite the opposite. It’s a testimony, it is a proclamation that I am unworthy, and who I am now cannot possibly acquire the gift of God. And I have to throw myself at his feet and give my life and die and resurrect a new person to now be with him.

I am fully dependent upon his grace. I have to give up who I am. I have to deny myself. Paul talks about this in Colossians chapter 2 and 3. In fact, he uses covenantal language as he’s talking about this idea of putting off the body of flesh in verse 11. This is Colossians 2, verse 11. He says, You were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ. This is about a covenant. Circumcision was a covenant in the old law. It’s done away with in Christ, but he’s using that phrase to talk about how thou now there’s a covenant in Christ. There’s a circumcision made without hands. This is a covenant in Christ, no longer law of Moses.

Now this is submitting to the will of Christ. Here’s what it is having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. There’s a relationship here. Just as Jesus died and was buried and was resurrected by the power of the Father, when we submit ourselves in this covenant of baptism, we die with Christ. And we are raised with him again through the power of the Father. And were you united with Christ, seated with him in heavenly places, as Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2? And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

We deny the old self. We renounce it.

Now I’m going to change, and now I’m going to live for Christ. It’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Paul says in Galatians 2 20. Right? All of these, they all match up to say the same thing in different ways.

At his feet and do the things he has asked us to do to respond to his grace. Romans 6 has some similar language. You can go read that later. But the idea here is it demonstrates our desperate need for the grace of God. The picture in Romans 6 is that we’re enslaved to sin. Going and putting yourself in water in and of itself doesn’t just mean now you’re no longer a slave. We don’t wash off slavery to sin in a physical way. But it is an image of what’s happening in this process, that we’re dying to this old life. You can’t have a new master when you still are joined to the other. He talks about that in Romans 7. But we’re dying to the old life, but now since we are no longer the slave of the master of sin, he’s personifying these ideas.

Now we are a slave to God. We are a slave to righteousness. And now we are to be obedient. And he says, thanks, or grace be to God. That now we have obeyed this standard of truth, this way of life. What when he’s talking about this idea of slavery in the Old Testament, the slaves have responsibility to their masters. Well, most certainly.

4. Grace Trains Us to Live Self-Controlled, Upright, Godly Lives

Actually, through eight, working through this text. And he says, You are a slave to Christ. You’re a slave of God. You’re to present yourself as an instrument of righteousness, no longer an instrument to sin. Sin’s not your master anymore. And when you have died to your old self and you’ve resurrected to the new, you have gotten rid of your slavery to sin. Then he said, Grace trains us or teaches us how to live. It’s not just the things that we get rid of. Those are important. The idea of ungodliness is that the concept of piety, or what we might call religion, is tied up in that term. And that’s the idea of devotion. You’re giving yourself something, right? So ungodliness would be the opposite of that.

So you get rid of that, you get rid of the ungodliness instead of serving yourself. Now you are going to serve someone else, particularly God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son. You’ve renounced the ways of the world, and grace that has appeared is now training us to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives. Self-control, as I mentioned, is one of Paul’s major themes in the book of Titus. It has to do with moderateness, temperance. It’s actually in direct opposition to the Cretan lifestyle. So these letters, they are particular.

Many of those people in our own world still face and struggle with, and so it works quite nicely in that way. The idea of self-control, moderating how you act, being aware, being self aware, how much am I giving myself to certain things, right? Being able to control myself for the glory of God. That’s the idea. Living an innocent or blameless life. You’re standing before God as someone who is innocent if you are in Christ, and so you should live that way. That’s what Paul’s saying. Live upright. You’ve been redeemed. You’ve been blessed by God’s grace, and now you should live like it. That’s essentially the message of what’s being given here, this idea of training to live a self-control and upright lives. And then the opposite of the earlier term is now present.

Live godly lives in this present age. There certainly can be some bad ideas in our culture with the concept of being devoted to the wrong things, even religiously. And even the word religion sort of has a somewhat of a bad connotation to some in our modern world. And maybe you have witnessed that yourself, maybe you haven’t, but it exists. The idea of being, you know, religious, not following Jesus, but being religious. You’re so caught up in your religion, but you’re not really caught up in doing the things Jesus has said. This is sort of thing that floats around in our culture. And there’s truth in some of that, and there’s danger in that. But I want you to understand that the term here actually is the idea of piety or religion.

God wants us to be pious. He wants us to be devoted. He wants us to make this a priority, and that’s why Jesus himself is saying, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things in life, they’re going to be taken care of. That’s piety. Piety is that I’ve decided that this is the most important thing. God and his people and the things of God, that’s what matters most. It’s not that there’s not going to be other things we have to do in life. We all have to work and take care of homes, and certainly we should be able to see all of that within the realm of glorifying God. And the day-to-day things sometimes become mundane and they take our attention.

But as much as we can shape all of that under the concept of this is all for God’s glory, it will help us with the idea of what piety is. When I’m raising my children, I should be doing it for God’s glory. When I’m taking care of my home, I should be doing that for God’s glory. Now we may not say that in our minds every single time we do all these things. When I go work and I provide for my family, I’m doing it for God’s glory. These are the types of things God has told us to do as his people. And it’s very easy for us to kind of separate and delineate all of these parts of our life. And so I’m suggesting maybe we start to see them as one, all under the category of submission to the will of God.

Paul tells Timothy that everything that we should do should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to him and giving thanks to God the Father through him. I heard Gary Kerr years ago, some of you may know him, talk about this concept, and he broke down the whole day.

You are honoring him and your body by doing what God has created you to do.

And so even those hours of sleep can be done with the right mindset in the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father.

To look to receive that which is coming.

5. Waiting for Our Blessed Hope

But as he’s talking about the way we should live, right? The things we should denounce and the things that we ought to put back on, he says we’re doing this 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. There’s the grace and the return of grace.

In chapter three, the term is used again, really in much the same way, that we’re waiting for this time that Jesus is going to appear. We’re waiting for the reward that’s going to come, this blessed hope that we have that we look off to the future that we know is coming. This glorious appearing, this time not because of sin, but to take those who are his home with him for eternity. But I want you to think, why are we able to do that? Why is it that we can await this return with peace, without terror? Well, it’s because Paul says he gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed. He saved us not because of our own works of righteousness, but because of his mercy.

He purified us for himself. We’re his people, and as his people, within his kingdom, it is our joy, our glory to be able to praise him and honor him in our life. You could also say our obligation. In fact, in the first century, the word grace could have the meaning of obligation, as we talked about last week. It really just makes sense. You know, think about someone comes and they save you, they deliver you from something, you would inevitably be appreciative. I mean, you should. You would feel a sense of obligation to them because of how much they’ve helped you and how they have blessed you. And I want us to not lose sight of that in our relationship with God.

And we live a very short life here. It seems long in the moment, but he makes this point in Ecclesiastes and the Proverbs and the Psalms. What seems like to us in at certain times is kind of a long life, is actually relatively short. And the things that we do here are really working for us something far greater, something far more important than anything that we could ever imagine gaining or attaining in this life. And so the goal is while we are here for this short time to return the honor and glory to God that He deserves.

6. Grace Is Always Giving Birth to Grace

Grace is always giving birth to grace. Biblical grace is a grace that is reciprocal. It is not stop with me or with you. It’s something that we continue on in the circle of grace. It continues.

I think makes this profound statement. And I unfortunately see this concept, this idea in our world quite frequently the bestowing of grace upon self, which is very empty. Cheap grace, Bonhoeffer says, is the grace we bestow upon ourselves. Right? It’s entitlement. We feel like we deserve it. God is so gracious and He gives us, and what I mean by that is we don’t really have to do much back. Bon Hofer, I think correctly says that’s cheap grace. It’s one-sided, it’s shameful. It’s the preaching of forgiveness without repentance, right? The kindness of God, his forbearance is meant to lead us to repentance. So if it doesn’t, that’s cheap grace. It’s baptism without church discipline. It’s not taking seriously the things that God has said. Understanding scripture and following it to our best ability.

It’s communion without confession. It’s pretending that we are connected, but really not dealing with the difficult things of life. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, and I think maybe that’s the most profound. This is not about just getting things right and knowing the right things, it’s about following someone. That’s what discipleship is. It’s I’m walking in step with Jesus, I’m seeing the way he lived, the things he said, and the way he treated people, and I’m working to incorporate all of that into my life to be like him. And so the idea in all of this, all the sermons we’ve been working through in grace is that grace does not transform me, is cheap, one-sided, empty grace. It’s not doing anything for me. If all I do is take and take and take, never any return, that is not understanding the idea of biblical grace.

Conclusion

And so the question as we conclude this concept, at least for now, is how is God’s grace transforming me? When I think about the ways he’s blessed me in my life, and the way he’s taken care of me or my family, how is that making me a different person? Not just at one moment. We’ve talked some about baptism this morning. Hopefully that’s a transformational moment where I’m leaving one life and going to another, but that’s not the end. That’s why I phrase this in a present tense form. How is God’s grace transforming me? What is it doing to me today? How am I going to be different throughout today or tomorrow because of what God has done for me? This is how I should be living each day.

Every day when I wake up and I look in the mirror as I’m getting ready, I should be thinking, is God’s grace transforming me? Is it changing me? Am I different? Am I making different decisions today because of who I am in Christ than I would if I wasn’t? And if the answer is continually no, I’m to keep I’m doing the same things I’ve always done, there’s a problem. I need to think carefully about what grace is training me and teaching me to do in my life. And am I taking those lessons? Am I learning them? And am I using them every day? We’ve talked a lot about baptism this morning. That is essentially the first step in responding to the grace of God. It is in many ways the most simplistic step.

It’s understanding what God has done for us and deciding I’m gonna get rid of who I am and I’m gonna be something different. Then the real work begins, the putting off and the putting on in Colossians 3. But you may be ready this morning to make that statement. You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t know how you don’t even have to know how you’re gonna make all the changes. But if you know you need Jesus Christ and you know he’s the only answer, we want to help you make that choice this morning. We have water ready for you. You can come submit yourself to the will of the Lord, be buried with him, be resurrected to new life and be a new creation, and now starting to live for him.

Can we help you this morning? Come now as we stand, we sing.

Please be seated.

To help us prepare our minds for the Lord’s Supper, we will sing Living Hope on the slides only. for those of you who are visiting, and we want to make sure that everybody got the elements as you came in. If you did not get them, please raise your hand and someone will bring them to you.

I’ll break the cards on the lady.

So great understanding and I shame the soul.

Imagine you have a mission, a goal. You’ve planned it all out. Every step you’re going to take to be successful. You’ve worked for years on this, carefully following the plan, and now tomorrow is the big day. You have just one more thing to do tomorrow. What do you think your mood would be like? Perhaps a little nervous. Probably a little excited, maybe a lot excited. This is it. Your moment of triumph. Maybe you find it a little difficult to sleep that night. But for the most part, the day before your big win, you’re gonna be feeling pretty good. Sure, there’s a bit more work to do, one big final push, but still, you’re about to reach the culmination of years of work and dedication. Let’s turn our attention to Luke 22, beginning in verse 39.

Luke 22, 39. And he, being Jesus, came out and went as was his custom to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, Pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. The night before Jesus was crucified, he was not in a celebratory mood. And of course, knowing what was going to happen, that makes sense.

Even though his victory over death was guaranteed, and he was about to fulfill God’s plan of salvation, which had been in place since the garden, he was still about to suffer immense torture and pain. Yes, he knew he’d rise again, but that didn’t eliminate the reality of the suffering that he was going to endure. Living in a fallen world, pain is a given. And while following God will ultimately result in paradise, it does not exempt us from pain in this life. This morning, I call on all of us to express that same spirit of submission that Christ showed to God, even in the face of pain in this life, keeping in mind the heavenly perspective that we find in 2 Corinthians 4. Knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.

For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day, for this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Would you bow with me? Father in heaven, we ask that you help us endure. Even as Christ willingly gave his body to take our sin upon him.

Help us to submit to you as he did, and to remember his sacrifice, and to know that yes, there is pain, but ultimately there is victory.

Would you bow with me again? Father, as we partake of this fruit of the vine, we recall the blood that your son shed for us that cleanses us. We also recall his sweat as drops of blood as he was on the precipice of crucifixion. Lord, please help us to appreciate, to be humble, to also be in awe of that awesome sacrifice and your awesome mercy. In his name we pray. Amen.

Pray blessed to be here, to hear wonderful, unfiltered truth. And let’s never take this for granted. We’d like to welcome any visitors here today. You’re our honored guests. Please stick around after services. We’d we’d love to get to know you better. And we’d also invite you back tonight for our Bible classes starting at 5 p.m.

As far as our announcements go, we’re happy to announce Noah Nelson was baptized this week. And let’s all pray for his continued growth in the Lord and his long faithfulness in the in the way. And the next group of Bible class students are being born every day, as was announced Wednesday. Knox Bilieu was born last Tuesday, and all are doing well. And Luke’s sister Jolie Bilieu has also placed membership, so let’s welcome all our new members.

My family and I wanted to let the Decker Perry family know what a blessing you have been to us during our time of loss. The support prayers and text and calls have meant a lot, and we are grateful. Blessings to all in Christ, the Giles family. So let’s keep Ed in our prayers and see if he’s all right. That’s all I have. We’ll now be dismissed. Let’s stand together, please. One of the ways that we can reciprocate the grace that God has given to us is by being joyful about it, by singing about it, and that goes beyond these walls, but to be the kinds of people who tell the world around us of the mercies of our God.

I will see all the mercies of the Lord.

So bear with me for just a minute. There was an evangelist who has since passed away that had a spent a lot of time training young preachers.

One of the things that he used to say to the young preachers, because I’ve heard it. Preach to the need of the people. And I appreciate the three lessons, Brent, that you have presented on grace. I needed those lessons. And I think we needed those lessons. So thank you. Appreciate it. Let us pray. Most holy and righteous Father. Father, we long for the reward that you have promised if we are faithful. Father, we are happy in our soul for the blessed hope that you have provided. And the grace that you have extended to each and every one of us.

That each of us will learn and be trained by this grace that you have provided. And we can live the type of life that we should here and today, such that we can live with you, your son, and the Spirit, in the life that we look forward to. All this I pray in your Son’s name. Amen.