[0:00] And let's turn to Titus chapter 2. Wonderful chapter of God's word.! Wonderful chapter of God's word. I'll read the whole of chapter 2.
[0:15] ! Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.
[0:40] Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands so that no one will malign the word of God.
[0:58] Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything, set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching, show integrity, seriousness, and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.
[1:21] Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything. To try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.
[1:39] For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.
[1:56] While we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
[2:14] These, then, are the things you should teach, encourage, and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.
[2:26] This is the word that lives and abide forever. Let's hear it preached. Pastor Jason. Pastor Jason. I knew a man who lived in a condemned house.
[2:39] It wasn't his. His name wasn't on the papers. He just lived there. How he got there and what he was doing there is really not a part of this story, but there he was, and it was all right, despite the holes in the ground and the termites and the studs.
[2:59] He didn't pay rent. So it was a good deal. He watched Netflix. He slept comfy in his bed. The place had some problems, but it was home.
[3:11] And then, I kid you not, one morning he was drinking his coffee. He was checking his Instagram. He was watching cable news, putting on his boots for work, and a wrecking ball busted clean through his house.
[3:31] Smashed his TV, smashed his table, obliterated his phone, and that was on the first swing, and on the second swing, it swiped off 20 feet of the ceiling, the roof, and dust and insulation from the upstairs fell down into the downstairs, and the walls at last couldn't keep the upstairs out of the downstairs, and what was upstairs came crashing down all around him.
[3:56] How terrible. How crazy. Who was he? Well, maybe he's going to be you.
[4:13] Maybe he's going to be me. Because you're living here in a condemned world, and there is a wrecking ball coming to this world, and you're living in this present age.
[4:33] And you can tick, tick, tick. The clock is ticking down. And men will go about their lives.
[4:45] Jesus said eating and drinking and getting married. We could say drinking Coke and eating pizza, watching Netflix, texting on their phones, putting their boots on, taking their boots off, and then one day, all of a sudden, the wrecking ball is going to come and wreck this whole world and smash it to pieces.
[5:08] The glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. And then all the things that seem so normal now and so important and so necessary, so just essential to life will be in an instant swept away.
[5:33] Swept away. You know, you're not going to take your iPhone to the judgment seat. You're not going to get a selfie with the judge. You'll either meet him with exquisite, soul-piercing, ecstatic joy, or you will meet him with exquisite, horrifying, soul-crushing horror.
[6:02] But the world won't go on. The world won't go on and you won't go on the same. He'll come and you won't be able to do anything about it.
[6:18] There is a wrecking ball coming. That is the fact. And so the question that we want to answer this evening is, how do you live then?
[6:31] How do you live? How should we live? Now, we are at the very end of Titus 2. It's been about a month since we've been here and so we're going to do a little bit more review than normal. But I want you to remember the context in which Paul is writing, what he said to Titus so far.
[6:48] Remember the church in Crete, that's where Titus is, is not in great shape. It's in a bit of a mess. And so what do you need to do if you're addressing a church that is in a mess?
[7:02] Things aren't where they're supposed to be. Well, we said early, early on, and it's honestly, I looked it up. It was a year ago, practically today, that we started this series.
[7:12] And if I would have known it was going to take a year, I would have hesitated. But here I am a year later. And we started with, you have to start thinking big thoughts.
[7:26] And that's where he begins chapter 1, 1 through 3. He's talking about, you need to get your mind right. You need to get your mind set at sort of the level where God is.
[7:38] So chapter 1, verse 2, God promised this eternal life before time began. And so we have to get our minds out of the purely here and now. The salvation that we have experienced is one that has been planned from eternity past, and it is concerning eternal life, which is eternity forward.
[8:00] That's not here and now. It's something bigger than that. And we need to get your, you need to get your mind on these massive truths. So the church is in a mess.
[8:11] What do you do? The rest of chapter 1 is saying you need to get the right people into leadership, and you need to get the wrong people out of leadership. That's essential.
[8:23] That's what we talked a lot about for the rest of chapter 1. And then chapter 2, what do you need to do when the church is a mess? Well, you need to tell each group, you need to make sure that every person in each group knows what they are supposed to be doing specifically.
[8:44] There are some things that we as Christians all need to do, and then there are very specific truths or specific duties that we each have. And Titus is to tell each group what lines up, what harmonizes with the gospel.
[8:59] So you get specific down to the everyday, normal life of people in places like Crete, where it's not a nice place to live. And you need to figure out how do you live the Christian life there?
[9:12] And this is, Paul says, this is what each group needs to do. But is it enough for pastors for Titus, or even parents, or Sunday school teachers, or biblical counselors, or whoever is giving instruction, is it enough for pastors to say, do this, and just that, just do it.
[9:32] Just do it is a good Nike slogan. It is not the end all and be all of good advice and good instruction, because there's nothing wrong with telling people what they need to do.
[9:50] But there is something a little less than biblical when you're just saying, stop it, or start doing this. It's terrible because it doesn't work.
[10:01] Because people respond to motivation. People do things for reasons. They have hopes. They have fears. They have weaknesses. They have strengths.
[10:12] And so, there needs to be motivation. You need motivation. Your children need motivation. Pastors need motivation. And Paul is wiser than some of us can be sometimes.
[10:23] And he always gives some motivation. motivation. And that's where we are at. In the section of motivation, which is 11 through 14. And he says, for. And that's a motivation word.
[10:35] That's a reason word. That's a reason to do what we've already talked about. Here's a reason to do something for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. God's grace has appeared to you.
[10:48] God's grace has appeared to every group that he just addressed. So, here's why you should do what you should do.
[10:58] Because God's mercy came to you. It didn't stay far away. It came close. And it came close in a person, Jesus Christ. And he's interrupted your life.
[11:11] He's done it one time. He's going to do it again. He's interrupted your life. And he's brought salvation and full and free. It's this great, amazing grace. And Paul says, that grace trains us and teaches us to live godly lives, to say no to ungodliness and to worldly passions.
[11:34] Now, what is ungodliness? What is ungodliness that grace teaches us to say no to? Well, here's a case study in ungodliness.
[11:46] And I hope that you can see how you and I, myself, I'll speak for myself, how we can do this. We can think this way.
[11:57] So, here's a case study in ungodliness. My cat, Oliver, or Walter, he has two names. He doesn't answer to either one. It doesn't matter. So, my cat is ungodly.
[12:11] My cat is ungodly. This Christmas, he got in his stocking a wonderful toy that he loves. He got a wonderful can of special tuna food, breakfast.
[12:24] He had a very nice Christmas. He loved his presents. And he never once thanked God for Jesus Christ. And he never wonders to himself, what does God want me to do with my life?
[12:39] He just does what he wants to do. He never goes to church. He never sings. One time, Stuart Olley had told this story of a dog that would cross over a field to go hear Charles Spurgeon speak in the open air.
[12:59] And they never knew where he came from or who he belonged to. It seems a bit far-fetched to me, but we'll say that it's true. And if it's true, my cat isn't like that.
[13:10] He doesn't think about God. That's ungodliness. Now that's what we talked about this morning. We are not to be like that.
[13:22] God made us for this relationship with him and to relate to him, to connect to him. Well, grace teaches us to say no to that kind of ungodliness.
[13:35] So we can't live like there isn't a God anymore. Or we can't live like God isn't important, that he doesn't matter. Because when I was a wretched sinner, he came and rescued me and he forgave me when I was full of guilt and full of shame and full of fear.
[13:54] He saved me. He rescued me. So how can I say that God doesn't matter anymore? How can I go on acting like that didn't happen?
[14:05] See, grace teaches us to say no to that kind of living, to that ungodliness. Grace teaches us to say no to worldly passions. That is earthly, self-centered, selfish, me, me, me.
[14:20] What do I want? Passions. And it teaches us to say no to those things and yes to self-control. That's holiness in my own life toward myself.
[14:37] Yes to what is upright. That's treating you, other people, the way they should be treated. And it teaches me to say yes to godliness.
[14:48] That is to have a right relationship with God. God's grace teaches us that not only that we should, but it teaches us how to do that and it teaches us to do it.
[14:58] Now, that's where we are going to start today because Paul is not yet done with this motivation to living the godly life.
[15:10] He's not done with that motivation. We're still in the middle of this motivation because where we do this godly life is in this present age. That's what he says in verse 12.
[15:24] So we live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age. But we're not stuck here. So we live for God in the middle of a world of ungodliness.
[15:36] Now, how can we do that? How can we do that when the pressure is there, the force is there, the temptation is there from the outside and not only from the outside but from the inside? Well, because of the kind of people that we are and what we are waiting for because we're awaiting people.
[15:55] We're awaiting people. Now, we aren't like that made-up story at the beginning of that man who didn't know the wrecking ball is coming.
[16:07] So he could live his life in a condemned house doing the things that he did because he didn't realize that one day it was going to be all swept away. We know the wrecking ball is coming to this house and we're waiting for it.
[16:22] We are waiting for it. We realize we can't live here forever. This world as it is can't go on. So, we want to talk about three questions the rest of our time and the first is what are we waiting for?
[16:38] What are we waiting for? That's verse 13. We are waiting for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
[16:51] So what are we waiting for? We're waiting for our blessed hope, our happy hope, Christ's glorious appearing. Now, we want to talk about that word wait because it's important that you realize that wait is not a passive idea.
[17:07] The things that you are really excited and looking forward to, you do not wait passively for it. It's not an unfeeling, it's not a muted word, it's the word that Luke used for Simeon when it said he was waiting for the consolation of Israel.
[17:26] He didn't just go through his whole life saying, oh, it will come when it will come. He was waiting for it, he was longing for it. It's the word that is used for Joseph of Arimathea.
[17:38] It says he was waiting for the kingdom of God. Now, we know that Joseph of Arimathea, we don't know very much about him, we know that he was a part of the Sanhedrin, but he wasn't like most of the men on that Sanhedrin, he wasn't focused on the here and now, he had this heart and it was waiting for the kingdom of God.
[17:59] And that explains why he did what he did, because he had this forward, future direction to his heart. he was hoping and looking for God's king to come.
[18:13] Jesus uses this word in Luke 12, 36, be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet so that when he comes and knocks, they can immediately open the door for him.
[18:31] So, this idea that we're waiting for the blessed hope, it's something that you're ready for. We need to learn to wait for Jesus coming, like my son came and waits for his friend Carter to show up at the house.
[18:49] And you know how a child waits for his friend to show up at the house. He's at the window. He's constantly looking out the window. He's waiting for Carter to show up and pull up so he can open the door and run out and go meet him.
[19:04] Now, is that, I wonder, is that how you are waiting for Christ to return? Or maybe you're down here, absorbed in this world, absorbed with the things of this life.
[19:27] Well, what are we waiting for? We're waiting for the blessed hope. It's blessed because then we will truly be completely and fully blessed ourselves.
[19:38] God is called the blessed God and it means that he's entirely free of the troubles and concerns. No one can assault his security. He is forever happy.
[19:50] He's forever secure in his glory. And we are waiting to enter into that ourselves. It's blessed because we will be with the blessed God and we will be blessed and happy ourselves.
[20:04] It will be blessed because it will be the end of all of our troubles. All of our troubles. There's no wound. There's no sorrow that heaven can't heal, that Jesus Christ can't heal.
[20:20] He's the balm of Gilead. He's the medicine for all of our ills. And that's why our noses should be pressed to the window.
[20:30] that's why our hearts should be longing for him to return. We should be waiting like a patient waiting in a hospital for the nurse to come by with pain meds.
[20:42] Now if you are in discomfort and you know that the nurse or the doctor can bring you relief, you're pressing that button, aren't you? We need to be pressing the button of prayer more and say, come Lord Jesus.
[20:57] And it's in that hope that we live the Christian life. Now, some men have thought Christ is coming. Maybe you've talked to these people.
[21:08] They think Christ is coming very soon. In the next few months, in the next few years, they think this. And then they start to do all sorts of strange things.
[21:19] Things that they think are a good idea. But I think if we're thinking right, I think if we're lined up with what God wants us to do, then what would you do if you knew Jesus Christ could possibly come in the next few months, few years?
[21:38] What would you do? Well, I'll tell you what I would do. As a pastor, I would do verse 15, because that's addressed to pastors, where he says, these things are the things that you should teach, you should encourage, and you should rebuke with all authority, do not let anyone despise you.
[21:58] I would encourage and rebuke with all authority, I would do what I was told to do. I would do what God wants me to do. Now, if I was a young lady, I would love my husband, and love my children, and raise them up, and be busy at home, and if I was an older man, I would live a reverent, respectful life that other people could look up to, and to emulate, and to say, this is how you live the godly life.
[22:25] This is how you live in the fear of the Lord. And if I was an older woman, I would say no to drunkenness and gossiping and wasting my life on frivolity, and I would get busy teaching the younger women to live to the glory of God.
[22:41] Why? Because it will be good for the servants if the master finds them doing what he told them to do. Not strange things, not weird things that leave people's heads scratching their heads.
[22:59] He says, I'm coming soon, and so what do I need to do? I should be getting busy doing what he told me to do. And so if he should come, I'll be ready.
[23:11] I'll be found on task, whatever that task might be. so the wrecking ball is coming, and that puts a new light on the things that I should be giving my life to, and that puts new light on this world and everything I'm tempted to live for.
[23:33] The world is saying, no, this is how you make a valuable life. This is how you make a worthwhile life. And so, you know, what do I live for?
[23:46] That growing, looking at that number in my 401k, wow. Wow, it grew 20% this year.
[23:59] Is that what I live for? Or popularity to have these friends or to be in that inner circle of the select friends, or to just have success as the world paints it, to have a normal, everyday, fun, middle-class American life and everything else the world lives for.
[24:19] In the light of Jesus Christ coming, those things really do look drastically small, don't they? Am I going to present my 401k papers to Jesus and is he going to be impressed?
[24:36] Christ? No, there's a wrecking ball coming. And Christian, all of our best things are in front of us.
[24:49] Our hopes are coming, and they're coming true. So that's what we're waiting for. And that tells us how we should live. Now the second question is who are we waiting for?
[25:00] Who are we waiting for? Because we aren't just waiting for something, something to happen. We're waiting for someone. We're waiting for someone.
[25:12] We're waiting for our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Now, our great God, clearly, in Paul's estimation, Jesus is God.
[25:25] But he is saying he is our great God. And I think it's helpful to know that in the Old Testament, that word is not used very often. At least those two words put together.
[25:38] It is used occasionally in the Old Testament, and it's almost always in the context of judgment. So in Deuteronomy, I think it's chapter 4, the great God, Moses brings up our great God, and he is the one who drove out the Canaanites and put us into the land of Canaan.
[26:00] He gave us the promised land in an act of judgment and an act of salvation. It was our great God that did that, this mighty act of judgment. In Deuteronomy 10, the Israelites are not to pervert justice, they are not to deny justice to the poor, and the reason that Moses gives is our great God lives among us.
[26:24] This judge of righteousness lives with us, so we need to do justice the right way. Our great God. So who is coming?
[26:35] Our great God. For God has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.
[26:52] The judge is coming. God does not mean damnation for God's people. It does not mean damnation for Christians because he already took all of our sin upon himself.
[27:06] Instead, it means our salvation. Through judgment, salvation comes. He is our judge and he is our savior. We will not need to be saved from him, brothers and sisters, because he is coming to save us from the world.
[27:24] And so who is he? And Paul is going to lay on layer after layer of who's coming for us and what does that mean how we should live now? Well, who is coming for us?
[27:37] He's the one who paid for you. Please all start with a P. He's the one who paid for you. Verse 14, who gave himself for us to redeem us.
[27:49] Redemption is the idea of a ransom, of a rescue, bought with a price. Jesus bought you, brother.
[28:04] He bought you, sister. Not with silver or gold, he gave himself. That means he gave all that he was.
[28:16] He held nothing back. He put it all on the altar, and that was the price of redemption. And so then how should you live? You're paid for.
[28:28] He purified us. That's the second P. Verse 14, he gave himself at the cross to purify for himself a people or his very own. Again, this is an Old Testament idea.
[28:43] Priests were purified. The people were purified. altars and bowls and censers and things like that were all purified. That means they were cleansed from all sin, and then they were dedicated and devoted to God.
[29:00] That's what it meant to be purified. It was, now you're ready to be brought into the presence and into the use of God. Now, brothers and sisters, it doesn't say he is coming to purify us, although that is true.
[29:16] It says he has already purified you. You are now qualified to live a life of godliness because of what Jesus did. His blood has atoned for all of our sin, and by him we are sanctified now to God.
[29:35] We are purified. So who's coming for us? The one who purified us. Who are we waiting for? He paid for us, he purified us, he possesses us.
[29:49] The end of verse 14, purify for himself a people that hurt his very own. His very own.
[30:03] We are his treasured possession. That's the idea. You aren't just a part of his normal stuff. Let me repeat that.
[30:17] If Jesus bought you, you are not a part of just his normal stuff. Now, what does God own? Well, the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.
[30:30] He owns everything. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, he owns all the gold and all the mines, he owns the stars, he owns the angels, he owns everything. Seas and mountains.
[30:42] But in a certain way, that's his normal stuff. But you're a special treasured possession.
[30:54] His treasure. His treasure. Kids, do you have something that you treasure? Do you have a box where you keep your treasured things? And maybe no one else thinks it's very important, but it's important to you.
[31:09] Those tidbits and those things, those are your treasured possessions. Maybe you have jewelry handed down from your mother or your grandmother, and you say, this is precious, this is treasured, it's not like all your other stuff, it's special.
[31:25] That's what Jesus, that's who Jesus, that's who we are to Jesus, that's who's coming for us, he's coming to take us and forever own us.
[31:36] So where his treasure and where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Now what that means is, what's important to you, your heart finds a way to go to that.
[31:49] Your heart finds a way to rest there, and you're thinking about it, and you're loving that. That's one of the reasons Jesus says, you give money to the poor that you might store up treasure in heaven, and where your treasure is, your heart will be also.
[32:04] Do you want to be ready to go to heaven? Well, get a nice big treasure in heaven. And what this is saying is Jesus died and paid for us and now possesses us that we might be his treasure.
[32:21] His heart is on you. His love is on you. So then, how should we live? How should we live in light of that?
[32:31] If we've been so loved and purified and paid for, well, how we should look forward to his coming. How we should look forward to his coming.
[32:43] It's going to be his joy to take us, and it's going to be our joy to be taken by him. And that's who's coming. Now, the third question is, what do we do while we wait?
[32:56] What do you do while you wait? That's the third question. Now, the end of verse 14 says, he paid for us, he purified us, he possesses us, so that we will be his very own eager to do what is good.
[33:13] What do you do, what do we do while we wait? We do good. We do good. We zealously, eagerly, enthusiastically do good.
[33:28] That's why Jesus bought and paid for us. That's why we're here. That's what we're going to do in heaven. That's what we're doing here now. What is good? Now, this is where the message this morning on the goodness of God intersects with practical everyday, now here's my life.
[33:48] I hope it intersects in a lot of other ways, but you see it here in Titus. What did Jesus do when he was on earth? Peter said it. Pastor John already quoted it.
[34:00] Acts 10. He went around doing good. good. You could never stop him from doing good. He was an enthusiastic do gooder and he was busy about doing good.
[34:12] He did his father's will with enthusiasm. He said, this is my meat and my drink. This is my bread and this satisfies me. This is the kind of person that I am.
[34:23] And so he bought and paid for us so that we could live a life just like he lived. He bought and paid for us and purifies us and possesses us in order that we now could imitate God in heaven who is good and who does what is good.
[34:46] This is so different from what you used to be. Look at chapter 1. It's just across the page.
[34:59] It's just above where I'm at in my Bibles. But look at chapter 1 verse 15. Paul says to the pure all things are pure. But to those corrupted, that means rotten, and do not believe, nothing is pure.
[35:21] In fact, their minds and their consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient, and then look what it says, unfit for doing anything good.
[35:43] You can't get good fruit off of a bad tree. They're unfit for doing anything good. They are rotten springs, they're bad trees, they aren't pure, and that's what we used to be.
[35:56] Unfit for doing anything good. But that's not you now. That's not where you are now.
[36:07] Jesus has purified you, he's possessed you, he's taken you for his very own, so that you would be eager to do what is good. Now, Paul is going to start really hammering this point home.
[36:23] Look at chapter 3 in verse 1. So remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready, to be ready to do whatever is good.
[36:37] Chapter 3 verse 8, I want you to stress these things so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to do what is good.
[36:48] And then verse 14, our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good. What do we do while we are waiting?
[36:59] We do good. And we do it enthusiastically, zealously, eagerly. So think about some people who are eager about their business.
[37:13] They're zealous people. Maybe it's not about Christian things. It's not godly things or anything, but you can't deny that they are enthusiastic about it. So some businessmen are devoted to making money, devoted to building a business.
[37:33] And they're always planning, and they're always looking, and they're always thinking about the different angles, and looking for angles, and good deals, and they're thinking about new lines of product, new lines of service, new ways to improve what they have, new ways to reduce costs.
[37:49] They're eager about this. So I think this past spring or something, Elon Musk was sleeping on his factory floor, the Tesla factory floor, because they had to meet deadlines to get these cars out.
[38:06] So here's a billionaire sleeping on the factory floor, because he is zealous about meeting the deadlines.
[38:16] Athletes are devoted to excellence and performance. I think we've come a long way since those 1950s and 1960s football players, or whatever, and they did a concrete job on the side, and they drank beer at night, and ate fried chicken, and those days are long gone.
[38:38] Athletes today are always looking for a better way to train, a better way to prepare their bodies. They're always thinking about it. They're spending money on it.
[38:48] They're pondering it. Why are they doing it? They want to win the prize. They want the trophy. They want to honor the championship. So you want a lesson on, okay, how should I be doing good?
[39:04] What kind of enthusiasm? Go to LeBron James and say, now how does this man take care of himself? How does he think about winning? How does he pursue athletic excellence?
[39:19] Politicians are eager for honor or influence. So I know it's not normal to find anything good about a politician, but think of the trouble.
[39:32] think of how much they're insulted just because they want those positions. No matter what side you're on, the other side's going to hate you.
[39:46] But you know what? they put up with that and they sit in committee meetings and they take the lower positions before they find the higher positions.
[39:57] Why? Because they're eager for honor. They're eager for influence. Brothers and sisters, doing good is our business.
[40:10] Doing good is our athletic endeavor. Doing good is the way that we win honor. And I just, why should the world outstrip us in zeal?
[40:22] Why should the world outstrip us in enthusiasm, in thoughtfulness? They do it for a world they can't keep. They're doing it for a life in a world that they can't keep forever.
[40:38] And so, but we're doing it for Jesus who loved us, who gave himself for us. Who's not going to stay away, who is going to come, who's coming again in glory and honor, and we're doing it for prizes and honor and treasures that no one will ever be able to take away from us.
[40:59] We're doing it for a life eternal, for the eternal glory of Jesus Christ. And so, we need to have, so what do we do while we're waiting? We eagerly imitate God and do good.
[41:15] With the same kind of outflowing, enthusiastic, delighted, joyful, doing of good. Now, where do we start?
[41:25] This is, I guess, question number four. Where do we start? Well, you start right where you are. because God has a plan for your life.
[41:40] God has determined the places and the times that you should live, and he's prepared in advance the good things that he wants you to do. And so, where do you start?
[41:50] You start right where you are, with the people here, the brothers and sisters and the families that are here. You start with the people that you work with. You start with the money that you have.
[42:03] You start with the talents that you have. You don't need to, you know, sort of long neck over to your brother and sister and say they have more talent or they have more money or they have more opportunities.
[42:14] That's not your business. Your business is to do what God has given you to do, and so you cherish what you have. The master praised the servants for the way they enthusiastically used the talents they had.
[42:29] You didn't have any problem with the talents that they didn't have. And that's how you live in light of Jesus coming. You get busy.
[42:40] You get busy. And that's how you live in light of the cross. That's what he died for. We're to purify us and to possess us in order that we would be eager to do what is good.
[42:55] So you get busy. And so if you're busy doing what he's told you to do, well then whether you die or whether you remain until Jesus comes, you'll be ready to meet him with no fear, just with joy and confident expectation.
[43:20] salvation. And that's what I hope for all of you. That's really what I hope for all of you. So whether you die or whether you remain until he comes, that when you meet him, you will have a long life of busy, loving service, and you will be able to without any shame, joyfully and expectantly and hopefully meet him.
[43:49] That's what I hope for myself. That's what I hope for you. Are you ready to meet him? Is that the direction of your heart?
[44:03] He's coming soon. And we need to, when Jesus said, behold, I am coming soon, John responded with, amen, so be it.
[44:15] Come, Lord Jesus. Can you say that prayer? Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Well, let's pray. We do thank you that you have told us these things because we need these things in order to live a Christian life, in order to live the life that you want from us.
[44:42] We need to know about the cross and what happened at the cross, Lord Jesus. And we need to know that you are coming back for us. And we need to know what to do while we wait for you to come.
[44:57] And you've given it all to us. You've given all that we need in your word. So we thank you for the thoroughness of the word of God. God, we might not know everything we would like to know, but we certainly know everything we need to know.
[45:13] And that is your goodness to us. And so we say thank you. And it is my prayer that we would be people with hearts and minds that are looking forward to that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[45:34] Jesus, you came once in dishonor, and you are coming again with great honor. You came silently, but you are coming with the trumpet sound and the voice of the archangel so that from the east to the west every man and every eye will see you.
[45:55] And it will be the worst day for some. And it will be the best day. And I pray that everyone, here, for them, it would be the best day.
[46:07] They'll have nothing to fear because all their sins are on Jesus, on that cross, and they have been busy doing his will.
[46:21] I thank you that it will be good for those servants who the master finds doing what he told them to do. Make us to be those kind of servants. Encourage our hearts when we are tired, when we are weak, when we lose our way, lovingly bring us back.
[46:37] Straighten out our hearts, straighten out our minds, and set our paths on paths of righteousness once again. We thank you for all that you've taught us today. We thank you for our time together.
[46:49] We thank you for your great blessing upon our church. church. We want to open wide our mouths even more. And we thank you that you will fill us.
[47:00] So do good to us this week, and make us to respond with grateful praise every day. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.