Abundant Life Episode 41

In this episode Saso and Ben discuss the topic of being renewed and how to get on fire for Jesus!

Key verses

Titus 2: 11-14

RENEW’ED, participle passive Made new again; repaired; re-established; repeated; revived; renovated; regenerated. – Websters 1828

Grace –  Appropriately, the free unmerited love and favor of God, the spring and source of all the benefits men receive from him. – Websters 1828

Romans 11:6

We know salvation is an act of grace from God, and it is from His deep well of favor, and love that He has for mankind that He would send His Son to die for us. It costs us nothing but to Him it came at a great price.

Romans 5:2

The act of Jesus dying for us gave us direct access to this grace. We would have no hope or chance if He did not send His Son to die for us. What an amazing picture of His love and unmerited love He has for us!

After salvation which appeared to all men, we get His grace to help us live this Christian life.

Romans 5:20

No one would argue with you that sin is abundant in this world. It does not take long, and you do not have to go far to find sin. 

Although sin is abundant and abounds, God’s grace abounds much more. Although it may seem as though we have no hope against sin, this verse tell us differently as grace abounds more than the sin in this world. Greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world.

God’s Grace of Salvation

Being on fire for Jesus all starts at salvation. Salvation was only possible because we not only have a just God who cannot overlook sin, but we also have a loving God, who looked at His creation with love and compassion and made the ultimate sacrifice to make it possible for mankind to be brought back into a relationship with God.

2 Peter 3:9

I’m so thankful for the truths in this verse. I’m thankful for God’s patience. I got saved a little later in life and if God didn’t have patience and sent Jesus back before I got saved, who knows if I would have ever received Jesus as savior.

The Deist believes that God created everything, but then was no longer interested after creation. In other words they would say God is the clock maker, and winds the clock, and lets it go.

God is ever present in the affairs of men today! It’s God’s grace that sacrificed the first animal in Genesis to cover Adam and Eve, it’s God, who commanded Israel to sacrifice animals to cover their sin, and ultimately it was that those animals represented and pointed to Jesus who was the ultimate sacrifice.

The Gospel of Jesus never gets old! The world needs to hear the gospel of Jesus so they can know the grace of God but, the believer must always reflect on this story, because this Gospel is truly the fuel we need to be on fire for Jesus. 

Christian, would you sit and reflect on the gospel and your salvation, think about where you’d be without it, think about your eternal destination without it and then think about how blessed you truly are, how you have a relationship with the King of kings.

A Christian’s “why”

The why is simply implying what motivates you to keep going every day, especially when things are not going right, everything appears to be failing and you basically want to quit. What they have found in the business world is that money is typically not people’s motivation for leading a business. Leading a business can be tough, and people could likely the same amount of money or more working for someone else and therefore money is not always the driving factor.

The Christian walk is similar in the fact that It’s hard. We need motivation in those valleys of life when we have a sense of hopelessness or brokenness, or maybe it’s just tiredness and fatigue, maybe it’s burnout, or a sense of complacency, or simply lack of motivation. Maybe there are days where you just don’t want to do this Christian thing anymore. There are going to be some difficult days ahead for every Christian.

For a Christian, their “why” is the gospel! We see the “why” in our key verses.

Titus 2:11-14 – For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

The gospel of Jesus should motivate and fuel us to good works, to live self-controlled God honoring lives, to renounce all ungodliness, worldly passions and desires.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 – For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. 

We always have the strength of God with the Holy Spirit indwelling us but our mindset is not always where it needs to be. We tend to let our feelings guide us, but the reality is that our heart is deceitful and our feelings can be deceiving. This is why we are told in the scripture to renew our minds so that we can place our hope and trust on the truth of God’s word and not in our hearts and minds.

• Romans 12:2
  
• Ephesians 4:20-23
  

Renewing your mind with God’s word is crucial to the Christian walk!

How should we act given that we were given this great gift of God’s grace? Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

With renewed hope and zeal because of God’s grace, we need to live a life that is set apart from this world, and we are to deny our flesh and lay aside those sins that so easily hold us back. We are to be seen as Christians and be a light by living soberly, righteously and godly in this present world. We are not to blend in, but we are to stand out. God’s act of love towards us ought to renew our love for Him and life a life that is pleasing to Him. 

Have you ever had someone do something nice for you? Something that was thoughtful? Did you show appreciation? Did you take it lightly?

Do you think you should take what God has done for you lightly? Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Was it a light thing that He gave Himself for you? Glory to God that He redeemed us from our sin and called us to be a people that would be set apart and passionate and fervent with good works.

Jesus is coming back!

The world seems to be as in the days of Noah, but God is still in the business of saving people from their sin. Muslims coming to Christ in droves, people in Mexico and South America the are coming to Christ and becoming pastors and starting new churches and God is doing these kinds of works all across the world.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Yes, this is talking about the rapture of the church. Notice the end of the verse, the Apostle Paul is telling us to encourage, or comfort one another with these words.

Jesus return should light a fire in us. Time is short, we need to tell our family and friends about the gospel. We can’t just let a fire ignite and then let it burn out, we need to be busy about sharing the good news.

What was Jesus focused on as He died for us? His focus was on us, the joy that was before Him. 

Hebrews 12:2

He endured the cross in obedience to the Father and for the love He had for us. 

Be Zealous for Jesus!

Titus 3:14

Jesus redemption of His people should make us zealous for God and zealous to do good works. You see it’s the gospel that motivates and drives us to be zealous and love God.

John 14:15

It was the Apostle Paul to told us that were saved for the purpose of good works and not saved by our good works, our good works do not save us, Jesus death, burial, and resurrection saves.

Ephesians 2:8-10

Conclusion

What will you do with this amazing grace? Will you trust Him as your Lord and Saviour? Will you fully accept Him and the gift of His Son or will you take it lightly and ignore what He has done for you?

How about you Christian? Will you take His act of grace lightly? Will your love for Him be renewed today? Will you live a life that is pleasing to Him? Will you deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world?

May our focus be on eternity as we are Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Amen and amen!