Sunday Live at Kootenai Community Church

Kootenai Church

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Apostle Paul, he sees in Christ this one defining attribute, the grace of God. So he describes the coming of Christ this way, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.

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And when we look at Christ, that is exactly what we see. He is the manifestation and the embodiment of God's grace.

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That's not the only attribute of God that Christ possessed. He possessed all of the attributes of divinity since he was

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God in human flesh. But as the Apostle Paul reflects upon the coming of Christ here in Titus chapter two, he describes it with those words, the grace of God has appeared.

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It is as if beholding Christ in the manger, what the Apostle Paul saw was a manifestation of divine grace.

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And looking at Christ, that is exactly what John, in John chapter one says that we see, the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the

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Father, full of grace and full of truth. He describes Christ there in terms of God's grace.

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The law came through Moses, but grace and truth have come in the person of Jesus Christ. And the purpose for his coming is also stated by Paul there in verse 11, bringing salvation to all men.

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Now that does not mean when the Apostle says that he's bringing salvation, the grace of your can be saved.

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And again, regardless of your station, regardless of your ethnicity. We need salvation.

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That's exactly what Jesus Christ came to give because we are sinners and this is God's rescue plan. The bad news is that we are a lost people.

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Verse 14 of this passage says that Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed.

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It is our lawless deeds that damn us. It is the deeds done in darkness. It is the deeds done in moral darkness, in spiritual darkness, in intellectual darkness.

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It is the deeds which we do in our hearts and in our minds. It is the motives of our hearts that God sees and he judges.

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And those deeds are the very things that damn us. The deeds that Christ came to redeem us from, those are the very deeds that have heaped up for us a heaping of God's wrath and guilt before a holy and righteous

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God who is also a benevolent king. God has sent Christ to be the savior for us, form those lawless deeds.

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In those deeds, we have violated the law of God. God has said, you shall not lie and we have lied. We have stolen, we have lusted, we have taken things that are not ours.

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We have blasphemed his name and taken his name in vain because of our sinfulness, because of our iniquity, because of these deeds that Paul says

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Christ came to save us from. This is the good news. This is the good news of the incarnation of the son of God.

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That God sent his son, he was God, in human flesh, into this world. He was the second person of the

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Trinity, fully God and fully man. And that God man lived a perfect life, the life you were required to live but you could not live.

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And he died a perfect death in obedience to the Father, taking upon himself all the wrath that we deserve, pouring out his life, offering himself as a sacrifice for sinners so that we can be redeemed from the wrath that is to come.

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That's the good news of the gospel. He came to redeem us and to pay our debt on the cross. And now God demands of us repentance and faith.

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Repentance is turning from sin, faith is believing that what God says about that sacrifice of Christ on the cross is true.

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And faith reaches out and lays hold of that sacrifice and the truth of it and trust in that one who died on a cross for salvation.

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Repentance and faith is abandoning all of our hopes in our own self -righteousness and instead giving ourselves over entirely in an act of volitional faith upon the

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Son of God and believing that what he has done is sufficient to pay the debt that I owe. And in repentance,

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I acknowledge that I'm guilty of all of those crimes and so many more. In that repentance, I acknowledge that the wrath of God is just and that I deserve his punishment.

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And in faith, I turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, believing upon him for salvation. And God does not leave us in that sin because when

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Paul says that he has brought salvation to all men, in verse 12, he says, he instructs us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live soberly, sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age.

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So this salvation that God has brought does not leave us in our sin. God doesn't just save us and then leave us to mire in the very iniquities that he has rescued us from.

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This is not just a saving grace that has appeared to all men but it is a sanctifying grace that has appeared to all men.

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For God sanctifies or makes holy the ones whom he has saved. And so how are we to live? Paul gives us this instruction.

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We are to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and we are to live soberly or sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age.

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Those whom God saves, he makes holy. He puts us on a path of progressive sanctification.

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This is his plan. The grace of God has appeared to all men, bringing salvation to all of those men.

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And those who are saved by that salvation, he has put on a path of constant perpetual mortification of sin and growth in holiness.

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And we look forward to that day when we will be with him and we will be made just like him. Those whom God saves, he sanctifies and he sanctifies us fully.

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So he has saved us from the penalty of past sin, all of the deeds that we have done, our lawless deeds done in darkness.

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He saves us from the penalty of those and then he saves us presently from the power of sin. Because that same grace that saves us instructs us that we are to live holy, righteously, and godly in the present age.

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And Paul says, we are looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.

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This is a saving hope, a saving grace, it is a sanctifying grace, and it is a forward -looking grace.

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It is a grace that anticipates, it is a grace that causes us to anticipate and instructs us to anticipate that great glory that is to come.

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His next coming is what Paul is describing here. And that next coming is just as sure and certain as was his first coming.

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And we are looking expectantly toward that. And that motivation of beholding and looking forward to the coming of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, our great God and Savior. Our anticipation of that causes us to pursue holiness.

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John describes this in 1 John, I think it's chapter three, where he says that he who has this hope in him, that is the hope of the return of Jesus Christ, purifies himself.

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The one who anticipates that at any moment the Lord may return and take us to be with him, or the Lord may come and set up his kingdom and establish his glory and righteousness here on earth.

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The one who anticipates that pursues holiness, mortifies sin, wants to live holy and righteously and godly in the present age, as Paul describes.

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So we have this hope in him, which makes us to purify ourselves and pursue holiness, which Hebrews says, without which, that holiness, no one can see the

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Lord. So it is a saving grace and a sanctifying grace and a forward -looking grace that has appeared to all men.

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As we look back at the nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we say, he has saved us from the penalty of our sin, and presently he is saving us from the power of our sin, and in the future he will save us from the very presence of our sin.

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His completion, his salvation is complete. And that represents past, present, and future all represented here, the perfect grace of God, saving us from the penalty, the power, and eventually the presence of sin.

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Verse 14 says, he gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and this is the ultimate goal of the coming of Christ, to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds.

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That's the purpose. Christ came to give himself to redeem us from every lawless deed so that he might purify for himself a people for his own possession.

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What does Christ, what does the second person of the Trinity get out of coming to this earth and living in this sin hole, dwelling among unbelievers and unrighteous people, and then laying down his life on a cross and suffering and bleeding and dying in the stead of those sinners?

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What does he get? He gets a people for his own possession. He gets a people out of this deal, millions of them, countless millions who will worship and adore him and serve him and delight in his glories and his pleasures and his joys forevermore.

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That is what we get to expect. That's what we get to expect, and that's what he gets out of it. He came to redeem us from every lawless deed so that he would have a people for his own possession.

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He bought them at the price of his own blood. He saved them, he died to redeem them from their sin, and we have eternal life in Jesus Christ because he is the grace of God that has appeared to all men, and we can have eternal life through him if you have repented and believed in that son of God.

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Have you? Have you repented and believed in the son of God? If you have not, then you are not saved, and if you have not

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Christ, you have not salvation. The grace of God in Christ has appeared bringing salvation to all men, and if you turn your back and reject that savior, you will face him as judge.

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You cannot avoid him. You will either embrace him as savior or you will stand before him and he will be your judge because when he comes again, scripture says it will not be to deal with sin.

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He's coming again, but not to deal with the sin issue. The sin is taken care of. He is coming again to judge his enemies, and if you reject the grace of God, then you will face only the wrath of God.

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That's the bad news. The good news is that born to you in the city of David is a savior who is

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Christ the Lord, and by repentance and faith, you can have eternal life, your sins forgiven, be a child of God, and look forward to the blessed hope of the glorious appearing of our great

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God and savior, Jesus Christ, who redeemed us from every lawless deed, gave himself to do so.

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He will come again to judge the living and the dead. Let's bow our heads. Our Father, we thank you for a perfect salvation and a perfect savior, one who lived a perfect life in our stead and then died a submissive and obedient death so that he may pay the price for all the sinners who will trust in him.

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Thank you that atonement has been made. Thank you that forgiveness has been provided, and thank you for that grace which has brought salvation to us.

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We praise you and thank you in the name of our God and savior, Jesus Christ, amen. Please stand.

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♪ Silent night ♪ ♪

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Silent night, all is bright ♪ ♪

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Round yon virgin, mother and child ♪ ♪

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That so tender and mild ♪ ♪

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Sleep in heavenly peace ♪ ♪

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Sleep in heavenly peace ♪ ♪

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Silent night, holy night ♪ ♪

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Holy night, all is bright ♪ ♪ Sleep in heavenly peace ♪ ♪

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Sleep in heavenly peace ♪ ♪

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God's pure light ♪ ♪ Reigns from thy holy face ♪ ♪

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Jesus, Lord at thy birth ♪ ♪

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Jesus, Lord at thy birth ♪ Christmas, good night.