Transforming Grace

Welcome to this week's message from the Church at Chelsea Westover.

Our core values are vibrant worship, intimate fellowship, fulfilling service, and clear biblical truth.

We pray that this message changes your life.

Let's tune in to today's message and see what God has in store for you.

Well, if you've got your Bibles, I want you to find the book of Titus.

The book of Titus.

That's in the New Testament, comes right after 1st and 2 Timothy.

I had uh I changed what I was going to preach yesterday.

I'd been thinking since Danny contacted me.

He said, uh, I want you to, you know, I want you to come.

I'm going to be gone.

You come on this Sunday.

And a couple of weeks ago I began thinking a little more seriously about what I wanted.

I was going to preach from Proverbs 16, 25.

My wife tells me I'm talking too loud.

Okay.

All right.

The uh what was I saying?

I was going to preach from Proverbs 16, 25, which says, There's a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death.

And I kept working on that, and it kept expanding and expanding.

And yesterday morning I was, or Friday afternoon I was working on it.

Yesterday morning, I just couldn't get it to gel together.

It says, Well, okay, Lord, we'll look at something else.

And I started just kind of reading through scriptures and I came upon one of my favorite passages, which is Titus chapter 2, verses 11 to 15.

Titus 2:11–15

The first time I preached on this passage of scripture was 32 or 33 years ago when I was asked to preach the sermon at the annual meeting of the Truett Baptist Association that's in Murphy in Haysville, North Carolina.

It's a two-county association, and I got assigned this passage of scripture.

They said, we want you to preach on this.

And I preached on that, and it's a passage of scripture that I've gone back to time and time again.

Now I reworked it, reworked my outline a little bit, and added some stuff and subtracted some stuff.

But this is a passage of scripture about the transforming grace of God.

It's about the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it talks about how we are transformed.

And when we look at this passage of scripture, you're going to see three things that we're going to emphasize today.

One, the grace of God has appeared.

That's going to be Q.

Secondly, the grace of God instructs us or disciplines us.

And thirdly, that grace of God must be shared.

That's the points I'm hanging my comments on this morning.

We'll read the passage of scripture in just a little bit, but I want to thank you for your support of the association.

I think y'all have probably given back to the association more than the association has invested in you.

And we appreciate that.

We are a mission-minded association.

Associations are changing across the convention, and Shelby Baptist Association has been kind of on the front edge of a lot of that.

Not because of me.

I came into a good situation.

But you've I'm the fourth director of missions in Shelby Association since 1946.

The first guy was there from 46 to 62.

The second guy was there from 62 to 88.

And he was the visionary.

They did strategic planning in 1977 that has resulted in what the association is today.

Then Charles Stroud came in 1988, and then I've been here since 2005.

I came on board.

I have my ninth anniversary, it's hard to believe, in October.

But this is the vision of the people of the association.

You're a people who want to express the grace of God, engage people with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we're seeking to carry out your vision.

Our motto is together.

Churches serving Christ together.

That's what we want to do, is work together.

It's more than just what one single church does, but it's churches serving Christ together.

We want to have a kingdom mindset.

It's not just my church, me and mine, and that's all.

But it's the kingdom that we're looking towards, and we want to break down all kinds of barriers, and we want the gospel to go forth.

So that being said, let's look at the scriptures.

Now, let me tell you just a little bit about the book of Titus.

Titus was written probably somewhere in the mid-60s, probably after the end of the book of Acts.

Paul, you remember, had gone to prison.

You remember reading about the boat and the shipwreck and all that, and he goes on to Rome and he spends some time in prison and he's released.

And probably the church in Crete where Titus is was planted in that time.

There's not really a biblical record of when Paul went there.

But neither Paul's letters nor the book of Acts claims to be a complete history of what went on, but it tells us what went on, and we know that there's a church in Crete because Paul is writing to them.

So he's there in the mid-60s, it's after he's been there, and what he wants to do in the book of Titus is show that there is a direct link between how you believe and how you behave.

Belief always affects behavior.

And you can't people who say I believe, but by their life deny him.

In fact, in chapter 1, he describes some folks who say they believe God, but their behavior denies him.

He wants to drive home that point that what you believe affects what you do every day and how you engage people.

And verses 11 through 15 describes for us the foundation of that behavior-changing beliefs.

Listen, this is the New American Standard translation.

Listen to what the Word of God says.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds.

These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority.

Let no one disregard you.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Pray with me.

Father, in these moments, as we begin to center our attention on your word, we pray, Lord, that you would be our teacher, that the Holy Spirit would take the Word of God and make it alive in our hearts.

Father, may it pierce our conscience, may it transform our minds, may it empower us in serving you.

Father, deliver us from wandering minds, deliver us from a cold heart, and set our hearts, our spirits on fire for you and for your word.

Speak to me and speak through me, I pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

First thing we want to see in this passage of Scripture is that the grace of God has appeared.

The grace of God has appeared.

Now, the grace of God, in a sense, is the personification of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the expression of God's love and God's grace.

But this this phrase, the grace of God has appeared, is, I know you love grammar lessons.

This is a Greek grammar lesson.

It's an aorist tense, which means it happened one time.

He appeared.

It's here among us, and its result is having its effect now.

But the grace of God has appeared.

That grace is God's gratuitous favor.

It's undeserved by us.

It's something that he gives to us on our behalf.

Someone follows the acronym God's righteousness at Christ's expense is God's grace.

He gives that to us.

And that grace is what enables us in our service to God.

We live by grace.

We live because God grants us life.

We live as a result of his blessing and his involvement in our lives.

His grace has appeared.

This word appeared means to manifest, to make visible, to bring it out in plain view, in simplicity, and with clarity.

And it also declares that this grace is available.

It is available to you.

It's available to all who will call upon him, who will turn their hearts to him.

God's grace is available.

Now the second thing in this it says is that God's grace has appeared, bringing salvation.

Now that is a present tense.

That salvation was brought then, and it is available, and it is available to all.

Now, this is a salvation that is by grace.

By grace.

Baptists have always taught salvation by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

And we usually throw 10 in there, but I didn't do that this morning.

But it is by grace.

By grace.

It's something that is undeserved.

We cannot work for it.

It's not something that you can earn in any way.

And the distinctive of Baptist preaching and other folks like Baptists is we teach salvation by grace, freely given, apart from works.

A lot of folks are religious and they're trying to earn their salvation.

And they think salvation depends on what they do rather than what God has done on their behalf.

Flip to the next slide.

There is a, I've got a graph here.

Oh, there it is.

Okay.

That I want you to see.

If some of you are my Facebook friends, you saw this, because my my buddy, my best friend from college, we were students at Southeastern Bible College years ago, posted this on his webpage.

He's a Presbyterian pastor, PCA Presbyterian pastor over Georgia.

I said, I like that.

And I shared it and I said, This fits with our message this morning.

There's a contrast here between religion and the gospel of the grace of God.

Religion says, if I obey, I am accepted.

But the gospel of the grace of God says, I'm accepted, so I obey.

Secondly, religion says, if I'm good, God will love me.

But the gospel says I'm bad, and Jesus loves bad people.

I confess.

Religion says all people are good and bad.

We got a little good, we got a little bad, you know, and it's just whichever weigh out.

The gospel says all people are repentant or they are not repentant.

That's the difference between someone who is saved and someone who is lost.

A saved person has repented.

One of the things that gripes me sometimes is all these folks who want to talk about the hypocrites down at the church.

They're supposed to be righteous and holy.

They don't understand that, at least in a Baptist church, in order to be a member of the Baptist church, you've got to walk down the aisle, stand in front of people, and say, I am a sinner.

I am a sinner.

That's the qualification for being a part of the church.

That's the only way God receives you.

It's when you admit, I am a sinner.

And then he gives you grace.

People are repentant or they are not repentant.

Sometimes people have a hard time saying I am sinned.

And sometimes preachers, and I've been guilty of it, want to soft pedal it.

And you say, Well, that's all right.

Everybody else is too.

So you can say I'm a sinner.

You don't have to worry.

No, you need to come to grips with the fact that you are a sinner.

I am a sinner.

My heart is rebellious against God.

And apart from the grace of God, there's no telling where I would be and what I would be doing.

You've got to come to grips with the fact that our hearts are rebelling against him and pushing against him.

And we confess that, and then by his grace, he transforms us.

In religion, the focus is on what I do or don't do.

But the gospel of the grace of God, the focus is on what Jesus did.

It's him that we look to.

In religion, pride and despair is produced.

Because we look and see what I have done.

Oh, see this great church that I've built?

See all the money that I've given?

See all these people that we've brought in.

See how I've influenced them.

But the gospel of the grace of God produces humility and a confidence in God.

When we realize it's not us, it is all Him.

And then in religion, we're motivated by fear.

There was a country song I remember years and years ago that said, God's going to get you for that.

And that's the way people in religion live.

I'm living in fear of God that He's going to zap me, that I'm going to say the wrong thing at the wrong at the wrong thing at the right time, and He's just going to zap me.

And that'll be it.

We live in fear of God.

But in the gospel of the grace of God, we are motivated by God's love.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

If you've got an English standard version, it says to all people.

The word for men there is the word anthropos.

We get our word anthropology from that, which is the study of humankind.

And that it has everybody in view.

He has appeared bringing salvation to all men.

Paul was writing a few years early to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and he kind of describes some of the folks that's included there.

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

1 Corinthians 6 9, and I didn't put this in the PowerPoint, says this, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

Now that is a depressing verse.

But the next verse gives hope.

Such were some of you.

But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Sinners who reject the gospel, no matter what their distinction, no matter their race, no matter their background, whether they're in dire poverty, poverty, or whether they're very, very wealthy, all stand guilty before God.

And God's grace is sufficient for all of them.

To wash them, to cleanse them, to make them whole.

Salvation is brought to all men.

The grace of God has appeared.

Second thing I want you to see in this passage of Scripture is that the grace of God instructs.

The grace of God instructs.

God takes us where we are, but He does not want us to stay where we are.

One of the misunderstandings of the Baptist doctrine, once saved, always saved, is that once I make a profession of faith, I'm fine.

Well, the evidence that you've made a profession of faith is that your life is changed, that you are transformed, that you're made new, that you have new affections, that you have new priorities, you've got a new destination, a new hope, a new direction in your life.

The grace of God instructs us.

Notice what verse 12 says, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age.

It instructs us.

Now, this word instructs means to discipline, to bring about discipline.

In 1 Timothy 4, Paul talks about uh he talks about physical discipline.

He says, exercise yourself for godliness.

This is the king this is a uh kind of a uh a uh version, huge version, the New American Standard Version, the King James Version, all kind of thrown into one.

He says, exercise yourself for the purpose of godliness.

For bodily exercise profiteth little.

And he says, exercise, but but godly exercise profits you for eternity.

He says, You need to exercise, you need to come under discipline for the purpose of godliness.

Now, I've I've never been a person who exercised a lot.

When I was young and I was pastoring uh in the mountains of North Carolina, I'd I decided I need to work on my devotional habit and my physical habit, and I would get up at about 5:30 or 6 in the morning, and it was a mile from our house to my church office, and I would run to the church, go to my office, have my devotional time, study and pray and all that, and then an hour or so later, I would run the mile back to my house, take a shower, and by the time I got out of the shower, Lou had breakfast ready, and then I would get in my truck after breakfast and drive uh to the church uh because usually I was running around.

You know, we need to move, we need to exercise.

And of late I've been trying to do that, and and uh I've I've lost a little weight.

I may not look like it, but I have.

I'm I'm a little bit uh my doctor even said you did a good job when I was there uh on uh Thursday in in having lost some weight.

We think about the outside and exercising ourselves physically and and making sure the temple of the Lord is in the shape that it should be.

But we need to exercise our spirit and our mind.

You know, I I preached a few days ago on Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.

Romans 12:1

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

You exercise your mind, you let your mind be transformed.

And that's what's in mind here when he says, instructing us to deny ungodliness.

Now, there are three things that he instructs us to do.

He instructs us to deny ungodliness, he instructs us to live, and then he instructs us to look, and we're going to look just briefly at those.

First, deny.

This is kind of the negative side of that.

You know, there's usually a negative and a positive.

The negative side is that we need to deny ungodliness and worldly desires.

To deny it means to disown, to separate it, to not give it a foothold, to not let it have an opportunity in our lives.

It says to deny ungodliness, and ungodliness refers to the lack of purity, to uh irreverence.

What it has in mind is that we take everything.

Every thought captive for the glory of God.

Take every thought captive for the glory of God.

And he says, deny ungodliness and then worldly desires.

What is worldly desires?

The word here for worldly is talking about the cosmos.

That's the world system that is around us.

And folks, it's more and more manifest day by day that the world system around us is against God.

And it's about trying to be stifled and wiped out.

Christianity, in one sense, is becoming more and more marginalized.

We're being pushed to the fringes.

The good thing about that is, is when Christianity is on the fringes, when somebody says they're a Christian, they're probably a Christian.

About 10 years ago, I went to Wales for the 100th anniversary of the 1904 Welsh Revivals.

You may have heard about that, read about that.

Evan Roberts was was the key to that.

And I went to church, to some churches.

We visited some sites.

I preached in a conference on a revival, on revival there, and uh we we were engaged there.

Following the Welsh Revival, there were something like a hundred and twenty churches planted in that community around Wales.

There were eight functioning churches when I was there in 1904.

And we'd ride down the street, and this church building was caving in.

This one had been short turned into a hotel.

This one was a bar, you know, this one was a residence, and it was depressing because they had lost the vision and the power of the gospel.

And they allowed the worldly desires to be to become coming in and let it have an influence, and they began to compromise.

The church that I spent most of my time in that week, uh, that week ran about 25 in it.

And it was kind of a hospital for for souls.

Now, now they took really difficult people who were in dire circumstances, and they shared the gospel with them.

They became believers, and then they were nurtured, and then after they got on their feet, they went off to another church.

You know, and they did that, and and the pastor shared with me, they did that over and over and over and over here.

He was a retired, a minor retired on disability, the pastor that I was with.

Yeah.

The gospel transforms lives and it moves us.

But our first step, the gospel tells us, is that we deny ungodliness and we deny the worldly desires.

We don't let them get a foothold in us.

We need to take every thought captive.

And we need to reject the worldly system and engage God's system.

It says, worldly desires, this world desires here in the New American Standard Version is translated in the King James and others.

It's translated lusts.

And that word lust usually has a negative connotation for us.

Um it can be used for positive things as well, having a desire for good things.

But it's those desires that that lay hold on us.

And I've been struggling with some things, and my my wife gets upset with me because I'll sit down at night and and I'm looking at cars.com at sports cars.

You know.

And and in fact, I bought one about a year ago, and then I when I got it here, I couldn't get a title to it.

So I so the guy I bought it from gave me my money back, but but I had I had a particular kind of thing I wanted, and I and I found it, and I got it here, and I was so looking forward to it, and it couldn't be titled in Alabama because the title papers and what was on the engine and the chassis didn't match.

And they won't give you a title for that in Alabama, and rightly so.

But that was my desires, and it's kind of consumed a lot, but it's, you know, and I've been thinking the last several days, you know, I need to turn my attention back to where it needs to go.

Back to the Lord and on him, and spend the time studying his word.

And letting his word renew and enrich me.

And I had a wonderful time yesterday as I was looking at this passage of scripture and and reading some of the technical commentaries and reading of this, and the Lord just uh moving in me.

And I was upstairs in our den, our air conditioner had gone out, and when the guy got there yesterday to put in the new air conditioner, it was about 94, 95 degrees in that room I was working in, and I hadn't even noticed it.

Lou walked up the stairs and said, It is hot up here.

And I just was engaged elsewhere in that.

Deny worldly desires, but embrace godly desires.

It says, deny worldly desires.

So we need to uh we need to deny, then we need to live.

We need to live.

See what it says?

To deny worldly gods and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age.

King James translates that word sensibly as soberly, soberly, with a clear mind, a clear head.

It has behind it the idea of self-discipline.

1 Timothy 4, 7 and 8 says, But have nothing to do with worldly fables, fit only for old women, but on the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness, for bodily discipline is of only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

So live sensibly.

Think about where you're going, think about what you're doing, think about what's important, and live according to priorities.

If you don't have priorities, and if you're not conducting yourself according to priorities, you're going to be living by somebody else's priorities.

It'll be the devil's or whoever's closest to you and who is influencing you.

If you don't have a vision, then somebody's going to give you a vision, and they're going to try to get you to go along with theirs.

God wants you to have a vision of Him and His glory and His righteousness and live your life consistently with that.

To live soberly or sensibly, then it says righteously.

The word righteous has the idea, uh, the idea of a standard of uprightness, to live according to God's expectation, uh, to live for him.

Uh one of Paul's prayers in uh, I think it's Colossians, it might be in Philippians, he says, He's praying for the church in that city that they might live in a manner that is pleasing to him.

A manner that is pleasing to him.

By the way, if you want to pray strong prayers, look at Paul's prayers when he's when he in the beginning of all his letters to the churches, and he's usually praying some specific things for people.

Uh Peter Lord, uh, who was a pastor of church down in St.

Petersburg, I think, um developed a thing called the 2959 plan.

You can go online to 2959plan.org or dot com or dot edu or something like that, and you can find it.

But the he's he's got a plan there for pray for this on this day and this on this day and this on this day.

But he has biblical prayers that are there that you can personalize.

And that's where I learned it is from that 30 something years ago, um, beginning to do that.

So I would encourage you to do that.

But that way you're putting the mind of God into your mind, and then you're expressing it back to him.

That's what worship is, that's what learning is, that's what having a transformed mind is.

Live righteously, live in a way pleasing to him.

And godly, it says, that means to have full reverence, it means to have piety, it means to be what God wants you to be.

In this present age, you can do it in this present age.

An age that is in rebellion against him, that wants to see God overthrown, an age it's describing the moral and immoral atmosphere that we find ourselves in.

It involves the attitudes and the opinions of those who are opposed to us.

You know, none of what is going on now is a surprise to God.

None of it.

And we can live a life that is pleasing to him in this by his grace, his transforming grace that changes us and remakes us and remolds us.

Not only do we not deny, not only do we live, but we also look.

Look, notice what it says, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.

We look toward his second coming.

That's what this is referring to.

There's something better out there.

I was, as we were driving over, I'd plugged in, uh I downloaded a bunch of old albums or transformed into MP3s, and I had them on my iPad and had it plugged in to lose auxiliary on her car when we were driving over, and we were listening to Andre Crouch.

Soon and very soon, I'm going to see the king.

And there's several songs on that album about the Lord coming back, and he's coming back, and that should excite us.

Now, a lot of us think about it.

I was talking to somebody the other day, and we were talking about how sad things are, and somebody was saying, Well, I just wish the Lord would come back.

And they were looking to it as an escape from the troubles that we're in now.

But God didn't want us to see his coming as an escape.

He wants to see his coming as glory manifested.

He wants us to see his greatness and his power and his glory.

What is it that Brother Danny says all the time?

Jesus is awesome.

That's what he wants us to see, and we want to see him because he's awesome, he's great, he's majestic, he's in power, and our motivation behind us is that he is coming back.

When he comes back, we're going to be held accountable.

When he comes back, he's going to evaluate us and others.

There's a judgment, and I'm we're not going to get into all the details of the second coming and what transpires and all the stuff that goes in there.

But the bottom line is that we give an account to Jesus.

His glory will be manifested, he will be judged, and his kingdom will reign for a thousand years throughout all eternity.

He will reign.

Look for him.

It's an anticipation not only of deliverance from this world, but an anticipation of union with our glorious and majestic Savior, who transforms us, who makes us new, who gives us everything we need for life and godliness.

So we need to remember that the grace of God has appeared, that the grace of God instructs us to deny, to live, and to look.

Third thing we need to see is that the grace of God must be shared.

Look at verse 15.

It says, These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority.

Let no one disregard you.

He says, These things speak.

What?

The grace of God has come.

The grace of God transforms us and instructs us and empowers us in doing what God has called us to do.

He says, These things speak.

Now that you know what that word speak is?

That word speak just means everyday regular speech.

It's what you're doing when you're talking on the phone, when you're talking to your children, you're talking to your best friend, you're engaging your customer.

These things speak.

You know what evangelism is?

The bottom line is evangelism is everyday people doing everyday things with gospel intention.

Everyday people doing everyday things with gospel intention.

That is, everything you do every day, the gospel is in the back of your mind.

The glory of Jesus Christ is in the back of your mind.

The saving grace of Jesus Christ is in the back of your mind.

And you're sharing that with your friend or your acquaintance.

It just flows out naturally from you.

I grew up thinking that evangelism was, you know, cold calls.

But Brother Danny does a wonderful job at that.

You know, and this church is built on that.

But evangelism is everyday people doing everyday things with gospel intention.

Supplements it.

It's necessary.

You have to do that.

But you have more access to lost people than Brother Danny does, and any other staff member does, or any other professional clergy person.

You engage people every day.

And the Apostle Paul tells Titus and the church at Crete, these things speak.

And then he says, These things speak and exhort.

And the word exhort means you're calling alongside.

It's kind of what the preacher's doing when he's given an invitation, and you're encouraging, you know, go ahead, let go of the back of that pew, you know.

And you're encouraging you're alongside and you're encouraging them.

You're nurturing them and nudging them along, trying to move, and you're a little, there's a little more desperation about that, and you're calling, and you're drawing, and you're working at it, and you've got some intentions and some heat.

There's intensity to what you're doing.

He says these things do.

It's talking about uh the word really means to call alongside, and you're really coming up and you're putting your arm around them and encouraging them.

It's a very positive thing in exhorting them.

And then he says, and rebuke.

Sometimes you have to give a harsh word to get someone's attention.

Rebuke.

You're seeking to bring conviction.

We can never bring conviction.

That's the job of the Holy Spirit.

He comes to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

But we can be the instrument of the Holy Spirit and the voice of the Holy Spirit as we talk to others and share his word and his grace.

And he says, do this with authority.

With all authority.

Jesus said on the Mount of Ascension, Matthew 28, 18, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe whatsoever things I've commanded you.

And lo, I am with you always.

I left some of that out.

But he says, Go and make disciples, and you have authority to do that because I have all the authority in the world, and I've given that authority to you.

And when you speak the word of God, you're speaking with God's authority.

And when you talk to people, don't do it timidly.

Because you have truth on your side.

You have God on your side.

You have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you who's going to convince them and convict them.

They may raise a question you don't know the answer to.

Just say, I don't know the answer to that.

I'll see what I can do about helping.

But many times those questions are to divert you from the message, which is that we are sinners and rebellion against God.

And because God created us, he has the right to judge us.

He has the power to save us and to transform us and to make us new.

Notice what the content of that proclamation is.

Verse 14.

This is what you say to folks who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds.

The content of the population of the proclamation of what we share, of what we talk about, is this Christ gave himself for us.

Jesus Christ initiated salvation.

In fact, he took a lot more than the first step.

He came all the way from heaven, divested himself, emptied himself, Philippians chapter 2 tells us of the use of the attributes of his godliness.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

He bore on the cross our sin.

And then on the third day, Romans 1:4 says he was demonstrated to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead.

Romans 1:4

That's the message that we proclaim.

Jesus Christ came to give himself for our sins to redeem us.

That word redeems has behind it the picture of somebody buying back something that is already theirs.

They own it to begin with, but through some circumstances they lost possession of it.

And then he and himself buys it back.

He makes it his own again.

He redeems us.

Though we were his by creation, through our sin we separated ourselves from him.

We are estranged from him.

But he takes the first step to redeem that relationship.

And he covers our sin through the blood of Christ and gives us life.

He redeems us.

Notice what it says from every lawless deed.

You know what that means?

There's nothing you have done or could do that is too great for the grace of God to overcome.

He saves us completely from every sin.

I had a pastor one time, I was a youth minister at a church up in Gardendale where I grew up.

Um that he says, You don't have to worry, the chiefest of sinners has already been saved.

And that was the Apostle Paul.

Paul writes, I am the chief of sinners.

So there's nothing you've got on Paul.

And he's already been saved, and you can be saved.

And I love this next phrase.

He says, in order to purify, that's to clean, to cleanse, to make whole for himself, a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds.

King James over in 1 Peter uses the phrase for this same trans phrase here, a peculiar people.

Some of us are peculiar.

But what he's talking about, there is a people, a special people, a people who belong particularly and uniquely to him.

You are a special person.

You are his prized possession is what's that saying?

And he's making us that way.

He's in the process.

We're not where we need to be, but we're not where we used to be either.

And he makes us new.

He's talking about that special possession, the things that he liked.

We all have special possessions.

I've got a um a copy that was printed in about uh 1842, I think was the publication date on it.

It's a calfskin copy of Jonathan Edwards' Revival on Revival and Spiritual Awakening.

And I love it.

I've got it sitting on my book.

Found it, bought it at found it at an antique store and bought it.

And I love the book.

And it's just nice, rich.

That's a spot a prized possession, another prized possession of God.

If you come in my office, when you walk in, you look at the wall, there's a framed page out of a 1611 printing of the King James Bible.

Uh it was given to me when I was going through cancer treatments and all that.

And the verse talks about the glory of God and says He's on His throne and who can turn him.

He does whatever He wills.

And that's the page that I have on my wall there.

It's a prized possession for me.

I value that highly.

Of Scripture tells us that we are God's prized possessions.

We belong to Him.

We are special to Him.

And we need to tell others that they too can have that focused and special attention of God.

He wants to make us His own.

And He will do that by the transforming grace of God.

Now I've got some questions for you to think about.

Here's some questions for you.

One statement God's grace is available and makes demands of us.

How are you responding to that grace?

How are you responding?

It's there.

The Bible says He's provided for us everything we need pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge of His Son.

What are you doing with that?

He saved us.

But He didn't save us to sit, He saved us to serve.

This passage of Scripture is evident of that.

Belief evidences itself in behavior.

How are you responding to God's call in your life?

Second question.

Have you confessed your sin and your need for the Savior?

In other words, that's what the third question is.

Have you been saved?

Have you come to the realization, have you come to the understanding, has it been clear in your mind and your heart that you are estranged from God and that your bent is away from God?

And given the opportunity, Charlie Daniels has a song on a Christian album that he did that says, When given a choice between good and bad, I picked bad two out of three, is one of the lyrics on there.

Does that kind of describe you?

Well, you turn your and he goes to say, the grace of God changed me.

The grace of God transformed me.

Have you come to that realization?

Have you humbled yourself before him?

Have you come to the point where he says, Lord, it's out of my hand.

I can't do it.

I am at a loss.

I am empty.

There's nothing good that I can do.

I come to you empty-handed.

Just me and my sin.

And I ask you to forgive me and to cleanse me and make me your own special possession.

Are you being transformed?

Are you seeking to live your life in a manner that pleases God?

Do you share your faith?

Are you one of those everyday people who, when you're doing everyday things, are doing it with gospel intention?

And moving a little more personally, are you part of a church?

And are you actively a part of that church?

And maybe today you need to become a part of a church if you're not.

God extends his grace to us, grace that will transform us.

God takes nothings and makes something out of them, makes them his special possession, and he seeks and receives glory from us as we're transformed.

And I'm going to pray in just a moment, and we're going to have a time of invitation and commitment.

And we'll give you an opportunity to respond, to express your faith.

If you just need to come and pray, you can do that.

If you need to talk to me, I'll be glad to talk with you.

If you need someone to help you walk you through how to become a Christian, we'll be delighted to do that.

Thanks again for tuning into this week's message.

We pray that your life has been changed.

If you would like to find out more about us, visit us on our webpage at thechurch at cw.com.

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Send us an email at office at the church at CW.com.

We hope you have a wonderful day and again, God bless you.