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Getting Things In Order With God
Pastor Floyd's first sermon from his new series "Order."
$6.00 — $12.00
In the months of May and June we are going to look at an in depth study of the book of Titus. And the message series is entitled “Getting Things In Order.” As you look toward finding the New Testament book of Titus, you will find it to the far right of the New Testament, right after 2 Timothy, which follow 1 Timothy, and then right before the book of Philemon.
The Apostle Paul won Titus to faith in Jesus Christ. We know that he mentions Titus’ name 13 times in his writings of the New Testament, which indicates that he and Titus must have had a pretty tight relationship. We believe that it was around 65 AD when Paul wrote this epistle, this letter to Titus. We believe that it was written just before 2 Timothy was written, which was Paul’s last book before Paul was beheaded because of his faith in Jesus that took place around 67 AD.
In Titus chapter 1, verse number 5, at the first part of the verse we read the purpose statement of the book. Paul told Titus, “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order.” This is why we have called the series “Getting Things In Order.”
The Greek word here for order is the word “epe-dee-or-thow-say,” a long word. And this word means, “to set in order,” but even more so than setting in order, it means to “set something straight thoroughly.” Let me illustrate: let’s say that you broke your arm, epe-dee-or-thow-say is a medical term, and you went to the doctor and he said I’m going to have to set your arm. Do you prefer that he just sets your arm? Or do you prefer that he sets it straight thoroughly? I believe you’d prefer the latter, that you want him to set it straight thoroughly. That is dimension of the word Paul uses here, and he tells Titus I want you to go to Crete and I want you to set everything in order thoroughly.
Now in order to really understand the book you’ve got to grasp the context of the book. God had used Paul on the island of Crete in a major way. Many people had already come to faith in Jesus Christ, but they were not yet organized into local churches, therefore, Paul was sending and authorizing Titus to go and to set things right that were lacking, or to get things in order thoroughly.
The book of Titus, in that book, that letter Paul gave him some priorities. These are going to rise around through this series over the next several weeks together. He told him to appoint leadership to serve these churches. If you want to know how to really give things in order quickly, it starts with leadership.
And then he told them to expose false teaching and to expel the false teachers. He also told them to challenge the people to live a life that is worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he also told Titus; you lead them to do good works in the community.
The text for today is Titus chapter 1, verse 1 through verse 4, and I’m going to read it from the English Standard Version. “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness; in hope of eternal life which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began. And at the proper time manifested in His word, through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior.” Verse 4, “To Titus,” notice the letter he’s written. He’s writing a letter. “To Titus, my true child,” he’d won him to Christ, “in common faith, grace and peace from God the Father, and Christ Jesus our Savior.”
A few weeks ago at the athletic club that I work out at regularly through the week, I misinterpreted a workout that my trainer had given me to do. In the winter months we really train heavy on lifting heavy weights. And now that spring was coming, a few weeks ago we began to transition that workout and leave where we were, and he was leading me to transition into the only thing that we call it is a rapid-fire, high cardio, boot camp type of workout. I work out about 6 days a week, and, and uh, with this trainer I work out a couple of days a week, but this specific plan had me working out 4 days specifically in this high cardio, rapid-fire boot camp type of workout.
I worked out with him on Monday and Tuesday, and it was our initial week in doing this, and, and I understood because he lead me to understand. And then he gave to me the workouts written down for Thursday and then Friday. Sadly I misinterpreted Thursday’s workout. Have you ever misinterpreted something? Now that I know what he wanted, it’s clear. My trainer is very clear. He’s quite demonstrative as a man, and with that my workout was to be three-fold, three different sections. Section 1: high cardio. Ride one mile at level 10, level 10’s a lot. And then here’s what I am to do 3 times in a row as fast as I can do it. 15 box jumps. Box jumps are 12 to 18 inches high, flat footed, jump on top, jump back off. Up, up, up, fast as you can. 15 back extensions, which will make you, want to throw up. 20 push ups, 15 kettle swings, kettle ball swings at 20 pounds, and then 20 dips, of which I would show you today.
But 3 times as fast as you can go. Now you’re in trouble by the time you get to the third round. Like you really want to recommit your life to go to Africa or whatever you needed to do just for it to quit. And then you stop and you slow down, and you go through about 4 very strenuous weight exercises of which you do 2 or 3 times, depending on the prescription for the day. And by this time you’re probably 30, 35 minutes in your workout. Your workout should last about, somewhere between 52 and 60 minutes, something like that, more like 55, but not, maybe 45 if you’re really getting with it.
And uh, so then I come to section 3, and here’s where I made the mistake. I get back on the bike and ride it at level 10 for another mile, and here’s where the real error started. He said I want you to do 15 pull downs. That means pull downs at 90 pounds a piece, long thing you pull down weights 15 times as fast you can, with as good as precision as you can. And then it said down and up twice. Now down and up twice I misinterpreted. What he meant was that he wants me to go immediately to the stairwell and run up and down the stairs as fast as I can 2 times and then go to the next exercise. Here’s what I understood: I understood he wanted me to do 15 pull downs at 90 pounds, and then do 15 up and downs. I haven’t done up and downs since high school football. Up and downs is when you literally drop yourself from standing straight on your gut, and chest, it’s supposed to be your chest, but you know when you get my age you’ve got a little bit in the way, and, and then you get back up 15 times.
And then it said 2 times so I thought that meant I go back and do 15 pull downs at 90 pounds and then down and up 2 times. Long story short, I mean it would take too long to tell, but I’m telling you when it was all said and done, I did at least twice of what I was supposed to do, and I did 150 up and downs, and my knees were literally bleeding when I left the athletic club. I can’t imagine what all those people that were probably looking around and thought. They probably thought, “What is that guy doing?” I mean I had sweat slinging, snot slinging everywhere in the world. The good news is, is that I burned 783 calories. The bad news is I almost killed myself doing it!
So all of you football coaches, you just tell them man my pastor can do 150 up and downs, and he lived to tell about it. But you know what, I paid for days for misinterpreting that workout. I could barely walk. I could barely get out of bed. And I paid for it physically.
I was telling my son Josh who is a football coach about it, and he said dad you better be careful, you’re going to hurt yourself. I wanted to say come on down and do it with me big boy. But you know sometime we do a very similar thing with God. We misinterpret God, we misinterpret the Gospel, and then we wonder why our lives aren’t what they need to be.
What we learn here in the book of Titus is that God is telling us how to interpret God, how to interpret the Gospel, and when you get that down you’re able to understand how to interpret yourself, and you understand yourself completely. So what we learn here in Titus 1 through 4, it answers a question for us. What is it going to take for us to begin getting things in order with God? Because that’s what I want to talk about today is “Getting Things In Order With God.”
First of all it involves:
1. Understanding God correctly. We learn this truth over in verse 2 and verse 3. I am going to come back to verse 1, but I want to go to the heart of verse 2 and verse 3 in just a moment. But do you realize today that you cannot really understand who you are and what you’re made to be until you understand God completely. And there is major misinterpretation everywhere in the world today about who God is, and what God’s about.
Some of us, we imagine God to be kind of like a puppet to us, that He’s there to answer every beckon call that we give. Some of us we imagine that God is this mean old man in heaven ready to pounce on us the moment we get out of order. And we’ve got all kind of misconstrued, you know, and you know we even imagine God’s our buddy, you know. No, He’s not your buddy. He’s God. So you know you’ve got to understand now what God is saying. So you’ve got to look at the Word. So what do we need, and how do we need to interpret God correctly?
Well first of all we need to understand that:
Fact #1: God never lies. What I’m going to do is that I’m going to simplify for the communication’s sake. I want to give you four facts about God. It’s not like Paul told Timothy now Timothy you get down your pad and I’m about to give you four facts. But I want to break it like that because I want you to get it today. And fact #1 is God never lies.
He talks about that in verse number 2. Look and see what he says, “In hope and eternal life which God who never lies promised before the ages began.” When we read the words “God who never lies,” that is a testimony to the character of God. God is true. God is absolute truth. God is a source of all truth. Do you agree? You see when you have truth in your character through and through like God does, it’s impossible for God to lie. God does not lie.
Now we live in a day and time when people lie all the time, and if they don’t boldface categorically lie to you, they give shades of the truth. Masters, we know call them spin masters. And they have the ability to spin truth to make us thinks it’s truth, but in reality it’s not true through and through. You want to know one thing about God you can count on? God never lies!
Fact #2: About God: God is always in charge. Notice what the Scripture says in verse number 2. “In hope with this eternal life, which God who never lies,” how long has He promised it? He promised it, “before the ages began.” What did He promise before the ages began? Eternal life.
Eternal life is resting upon a God who never lies, and a God who is, who was, and who is to come. A God who is not a liar, and a God who is timeless and eternal. Now I want you to listen carefully. God is timeless. God is eternal. What this is saying to us is that before the watch was ever created, before the calendar of man ever occurred, he says before the ages ever began, and the word here is chronos in the Greek language that is used at this time, and is saying before time began to be kept, God had promised eternal life, and He is a God who never lies.
So we know that God is always in charge. He’s been in charge long before the ages began. Somebody didn’t invent God. Y’all understand that choir? Do you understand that? I mean it’s not like somebody had a good idea oh I think I’m going to invent God. God’s always been. God is who is, who was, and who is to come.
Fact #3: is that God gives special moments in time. Notice what the Scripture says: A God who never lies, who promised before the ages began, remember? Eternal and timeless, and at the proper time manifested in His Word. At the proper time. What does that mean? That means that God gives special moments in time. At the opportune time God does that. He gives special moments in time.
Do you remember in the Scripture when it says in the fullness of time? In the fullness of time? That means at the proper time. Now what you find here is a transition that occurs. Now I want you to once again follow me. Verse 2 before chronos begins, time began, He was. And then all of a sudden yet in His eternal scheme of life, kairos kicks in, a new word is used for time in verse 3, and that means kairoi, what the word is here literally, and it means a special time as been created when God has manifested Himself to mankind. And that’s at the coming of Jesus, the uncarnation of Jesus, which leads to the truth of the gospel.
So we know that according to the text God is always in charge, but God also gives special moments in time. And then I want you to notice a:
Fact #4: here about God. God calls men to preach the Word of God. Well we need to understand that. He calls men to preach the Word of God. Notice what He says here. And at the proper time manifested in His Word, through the preaching, the heralding, the announcing, which I have been entrusted Paul said. Paul said I have been entrusted with preaching by the command of God our Savior, the command of God our Savior. In other words, Paul was saying I, I am coming and I am encouraging you to come because God has called you for this moment and this segment of time to release to the world Titus there in Crete that Jesus died for the sins of the entire world.
He reveals through His Word being preached, and Paul says we preach at the command of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Now I want us to understand the importance of that. The Word and preaching are co-existent. That’s what we learn in this passage. There is no preaching apart from the Word. There may be a lot of harping, but there’s no preaching. We are church that preaches and teaches the Scripture. And you know today the cool term that everybody wants to use is that he’s a teacher. Well, I know you can be a teacher, but I don’t want to disclaim God says He calls us to be preachers. Preachers declare us heralds of the truth of God! Which is different, and so with all of that what we also understand is that God calls them.
Preachers serve at the command of God. They don’t, they don’t decide well you know I think I’m going to go into ministry; I can’t do anything else. No, they serve at the command of God. You know even as a young boy at 16 years of age I was destined to be a high school football coach, and I want to go one other step, or to be the coach at the University of Texas, may God show His grace upon me, or the Dallas Cowboys, and may one day they win again. [LAUGHTER] With all of that, that’s where my destiny was. That’s what I really believed.
I grew up 90 miles in the shadow of the orange and the white, and now I am minutes from the red and white! You have to understand I was destined. I wanted that, but I’m telling you God stopped me in my tracks and He said NO! You are to preach the Word. If we do not understand God correctly, we will never get ourselves together. And in order to understand God correctly, we’ve got to understand God never lies. God has always been in charge. God gives us special moments in time, and God calls men to preach the gospel, to preach the Word, and through those men, we can learn, we can grow, we can be better in our Christianity. How important is that? Because in verse 5 through 9 of Titus, which I will not read today, he talks about the characteristics of those that serve in the church. Understanding God correctly.
2. Understanding the Gospel clearly. Verse 1 and verse 2 talks about the importance of understanding the Gospel clearly. Now this was a real problem in these Christ-followers in Crete. They were not understanding the Gospel clearly. They were misunderstanding the true Gospel, and how true that is today in our world, even the church at it’s best in today’s world and times struggles in understanding the Gospel clearly. We try to make the Gospel something that it’s not. We try to; we try to make it something that we want it to be rather than something that it really is.
What is the Gospel? The Gospel is God’s Truth. We need to understand that today. The Gospel is God’s Truth. What is the Gospel? Notice what it says here. They came to their knowledge of the truth. What is that in reference to? To their knowledge of the Gospel, in their knowledge intellectually, and in their knowledge experientially. You cannot believe in what you do not know, and you cannot do what you do not know clearly.
And one of the reasons we struggle in living out the Gospel is that we do not know what we believe and what we should know about the Gospel. And we don’t know it clearly. So today what I want to do is I want to take you on Christianity 101. And this is a great revisitation for every one of us to revisit. What is the Gospel? What is the Gospel?
Paul says in Corinthians here is the Gospel: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day. That’s the Gospel. Now let’s break that down a little bit more. Christ died for our sins. That happened at Calvary’s cross, and that forgiveness of sin is literally given to all of the world who receives. After Christ died that day, He was buried. I believe that He descended into the deep and He did major warfare with the underworld. And He came out as Victor. On Friday He covered the sins of the world, victory over sin. Saturday, victory over hell. Sunday, when He was raised from the dead, victory over death, which literally consummated His victory already declared at the cross, and over hell, and even over death itself.
If we believe in that Gospel, the Bible says we have eternal life. But if we choose not to believe in that Gospel, the Bible says we condemn ourselves to an eternity without God in a place called hell. So believing Him results in eternal life. If we do not believe in Him, it results in eternal death. That’s Christianity 101. It is the God’s Truth.
Now there are many ideologies in our world today. I mean you take the ideology of the former Osama Bin Laden, and all that he has literally intoxicated his followers with over the decades of what we know today to be Al Qaida globally. Al Qaida views it as truth. Al Qaida views the belief system and the ideology of a man like Osama Bin Laden as the only choice. However what they have shared and what they share and what they do not have is that they do not have the truth because why? Because only God is the One who gives truth. And only the Gospel is God’s Truth, nothing else. Nothing else is the truth of God. Nothing! It’s only the Gospel. So the Gospel is God’s Truth.
Now I just want to say this to you and I say it to us to encourage today we all need to believe that. Because you see when we believe that, here’s something else about the Gospel, Gospel belief leads to a godly lifestyle. Gospel belief leads to a godly lifestyle. Look at the Scripture here in verse 1. When they come to the knowledge of the truth, notice, the knowledge of the Gospel, they receive the Gospel, and then it says these words, which accords to godliness. In other words, my godliness is commiserate with my understanding of the Gospel. Are you with me church? So therefore if I really believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it leads me to leading a godly lifestyle.
In other words, I have to live the Gospel that I say I believe. Evidently in Crete there were people who professed Jesus but weren’t living like Him. You think that reminds of us anything in our world today? Kind of like the church today? Their lives did not reflect it, but notice what Paul tells Titus. Paul tells Titus genuine belief in the Gospel results in a godly lifestyle.
Oh I tell you what now, we need to connect there. You say well pastor, so people that say they get saved uh, and they don’t life godly, are you telling me that they really never received the Gospel? I’m not telling you anything but what the Word of God says, and the Word of God says when you come to the knowledge of the Gospel, that Gospel has the power to bring accordance with congruence to godliness in your life, which reminds me you cannot be godly apart from the Gospel. It’s impossible! It’s completely impossible!
And then we have to understand that Gospel gives us eternal life. The Gospel gives us eternal hope. What does the Scripture say? Look at it with me. We come to the knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness in hope of eternal life. That’s our hope. Now here is what I want you to notice is the flow of the passage. When we know by experience the power of the Gospel, our lives are becoming more godly all upon a hope, and all upon an expectation of an eternal life that is promised to us by a God who never lies! That’s what He’s saying. Are you with me? Oh listen, I’ve got to go over that again. We’ve got to get that. When we know we have experienced the power of the Gospel in our lives, our lives are becoming godly, our hope becomes eternal, and it’s all promised by God who never lies, who’s existent of all ages, and before the ages began, but who took a moment in time in history, and He revealed His Son to the world. That’s what He is saying. Leading us to understand what only the Gospel gives us eternal life.
See here is what I want you to imagine today: I want you to imagine everything right here is the moment I came to Christ. Right here’s the moment I came to Christ. That’s my life before Christ. This moment here all the way over to this moment here is my life. And then when I cross over here, that’s death, and I go to heaven. Here’s what many of us believe. We believe that if we get the Gospel here, and it’s significant, it’s all about over there. No it’s not about all over there in heaven! It’s about the Gospel impacting between A and Z, the moment you come to Christ, and the moment you leave your life. You see you have to understand today that it’s not about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that’s this life. And my family is this life. And my church is this life. And my recreation is this life. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Here is the Gospel, and when I come to Jesus, that Gospel becomes centered in my life. It’s what I’m about from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed at night and even when I’m asleep. And all around my life it’s affected because the Gospel is centered in my life.
I do family different because of the Gospel. I relate to my government different because of the Gospel. I, I, I relate to my job different because of the Gospel. I do recreation in a different way because of the Gospel. The Gospel impacts me! Are you with me church? And we must understand is that when we understand God correctly, and the Gospel clearly, it’s only then that we can begin to see ourselves and understand ourselves completely.
That’s the third thing:
3. Understanding ourselves completely. Now we cannot do is think we’re going to understand ourselves apart from the Gospel. Impossible! You can’t understand yourself apart from the Gospel. It’s completely impossible. We cannot psyche ourselves up into believing more positively about ourselves. Ah you need to correct your attitude. I need to correct my attitude because the Gospel is, is, should represent my attitude. Satan will do all he can to accuse us, and, and, we cannot naturally see ourselves the way God sees us. Therefore, the only way we will ever be able to understand what God wants us to be, and to see ourselves the way God wants us to us, is to understand God completely, to understand God correctly, understand the Gospel clearly, and then I have a shot at understanding myself, who I am, what I’m about, what God says I am.
So when I do that, I’ve got a chance. I mean I’ve got a real life chance. Now today, I want you to be really encouraged, and in the next few minutes will have the power to be the best few minutes for the rest of your week. All right? But you’ve got to really dial in and you’ve got to really begin to understand something today. We’ve looked at understanding God correctly, the Gospel clearly, now what does God say about us in understanding ourselves completely? What does that mean? That means God is wanting to give us a great word about who we are. And man this ought to light you up and fire you up today. Here is what God is saying in His Word. We go through it in verse 1, 2, and 4.
(1) We are slaves of Jesus Christ. You say pastor I thought you were going to encourage us? You’re calling me a slave of Jesus Christ? I’m not calling you anything. The Gospel says that we are slaves of Jesus Christ. He says in verse 1 when are born-again, we are born into serving, now follow me, serving as a doulos, is the Greek word, which means slave of Jesus Christ. If you will notice here in the Scripture that I read a moment ago, it doesn’t translate it slave, it translates it servant. Servant is the word that is not in this text. It is doulos, which is slave. So this is not translated, I don’t think, the way it should be translated.
Paul said that we are slaves of Jesus, and we are bound to the Master, Jesus Christ. For more on this I would encourage you to go John McArthur’s book called Slave: The Hidden Truth About Your Identity in Christ. McArthur who is a profound theologian on the West Coast. He deals with this and he says in his book that, “Jesus is Lord, being mentioned as Lord 747 times. He said therefore I am His slave. He said if you were to look at the topside of Titus 1:1 about doulos, that word that is slave there, if you look at the topside of that, you still come up with slave. He said translators run away from it, and they want to try to elevate it to make us sound more than we are.
But what we need to understand is this is not bad news church. This is great news because if Jesus is Lord, and we believe that, I am nothing more than His slave! This isn’t about equal equal. He died for me! He saved me! I don’t deserve anything He gave me! I’m at His beckon call! So what we have to understand for the first time in our lives we might begin to understand words like follow Me. Take up your cross and follow Me. Deny yourself. Hey, when I understand Jesus is Lord, and He tells Him to deny myself, hey, I really might begin to get a clue what the Christian life it about. We are slaves of Jesus Christ.
(2) We are representatives of Jesus Christ. That’s what He says in verse 1. He said Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ. The word apostle there is the word apostolos, which means that he is a representative of Jesus Christ. He was sent here as an apostolos, as a messenger, as a representative of Jesus Christ. Now listen we are representatives of Jesus Christ. We are missionaries in the world in which we live. And while we don’t have the anointing of the apostle that is mentioned here in verse number 1, we as Christ-followers, once we come to Christ we still sent out and commission by Jesus to represent Jesus everywhere we go.
And then he says in verse 1:
(3) We are the elect of God. Wow. Think about that. We are the elect of God. Verse 1 says for the sake of the faith of God’s elect. How do we become God’s elect? Knowledge of the Truth in hope of eternal life, promised to us by God who never lies. Are you with me? Now who are God’s elect? God’s elect are those who have embraced and received Christ, and embraced His gospel personally. And the moment we embrace Jesus, and we personally receive the Gospel, we become the elect of God.
Now here’s the irony. We get elected and we weren’t even running! We get elected and we’re, we’re running never to God! We don’t run to God, we run opposite of God! That’s where we were! We were running after sin, running after ourselves, and He stopped us in our tracks, and He elected us, and we embraced the Gospel! You say well pastor does that mean some get elected and some don’t? Hey I don’t want to go there because I don’t really think that’s the real need of the discussion. The real need of discussion is understand how you got elected! And the way you got elected according to Ephesians 1:4 and 5, is by grace. It’s not about well Ronnie you’re here, and you know this old sorry guy over here. I’m just as sorry as he was. The only thing that qualifies me to be elected is the grace of God. Huh?
So today you, you, you pout about who you are and where you are, I just want to tell you today you’re elected if you’re saved. God elected you. You must be pretty good. Nah. It’s not about you being good; it’s about the grace of God. Aren’t you glad God’s graces us in life?
You also need to understand today:
(4) We are bound for an eternity with Jesus in Heaven. He talked about that in verse 2. This only happens by God’s grace. When we receive Jesus in our lives, when we receive the Gospel in our lives, grace leads to eternal life. There is no eternal life apart from God’s grace. That’s what He is saying.
And then also we understand:
(5) We share a common faith. That’s the fifth matter. We share a
common faith. The word common here found in verse 4 means that we, we, that which we share in Jesus Christ. We come to Jesus because of His grace. Look at verse 4, and what is the result of coming into the grace of God? The peace of God. The peace of God. And we experience His peace. And when all this occurs through salvation, we enter into the forever family of God, and we wake up and we realize that our family’s pretty big because we’re part of the forever family of God.
Do you realize today that we share a common faith with all believers across the world? And when you look at what Heaven’s going to be about, Heaven is going to be one big, global, family reunion of all of those who have been elected by the grace of God, who have embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s what it’s going to be about. And so it does not matter today whether you live in Bangladesh, whether you live in Tokyo, whether you are somewhere in China, or Anchorage, Alaska, there’s some family there! Born-again, saved, the remnant of God that God elected and brought into salvation through His Son Jesus Christ.
And when it’s all said and done those of you that struggle with your prejudice, still God help you, regardless of the color of your skin, or your own nationality, God help all of us who would ever struggle with all of that! It’s not right! The Gospel diminishes all lines! And we have to understand is that one day you’re going to Heaven if you say you’re saved, and the Gospel’s changed your life! You’re going to Heaven and you’re going to spend all of eternity with people from all tribes, all languages, and all nations of the world brother because they’re going to get saved, some of them from every one of them!
And we have to understand we are apart of a large common faith out here! And when we come to Jesus we check all that crud out the door! You can’t have a Gospel changed life, and a Gospel centered life and have one bit of that kind of prejudice and junk in your heart because the Gospel doesn’t permit it, and the Gospel doesn’t tolerate it. Wow. Okay.
So, here we go. We’re about to leave. And so before we leave I’m going to close like this. Are you going to the big family reunion? There’s going to be one in Heaven one day. That’s right. That’s really what Heaven’s going to be. It’s going to be one big family reunion. And by the way your momma’s only going if she knows Jesus. And your daddy’s only going to be there if he was changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not because he helped anybody, or because he was a good guy. You only go to Heaven through making your reservations with the right person. You don’t determine when you go to Heaven, but you do determine whether or not you’re going to make your own reservation. And the only One who is the One who takes those reservations is Jesus Christ. That’s it. And so only through Jesus will one day you be able to go to that big family reunion in Heaven.
And this common faith, it’s a big old common faith, centered around the Gospel with people of all walks of life. And right now, we walk with life and this talks about the importance of the church because really the church is that place of common faith. That doesn’t mean our church is perfect. We need to get off of that mentality. The church is like a family, and a church sometimes is like a family. It goes through this, goes through you know, but you receive it. You go ahead, you grow through it. You love in spite of. And we have to understand that the church is this place of common faith, and everyone needs a people of common faith because one day trial is going to come, and tribulation is going to come, and times are going to come when you need the church!
So I challenge you today come to Cross Church. And when you understand God correctly, and you understand the Gospel clearly, you’ve got a shot to get your life together. Man, it’s wonderful. And it’s a constant challenge keeping it together. But you can pretty well dictate it in your own heart. The moment you have your life messed up through some choices you made, it’s because you’re not looking at God the way He really is, and you’re not seeing the Gospel and it’s impact on your life for what it really is.
I pray today that you will understand the power of the Gospel not just to save you from your sins, but to change your life from now on. You do life differently than the rest of the people when the Gospel has truly changed you.
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- 2AA219L
- MP3:
- http://www.ronniefloyd.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/2AA219L-Getting-Things-In-Order-With-God.mp3
- Vimeo:
- 23485325