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Getting Things In Order To Live By The Grace Of God

Pastor Floyd's 6th sermon from the Series "Order"

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We have been talking since the month of May on “Getting Things In Order” out of the book of Titus.  Today and next Sunday we will conclude this series.  Today I want to talk to you about “Getting Things In Order to Live by the Grace of God.”  You know you really can’t have order in your life without the grace of God.  Today we’re going to talk about how to gain that order by understanding what grace is really all about.

I want to read from chapter 2 of the book of Titus, verse 11 through verse number 15.  Now if you have a pen I want to just encourage you to note a few things along the way.  “For,” the Bible says, that’s a key word, circle that word.  “The grace of God,” that’s another key phrase, “has appeared,” circle that word appeared, “bringing salvation,” obviously a key word, “for all,” all, circle, “of us.  Training us,” another key phrase, “to renounce,” key word, “ungodliness and worldly passions and,” notice this phrase, “to live.” He tells us how to live, “self-control, upright, and godly lives in this present age.”

Key word verse 13, first word, “Waiting,” waiting, “for our blessed hope,” key phrase, blessed hope, “the appearing the glory,” circle, “of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave Himself,” key phrase, “for us to redeem us.”

Now you know John Madden he uses when he’s on Monday night football or Sunday night football, whatever he’s on right now, he uses a telestrastor.  Now if I had a telestrator I would illustrate that for you.  I don’t know what telestrate means, but that’s what they call it.  So I would telestrate, illustrate, whatever striate for you.

“But to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for,” what?  “For His own possession,” and this people who are His own possession, “who are zealous,” key word, “for good works.” And then He says in verse 15, “Declare these things, exhort,” key word, “and rebuke,” another key word, “with all,” notice this, “authority.  Let no one disregard you.”

When I was a teenager I was raised as a child of the teenager in a very, very small church.  When I was a teenager I didn’t have a student pastor.  When I was a teenager I certainly did not have a student staff, and a student staff team that pastored me.  I never went to student camp.  I never had a privilege to go to student camp.  You say wow you were deprived, or y’all didn’t have them back then.  Oh they had them, but when there’s no leadership you don’t do certain things.

In fact I grew up in a bi-vocational church, meaning my pastor was bi-vocational.  Never growing up did I have a full-time pastor, that all he gave was his life to the church.  A church that ran 30 to 40 on a great day, every now and then we’d go above it.  We thought revival came, but they wouldn’t come back.  It stayed right there, and that’s what I grew up in.  But I want to tell you that church taught me some real good theology.  In fact it taught me what I remember to be referred to as the 3 phases of salvation.  They talked about that first phase of salvation, which was salvation itself.  Meaning what?  That I had been saved from the penalty of my sin.

Do you realize that when Christ died on the cross and once you embrace Christ in your life, and confess Him as Lord and Savior you are saved from the penalty of your sin?  And then they talked about another word, and that word is not only salvation, but sanctification.  That sanctification meant that I am being saved from the dominion of my sin.  In other words, no longer can sin have dominion over me, no longer can it dominate my life, because right now I am being saved from its ever, ever grip on my life.

And then also they taught me about glorification.  You said remember all that as a teenager?  I did.  Glorification, that means that I will be saved from the presence of my sin.  In other words there will come a day in time when sin will no longer influence me.  Therefore I have to understand that in eternity has no influence over me.

The Bible talks about that over in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 10.  It says, “He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us.  On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again.” Now notice these three phases of salvation in that one text.  He delivered us from such a deadly peril, that’s salvation; the penalty of my sin is wiped away.  And He will deliver us that means that right now, present tense, He will deliver me.  That’s sanctification.  And on Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us when?  Again.  That’s glorification, when Christ comes again.  These things are profitable to know as we look into the book of Titus today.

Why is that so?  Because Titus is teaching us, telling us the apostle is through Titus’, to the letter to Titus, he’s telling us the importance to live by the grace of God.  And that’s what I want to talk about today.

What happens in your life when you live by the grace of God?  What happens in your life when you understand the grace of God?  Here’s what I want you to understand this morning, we have experienced grace at salvation.  We are experiencing grace through sanctification, and we will one day experience grace in its fullest measure in what we call glorification.

You say well those are big words, and they don’t mean a lot to me.  Well they’re going to mean a lot to you before you leave today if you will listen, and you will take notes, and you will just look at the Word.  It is a powerful Word from the Lord today.  So when we begin to understand the grace of God, and to live by the grace of God, I want you to notice these three specific things will be learned here from the book of Titus.

First of all I want to tell you that we will be able to:

1.         Explain salvation. I want us to understand when we are gripped by the grace of God we will be able to explain salvation.  There are a lot of us today we don’t, we don’t witness at times; we don’t share our faith because we say we don’t know how to explain it.  Well listen, don’t make it harder than it is, because I’m going to explain it for you.  As the country preacher would say, “I’m going to splain it for you and they get ready.

In verse 11 and verse 14 we’re going to explain salvation.  We’re going to take it phrase by phrase, and we’re going to teach you the Word.  Notice the word “for.”  It’s the first word in verse 11.  Why is that a significant word?  Because what that word does it connects the previous section with this section we just read a moment ago.  Why is that important?  Because chapter 2, verse 1 he talks about how the doctrine of God has been given to us, and we need to learn to live by the doctrine in which we say we believe.

And then in verse 2 through 10 he tells us how to live it.  He tells us exactly how to live it.  Remember?  He taught us that generationally.  He talked about older men, younger men, older women, younger women.  That’s what he talked about.  When we talked about that the last time we were in the book of Titus.  Well what you have happening here is that we have now verse 11 through verse 15 being given to us a foundation, a theological, doctrinal foundation of why we can do what he said to do in verse 2 through verse 10.  So today it’s very important we grasp it.

So what he does, he connects it.  He says, “For,” then notice the first phrase, “the grace of God has appeared.”  What is grace?  Grace is Jesus Christ.  There’s no better definition than Jesus Christ Himself.  Grace is Jesus Christ, the Son of God has appeared.  We have to understand the darkness of time, the darkness of the moment, but what did the Scripture say?  That in the fullness of time Christ came.  It was at the proper time, the right time, and that darkness was penetrated by the light of Jesus Christ.  That is why Jesus said I am the light of the world.

So the grace of God appeared and all of a sudden aid came to us.  We were desperate in need.  We were on a sinking ship.  We were sinking in the depths of the ocean of our sin!  But Jesus appeared, and the Scripture tells us in John 1, verse 14, “And the word, the word Jesus became flesh.” God became flesh, “and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory,” that word glory is presence.  We have seen His presence.  We have seen God full in His presence.  “Glory as of the only Son from the Father,” and notice what it says, He was full of two things, “grace and truth.” And that’s what we need to be full of, grace and truth.

And I want you to grasp this today because this is very powerful.  When we live in the world we’re to personify Jesus, it doesn’t matter what the situation a person’s in, they can be as far from God as we are from Rio DeJanerio today, but I want to tell you today, you listen very carefully, we operate by grace and truth.  And we extend to them grace and truth.  It doesn’t matter how far it is, you cannot separate grace from truth, and you can’t separate truth from grace.  He is grace and truth!

And the Bible tells us He is about bringing salvation.  Look at verse 11.  Bringing salvation for all people.  Do you realize today Jesus didn’t come to clean the world up; Jesus came to save the world from sin?  Jesus came to save the world from sin!  He talked about it over in chapter 19, verse 10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” That’s what we were, we were lost!  We were lost and hopeless, sinking in the oceans of sin!  But then all of a sudden the Son of God appeared bringing salvation for all people.  Do you know what?  He hunted me down.  I could not be saved apart from Him hunting me down.  He hunted me down and when I surrendered and I confessed Him, then all of a sudden I became a person that was not only sought after by the Savior, but I was saved by the Savior.  Saved from what?  Saved from the penalty of my sin!  Saved the moment I started being delivered from the dominion of my sin!  And one day when I go to be with Christ, I will be saved ultimately from the influence of sin in my life.

Who has He done that for?  Look at verse 11. He has done it for all people.  That gives to us what I would call the universal scope of the gospel, the universal scope of salvation.  Jesus didn’t die for a few, Jesus died for the entire world.  He died for all of the world.  We have got to get that church!  We have got to stop trying to categorize people and categorize groupings of people, and categorizing their lifestyles.  It doesn’t matter what their lifestyle is, the Gospel is powerful enough to change them from their lifestyle!  It’s powerful enough to change them internally that will eventually bring external change in their life as well.

Then if you will leap down to verse 14 he begins to explain salvation to us in detail.  And I’m telling you now what a great learning it is here, so listen up and learn this morning.  What does it say about this salvation that we’re able to explain?  Notice the phrase, “who gave Himself for us.”  That’s talking about Jesus.  Jesus gave Himself for us.  Do you know what that calls, that is called the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.  Jesus saw my desperate condition; Jesus knew I could not be saved myself.  He knew that I could not be saved in of myself, and He came and He took my place.  He come and He paid the price for my sin.  Why did He pay the price for my sin?

Notice what it goes on to say, “to redeem us from all lawlessness.”  Here we are held captive by sin, and listen, held by captive by Satan.  Here we are sons of darkness, sons of disobedience the Scripture says, but then Jesus died, and then the moment we embrace Christ He paid for our sin, He paid the ransom for our sin, He paid the ultimate price to be able to set us free from our sin, and listen to this, to set us free from the power of Satan.  He became the ransom payment for my sin.

Why else did He do it?  Notice what the Bible says, “And to purify for Himself,” that means that He’s going to wash us clean.  He’s going to cleanse us to be clean.  We find here a reference to the blood of Jesus Christ.  The Greek word here is the word “katharizo,” meaning, “to purify, to cleanse.”  I want us to understand today we don’t ever need to be ashamed singing about the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ.  Had you not been washed in the blood of the Lamb, you would not have ever been saved in your sin.  Had He not given the atonement, offering to satisfy the holiness of God that had been violated by the sinfulness of man, there would be no opportunity, there would be no chance for since, but He became the once and for all sacrifice for our sins.

Why is that?  So that, look at the Bible, so that we can be a people for His own possession.  In other words we were already special because we were His creation, but we became even more special when we embraced Christ in life.  Because once you have Christ, you become very, very special in your life.  We are His, and we belong to Him.  And we are His possession.  And by the way, who is this we regarding?  It’s regarding the church of Jesus Christ!  I want us to understand we are special people of God.  We are the church of Jesus Christ, redeemed and washed by the blood of the Lamb, set free from the power of sin, and when He comes back, do you know He’s coming back for?  He’s coming back for His church.  Not buildings, not properties, not campuses, but lives that have been changed by the grace of God, lives that have been transformed by the Spirit of God, and lives that are preparing to one day look like Jesus.

I want us to understand today we are special to God, and if the church, listen church, if the church is special to Jesus, it should be very special to us!  No one ought to love His church more than we love the church!  No one!  And then we will become zealous for good works, the Bible says.  That means when we begin to understand salvation, we’ll be so fired up by the grace that we’ve experienced we want to do good.  We want to treat people right.  We want to be the people of God that He wants us to be.

This leads me to ask a question, a very important question.  Why is doctrine important?  You know what I’ve taught you over these last few moments is just pure good doctrine of the salvation that we have in Christ.  But why is doctrine important?  I’ve talked about this a little in this series, but I want to give you another reason today.  Because to the level you understand, you will be able to live.  If you don’t understand the grace of God that took place in your life, you’ll never live by the grace of God in your life.  If you don’t, if you don’t grow yourself spiritually, and get off of the bottle, and grow yourself with the meat of the Word of God, you will never develop, and you will never be able to live the way God wants you to live!  Growth in the Christian life comes in a lot of ways, but I want to remind us all today we are accountable for our own growth!  We’ve got to make ourselves available in the local church whereby we can hear the Word of God proclaimed!  We’ve got to be involved in a small group whereby again the Word of God is proclaimed.  We have to have a time with God everyday, whereby the Word of God comes to saturate my life, and to, and to, and to really move in my life, and to make me more what God wants me to be.

Now what I want to do today, I don’t leave verse 11 and 14 yet, but I want to take you even deeper in understanding today giving you an ability to understand salvation.  Now listen to what we’re going to do.  We’re going to make a statement, and then we’re going to go right to the Word, and you’re going to be able to see it maybe life you’ve never been able to see it before because those two verses teach us the following.  It teaches us about the incarnation of Jesus Christ, that’s number 1.

(1)       It teaches us about the incarnation of Jesus Christ.  What is the incarnation of Jesus Christ?  Look at this, the grace of God has appeared, right out of verse 11.  The incarnation of Jesus Christ means God came to be in flesh.  Remember the time was dark, the needs were great, sin was winning, but then Jesus appeared!  And the light pierced the darkness.

And then we see not only the incarnation of Jesus, but the:

(2) Commission of Jesus Christ.  You mean the Great Commission?

Yes I mean the Great Commission.  Right out of this verse, absolutely!  How is that?  Bringing salvation for all people.  I want to remind us all today God has called us to bring salvation for all the people.  He’s called us to do whatever we can do to make disciples of all the nations.  We don’t ever need to get comfortable thinking we have arrived.  We have mandated by the holy Son of God, energized by the Spirit of God to take the Gospel of Jesus to the nations of the world, including the nations that are located right here in Northwest Arkansas.  Every people group penetrated, bringing them salvation and hope for all people.

We see thirdly the:

(3)       Substitution of Jesus Christ who gave Himself for us. That’s what He did!  Here I am in need, and He came out of heaven to save me!  Oh listen we might rejoice one day if somebody shows up in an early morning and says hey I’m going to work for you today.  Go home and take the day.  You look bad.  Go enjoy yourself.  You look ragged out.  I mean you need a break buddy.  And all of a sudden we’d be thanking God for this guy or girl that stepped into our place and helped us on that particular day.  But listen that is miniscule compared to the Son of God leaving the portals of glory and literally coming to die on the cross for you and He substituted in your place.  You deserved to die!  You deserved to go to hell!  But Jesus substituted Himself for your sin and my sin so that we can be saved.   The substitution of Jesus Christ.

And then fourthly:

(4)       The redemption of Jesus Christ is seen here.  The redemption, to redeem us from all lawlessness.  That word redeem means to buy back.  It means to be pardoned.  It means that you have made the ransom payment.  Let’s say for example that someone today kidnapped my wife, and they took my wife away.  A phone call was made, listen if you don’t come up with x number of dollars, I’m going to kill your wife, and what is that person asking for?  They are asking for a ransom payment.  They are in, they have her captive.  They have her kidnapped.  Her life is in their hands, or at least they think it does.  Therefore, they say we need this from you.  God forbid that that would ever happen, but I want to tell you that happened already eternally speaking!  You were under the captivity of the enemy.  You were destined for hell, and despair all of your life living life completely purposeless, but I want to tell you when He invaded heaven, and He invaded this earth, He came to die for you!  He substituted you!  He made the ransom payment because the holiness of God had been violated by the sinfulness of man, and it was only who was worthy, only one who was worthy, and it was Jesus Himself who paid that price!  Substituted and redeemed.

And then:

(5)       A possession of Jesus Christ for the purpose to purify for Himself a people for His own possession.  Oh my friend listen today, you are possessed by Jesus Christ all because He purified you at the cross.  He purified you at salvation.  He is doing that still in your life.  He is constantly, continually purifying you to be what God wants you to be.

And then:

(6)       The protection of Jesus Christ.  Listen to what He says, a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.  Do you know what’s interesting?  This passage, and you’ll hardly ever hear it treated like this, but this passage teaches us about the eternal security of the believer.  You say how so pastor?  Because what Jesus possesses Jesus cannot lose.  Amen?  Jesus does not loose what He changes.  Jesus does not loose what He has in His hand.  Jesus doesn’t loose you!  He, in fact, when you grab a hold that you are special and you’re possessed by Him, and He’s never going to abandon you, or leave you.  I’m telling you today that’ll fire you up to give your life to doing good works.

Listen on this Father’s Day your daddy may have abandoned you, but I’m telling you Jesus doesn’t abandon you!  You may not feel like you’re special to your family because you’ve been hurt, neglected, living in despair, walked away from by a mom and/or a dad, but I’m telling you today if you’re saved by the grace of God, you are a prized possession of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and I’m telling you with Him you are everything.  And if you feel like everybody else has walked out of your life, and you don’t feel like God has ever walked into your life, then today you need to let the living Savior Jesus Christ come and wash your sins away, and invade your life, influence your life, and change you forever.  I’m telling you today that’s the salvation that we should be able to explain.  [APPLAUSE] You say oh I don’t know if I could ever explain it like that.  I gave you enough that I’m telling you it’s 6 bullets in your gun baby, fire one of them, and you’ll absolutely amaze the rest of the world!  Fire them all and you’ll bring them to Christ!  You give what you can, you give what you know, and you tell them your story about how your life was changed by the grace of God.  And you’ll get their attention just like that.

But it doesn’t stop there.  I mean this is incredible passage.  It talks about how we will:

2.         Experience transformation.  That’s right we will experience transformation.  He uses in verse 12, he talks about how he is training us to…that phrase training us to means that he is disciplining us.  He is teaching us.  He is graciously training us.  If you may, listen to this, he is disciplining us continually.  His discipleship never stops.  Sometime we think that we have to be discipled by somebody else, and I’m telling you we need to make disciples, and we need to be discipled, and we need to be about making disciples.

But I want to elevate today the One who can teach you more than a man can ever teach you.  Let me give you a great word today.  Listen to me, once you’re saved the Spirit of God comes to live within you.  Jesus is in your life.  And He is, the moment He comes in He begins mentoring you, discipling you to be what God wants you to be, and He transforms you, listen, from the inside out.  And church sometime we’re hard, we’re mean, we’re callous to people once they come to Christ.  And we say well you need to do this, you need to stop doing that, and if you’re really saved you’ll do this.  Some of you are doing things you were doing 40 years ago.  Don’t be critical of them!  We need to understand discipleship is a process; the Spirit of God is a process.  And what you have here is exactly what is taught in the Bible.

And let me say what the Spirit does.  Let me tell you what Jesus does in you.  He disciples us on:

(1)       What not to do.  That’s right.  That’s what He tells us right here in the text.  He disciples us about what not to do.  Let me illustrate.  Look at the renounce.  Do you know what the word renounce means?  I know I’m going fast, you’ve got to listen faster, but renounce means to deny.  It means to say no to.  In other words Jesus is telling you that when He is discipling you in the Word, He’s going to tell you to say no to a few things.  We always want to talk about how we need to say yes, and yes is important, but also saying no is important.

No to what?  He uses two things here.  He said we need to learn how to say no to ungodliness.  Do you know what ungodliness is?  Ungodliness is doing things that God Himself would not do.  Did you hear me church?  Are you with me?  Can I get a grunt?  Can I get a shout?  Can I get an Amen?  Can I get a laugh?  Can I get a boo button?  Give me something man!  I mean listen He’s going to teach you about what to say no to!  And part of ungodliness is doing things God Himself would not do!

Do you know the little cliché in our day is really an inappropriate cliché?  It’s on bands.  It’s on certain things that you see, but what would Jesus do?  Don’t mean to be trite, but it’s really true, because listen it comes down to ungodliness is doing something in your life that God Himself would not do.

Then He says we need to say no to worldly systems.  Worldly passions.  What are worldly passions?  Worldly passions would be saying no to the systems of this world.  Saying no to the value systems of this world.  I want to remind all of you today you’re not bound to the systems of this culture, and the systems of this world.  You have been called to a higher calling, and that higher calling is the value system of the Word of God and the Son of God, led by the Spirit of God.  And you’re called to a higher level.  You don’t have to bend.  You don’t have to bow.  You don’t have to budge to the systems of this world.

Teenagers listen to me today.  If you don’t learn to neglect the systems of this world, this system will break you.  It will destroy you.  It will absolutely make your family not what it ought to be, and will not make you what God wants you to be.  You see, have seen the last two weeks the distorted mentality of the American culture represented on live television, not once but again and again and again of a congressman from the wonderful state of New York, and you see it.  And he talks about thanking his parents for the value systems they taught him!  Value systems?  Value systems?  Lord help me Rhonda!  I’m telling you now we’ve got problems!  Problems!  But what not to do!

And then God’s Spirit disciples us not only about what not to do, but:

(2)       What to do. Let’s talk about that.  He talks about what we need to do.  He said to live self-controlled.  Isn’t it amazing that in chapter 2 he’s already talked about self-control a couple of times, now he’s bringing it back.  What does it mean self-controlled?  Does that means you’re a control freak?  No.  That’s not what it means, but to be self-controlled means that your life and your emotions are under the control of the Holy Spirit of God.  That’s what it means.  To be under the control of the Holy Spirit of God.

But also he talks about the important of living upright.  What to do?  Be upright.  Do you know what it means to be upright?  Making pure choices.  Making holy choices.  Making righteous choices.  Living rightly like God would.  In other words, remember?  Ungodliness is, is would be doing things that God Himself would not do, but we find here uprightness would be doing things that God Himself would do.

And then godly lives in this present age.  Do you know what that means?  God wants us to live in a way that represent Him in this culture, where are lives, our choices, would not be our own, but they would be choices and lives of the gospel.  The choices and lives that would bring honor and truth and justice and glory to the Lord Jesus Himself.

A couple of simple statements about living by the grace of God.  Let me give it to you briefly.  Do you realize that living by the grace of God produces a transformation within and through your life?  I mean that’s what it is.  When you live by the grace of God that grace is mentoring you, disciplining, discipling you constantly.  And do you know where He starts?  He doesn’t start on the outside, He starts on the inside.  It’s about my walk with Him, my devotion to Him, my commitment to Him, and when I’m being discipled by Him, and I’m learning from Him, it’s going to sooner or later penetrate my flesh, my will, my mind, my emotion, and all of a sudden the outside starts looking different.

Do you know what we call that?  Transformation.  Aren’t you glad today that the grace of God has the power to transform you!  I mean some of you think about how sorry you used to be when you came to Jesus, and where you are today, it’s amazing what?  Transformation!  Isn’t that right?  Wow!  Theologically do you know what we call that?  We call that sanctification.  That means not only have I been saved, but I’m telling you right now I’m being saved from the presence of sin in my life!

And then notice another thought here today, do you realize that true discipleship and true worship produces personal transformation?  I mean we want to talk about being discipled, how are you different than what you were than when you began?  We want to talk about true worship?  Don’t be talking about true worship relating to styles and preferences, I mean give me a break!  Grow up!  It’s about substance!  You have, you have been so, you have so encountered the living Christ through your worship of God, I mean man it, it changes your life!  It’s a transforming experience!

We experience transformation.  Another way you could say that, not trying to be redundant, but trying to help you get it, get your arms around it today.  The grace of God reforms you.  Reforms you.  You know someone goes in a prison system and they would hope they would be reformed.  Well, what that means is they’ll stop doing external acts that, that that got them there in the first play.  And hopefully and prayerfully that happens.  But I want to tell you there’s no reformer like Jesus Christ.  He reforms you from the inside out.  I didn’t see He’d give you a reform theology, by the way.  I said that He would reform you.  Can I get an amen.

Now we’re going on.  So notice what happens.  We should be able to explain salvation, experience transformation, and then I want you to notice this last thing.  And what a powerful thing it is.  We will be able to:

1. 3. Expect the Revelation.  Expect the Revelation.  Look at verse number

14.  Or excuse me, 13. He talks about in verse 13 what to look for, what to wait for.  He uses that word “waiting,” waiting.  While we are waiting and expecting.  While we are looking for it, and eagerly waiting for.  What are eagerly waiting for?  Look at what he says, our blessed hope!  Our blessed hope is not the American economy, does not got into a double recession.  The blessed hope is not that your kids turn out.  Your blessed hope is not that you keep your job, it’s not that even your marriage works, or kids end up living for God!  That’s not your blessed hope!  Your blessed hope that you’re eagerly awaiting is the coming, the Revelation of Jesus Christ Himself to this world!  That is the blessed hope!  Jesus and His return one day is your blessed hope!  And by the way, if you haven’t gotten it yet, it’s Jesus who is the Revelation.  When you look at the last book of the New Testament, it’s called the Revelation, it’s not called Revelations, plural, stop saying that.  Don’t say that!  Don’t say that!  Don’t say that!  It is the Revelation.  The Revelation of what?  The Revelation of Jesus Christ!  It’s not the revelation of John; it’s the Revelation of Jesus Christ that God gave to John to give to us!  It’s the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

And that is what we are eagerly expecting.  In fact he talks about it being the

appearing of the glory, referring one more time to the glory, the presence of God, the second appearing of the glory of God.  The second appearing is the glory of Jesus Christ, and notice what it says, of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, referring to what?  The Almighty power, referring to the deity of Jesus Christ fully God, referring to Him being fully man, referring to Him being the all powerful in everything and everyone.  I’m telling you today if you haven’t got it, you need to get it!  We are eagerly awaiting the coming of the blessed hope, the Revelation of Jesus Christ.  He came once to save, He’s coming the second time to take!  He’s going to take His people home with Him.  He’s going to take it.  He’s not only going to take it, He’s going to destroy all enemies against Him.  I’m telling you it’s serious, serious business.  He is the beginning.  He is the end.  He existed before creation ever began.  He will exist the existence of the world concludes.  He is the A and the Z.  He is the One who is, who was, and who is to come.  And that’s who we are awaiting in this very day.

You know a woman who has a child is what we regard as being pregnant.  Now I don’t know anything about being pregnant personally, and I should get an Amen on that, but, but a woman who is pregnant has a child.  And I’ve been around a lot of ladies that are in those final moments, those final, that final uh trimester, that final three months, two months, and those days count down like they last forever, and, and boy I’m just, what do they say?  I’m just ready to have this baby.  I’m so excited about seeing what this child’s going to look like.  I’m eagerly expecting.  That’s what she’s saying!  I’m eagerly expecting what this child’s going to look like, and I’m eagerly expecting being delivered from the way I feel right now!

Folks, listen to me today, this passage teaches us that we need to be pregnant with the coming of the blessed hope!  That we are like a pregnant woman who is eagerly awaiting what her child looks like!  We need to be eagerly awaiting the Savior looks like!  And we need to be eagerly awaiting to be delivered from the present day in which we live!  Interestingly the older you get the more trials you face, life has a way to wear on you.  You get tired.  You get discouraged.  You get disappointed.  You get hurt.  You get abandoned.  You get lied about.  You get ridiculed.  You go through illness physically; sometimes you go through illness mentally and emotionally.  And when you are at your moment of halfway decent sanity, you come to a point in life when you just okay, come on, fine with me now.  Come on Lord.  I’ve had all I want, all I can take, let’s end this bad boy right now.  Let’s go.

Now, you don’t find a lot of engaged men wishing that.  You don’t find a lot of younger people wishing that, hoping that.  But I’m telling you your life will come to a point where you are fine if He so chooses to come today.  The scoffers may say it is not real and He will not come.  But I say unto you He will come.  In the Revelation it talks about the rapid succession of the coming of the Lord, how events are going to just become so successive one after the other, and the other, and it talks about that repenting.  How they speed up, do you not think this world is almost out of control?  But may I remind you He’s the One who spins the globe on His finger?  He’s the One who breathed it into existence out of nothing.  And I want to share with you today my friend it is through Christ and Him alone that He is able to change everything about this world.  He is able to bring it to conclusion.  And He’s able to change even the most despondent person, and what’s going on in their life today.

Why?  The grace of God.  It’s able to make me, and help me explain and understand my salvation.  It helps me to experience that transformation, but it also helps me to expect the Revelation.  It’s just like Jamie and Joanna sang a moment ago, it’s wider, it’s deeper, it’s more than we can even imagine, and that grace has so much power it amazes us of what it has and can occur because of that grace of God.

The other day I read a story and with this story I conclude.  The great evangelist by the name of John Wesley was one day asked by a young man this question, “Mr. Wesley, if you were to die tomorrow how would you live today?”  Mr. Wesley with all confidence said, “I would live just like I had planned.”  The young man not to be defiant, but just asked the question, “how so?”  And Mr. Wesley responded, “I live my life with a desire to bring glory to God, and I live my life continually attempting to be in the will of God.  So young man, don’t mean to be rude, but I’m going to live the will of God.  See you later.”

Wow.  Are you that confident?  That if you were to die tomorrow that you could live this day just like it was every other day in your life, live it by the will of God, live it to bring glory to God.  I mean, are you?  I mean what if the Lord were to come tomorrow, and you knew the Lord was going to come tomorrow, what would, would, would you do it?  Oh I’m telling you the Lord is going to come.  In fact from the 2^nd week in July through the first week of August, we’re going to talk about that very subject, how the Lord could come.  We’re going to be talking about last things.  We’re going to be talking about eskcotology.  And I want you to understand today He is coming again.  And that should impact your life.  I’m reminded of that verse over in 1 John chapter 2, I believe it’s verse 28, where it talks about how we need to be so ready for the Lord’s coming that we will not be ashamed at His appearing.

Are you living to a point where you know you wouldn’t be ashamed if He were to come today?  I hope today that if you have never confessed Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you’ve never embraced Him as your salvation, that you will do that today.

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