Jesus is Better Than Everything Else for You
Transcript
Over the past several months, we're looking at who we've been as a church, where we're wanting to go, what we've always kind of tried to claim and point people to, and we just came up with this as a helpful way to say kind of the heart behind everything else we're going for. So last week, we specifically spent some time talking about Jesus is better than everything else for you. For you personally, for you as an individual, that Jesus is better than everything else for me, that he's better than everything else, he's more enjoyable, more lovely, more to be pursued, more to be chased after, more to be desired than all the other things that I could desire. And now today, we're talking about Jesus is better than everything else for those around you, those next to you, those who walk in life with you that are believers.
So that Jesus is better than everything else for me, and Jesus is better than everything else for you. For the people in your group and in your family, that we would take the time to intentionally point them towards Jesus. We said last week that the whole point of the gospel was for joy, for enjoyment. That Hebrews 12 says that it was for the joy set before him that Jesus endured the cross and scorned its shame. That he went for our joy in his glory and in a relationship with him, and that we are meant to find our fulfillment, our pleasure, our happiness, our joy in him. So as we get started this morning, I have a personal question for you.
How argumentative are you? Not you, don't like look at your spouse. How argumentative are you? Are you the type of person who just enjoys a good exchange of ideas? You don't even like the word argue, because it's like, I'm not mad. You're just wrong, and I'm trying to help.
That you don't mind hopping in. You don't mind correcting. You don't mind engaging. That you'll actually, you don't have to raise your hand or raise your spouse's hand, but you'll overhear a conversation and just hop in. I'm sorry, what? No, Thai food is terrible.
Like you just, it's like they were talking to you. You like that movie? Like you just jump in to start an argument. To engage in a discussion. Robust dialogue. Whatever you call it.
Now, there's other people on the other side of the spectrum. How many of you in this room are just not? You're not going to correct people. You're not going to disagree with people. Either it makes you feel uncomfortable, or you just don't care. So like there's some people who watch someone do something wrong, and they'll be like, hey, I know it's none of my business, but can I help you?
Can I tell you what you're doing wrong here? And there are those of you in this room who will watch someone try and fail, and try and fail, and you'll sit back and go, idiot. But you're not going to tell them. You're not going to tell them they're wrong. Maybe you know they're wrong. You just don't want to.
Maybe you're not mad at them, or you're not judging them. You're just thinking, maybe they know a different way, and it's just not working for them. I don't know. My wife, I'm the type of person, I don't mind getting into engaging in an argument, a discussion. I don't mind it at all. My wife is on the opposite end of the spectrum.
So like we've been places before where she's like, when we're showing up, she's like, oh, they think my name's Tina. It's like you haven't corrected them on your name? Like, she will. She'll let somebody call her. I'll be like, I'll fix this. Like, I'll walk in and like announce your name loudly.
And like, she's just that type of person. She has to care a lot. So if you're the type of person who doesn't engage, how much do you have to care? How close do you have to be to the situation before you'll wait in, before you'll correct, before you'll... So like I've had people say like, I could just never imagine your wife getting upset.
It's like, I can imagine it. I've seen it. Because she cares. She's invested. She's close. And so some of you, it takes a whole lot.
And what we're going to look at today in this section in Titus, so if you want to grab your Bibles and head to Titus chapter 2, we're picking up with the Apostle Paul. He's writing to a pastor. And he's saying, here's something worth engaging over. Here's something worth waiting in. Here's something worth discomfort, frustration. This is worth your hopping in, arguing, declaring, insisting.
So let's pray for our time as we begin to read this this morning. We're going to read a good bit and just kind of try to walk through it together where Paul is saying, hey, this needs to be engaged. Father, we ask that your word would train us, that it would show us your glory and your grace, that you might equip us to love and to follow you and to care enough for those around us. To point them to Jesus. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
You see, we naturally point people towards things that we think are better. We naturally will point someone towards something that we think is good. You do this with mechanics. You do this with movies. I had a friend of mine who told me he'd moved up here from Florida and he's like, yeah, I've never had fried chicken. And I was like, get in the truck.
Like, we're going now. You need to eat fried chicken. Like, he got him a chicken breast. He looked at it and said, okay, now what do I do? I was like, bite that part. He's like, just grab it.
I was like, yes. He ate a little bit and then he put it down and he said, I see why everybody talks about this. I was like, yes, fried chicken is amazing. But we do that. When we know something is better, we know something is good, we point people to it. And this is where we're looking at actually pointing each other towards Jesus, which we would say as Christian is supreme, that he is above everything else, that he is what is most good for us.
We're going to pick up in verse 11 of chapter 2. 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. Okay, so look back. We're going to look at verses 11 and 12 together. They'll be on the screen. As Christians, our goal is to remain Christians.
Once you believe in Jesus, you want to continue to believe. You want to continue to have him at work in your soul. You don't want to drift. You don't want to run away. You want to stay tethered to Christ. You want him to be at work in your heart to make you look more and more like him.
Now, we believe that he does that in us through the power of his spirit, but that we collectively work together to continue to point each other back towards what most matters so that we might most enjoy, love, and follow Jesus. And so what he says at the beginning of this passage is he says, For the grace of God has appeared. Well, what's he talking about? What's the grace of God that has appeared? We'll have that on the screen. The grace of God has appeared.
And then he says, bringing salvation for all people. So that tells us what the grace of God is, that the salvation brought for all people, we know, is Christ. So what he's saying is that when Jesus showed up and went to the cross, that grace appeared, appeared, and this grace brought salvation for all people. That Jesus Christ lived perfectly on our behalf. That he died a sinner's death. That all sinners deserve to die, but that he didn't deserve to die.
And that he was laid in the tomb, and that he rose again. That he conquered sin and death on our behalf so that we might be saved. That that's grace. That that's what's appeared. That it's God showed up in history. That the grace of God appeared, bringing salvation.
And then he says this, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. All right. As we want to follow Jesus, we want to grow. And what it means to be healthy, and to walking away from sin, and walking closer to Jesus. And one of the things that happens, on a regular basis, is that someone becomes a Christian, and that we step in and say, okay, they're a Christian now, and it's almost like, you need grace. You need Jesus to save you.
You're a sinner, and you need grace. You need to be saved from your sin, by no work of your own, but you need Jesus to redeem you, and then you become a Christian, and it's like, okay, now there's a lot of rules you need to learn. You've got to get your stuff together. Now that you're a Christian, there's a whole lot of mess in your life, that we've got to work on. And sometimes it can feel like, what we think is, no, no, I needed grace to be saved, but now I need the rules to grow. But what's he saying?
When he says, training us to renounce ungodliness, and worldly passions, what trained us? The grace of God that appeared. That it's grace that trains us. It's grace that calls us out of our sin. That it's God's grace on our behalf that keeps us from chasing after our old worldly passions. And worldly passions are the things that we used to love and desire.
I love the word passion is there. Something that you're just passionate about. Your face lights up when you think about it. And it's one of the things that you used to just chase after. Your world was built around it. And how did your passions change?
Grace came in. How did your loves change? He began to love something more. That's what the next verse is. I want to show this to you. I find it so encouraging.
He says, We're 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. So that what happened was, he stepped in and we, our hope, our longing, our desire changed. Our passions changed. So that what you used to be passionate about, what you used to look forward to, what you used to build your calendar around, what you used to change.
And now you have a blessed hope that your passions changed to a longing and a deep desire. I love when you get to see at like airports and stuff where someone's waiting on a soldier to return. A spouse is waiting with a family and they've got those sons that they just can't wait. And the ones that truly just waited, longed for them, couldn't wait for them to get back. That life wasn't the same without them. It's so beautiful to see that and to see them reunited.
To see tears. I love the ones where it's like the dad shows up at someone's school and just appears like he's the chicken. He takes the mascot head off and all of a sudden it's like, oh my goodness! Like I love those where it's like life wasn't the same without you. You now become so ingrained in us, so longing to see you, longing to enjoy you, longing to have you. And that's what happened.
That we had worldly passions but that Jesus changed our hearts and we now have a deep, blessed hope, a longing and a desire that won't be the same until he comes back. I have a two-year-old and I drop him off at different places and dropping him off isn't that much fun, picking him up is like to see his little face light up and he'll say, Dad, you came back for me. And that's us. That we're waiting for Jesus to come back for us that our hope is now the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ that we want to see him glorified, that we want to see him lifted up so that we used to love worldly passions.
We used to have things that we chased after but that he wooed us, that he stole our hearts. And here's how he did it. He gave himself up for us to redeem us from all lawlessness. That we used to have things that we loved. My wife and I started dating in high school and she, the first time she ever like saw me, someone pointed me out to her and was talking about me or whatever. The first words my wife ever said about me out loud, she looked at me, she really soaked it in, I think, like if I'm going to picture this in my head.
And then she said, I don't like him to the person next to her. And her friend was like, okay, like, it's fine with that. Some of you are like, hey, I have something in common with your wife. But here's what happened. Here's what happened. I wooed her.
I stole her heart. She can't at this moment now even hear my voice without her heart just almost skipping a beat, you guys. And that's what happened. We had worldly passions and worldly pleasures and the grace of God appeared in Jesus Christ who came and gave himself up for us to redeem us. That he came and laid his life down that we might be his. And what happened in that moment was that he stole our hearts and our passions changed and our longings changed and our desires changed because we saw that he was better and more glorious and more to be desired.
That's what Paul's saying. That he came and changed our desires. That he called us out of that and into something else. That he made a people that belonged to him for his own possession who were zealous for good works. Verse 15. Declare these things.
And he's going to say stuff like that several times throughout this text. He's going to talk about these things. And what are these things? The gospel. That the grace of God appeared. That he called us away from our sin, away from our old passions, gave us a new hope and new longing and new desire through what Jesus accomplished on the cross.
And that we declare those things. Now, Titus was a pastor. He was an elder in a church and so Paul when he's writing this is giving specific instructions to Titus as a pastor. But when we read it as the church at large what we just see is what's valuable for churches to talk about, what pastors to talk about and so therefore what's valuable for us to talk about. So when he says declare these things, he's specifically talking to Titus as a pastor, as a shepherd, as a teacher but it's also for us to do the same.
So what he says is declare these things, exhort and rebuke. So that's encourage and correct. That's clap and slap. Exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. And I love that he says let no one disregard you.
Do you want to know why I love that? Because so often in our lives we're going to want to tell someone this truth about Jesus and they're not going to want to hear it. We don't go, oh they don't want to hear it. We go, hey! No, no, no. This is what we're talking about.
You're going to have friends that are going to say, hey can't we talk about something else? Like I know we've been friends for a while and I was walking in your group for a while but I've made my decision. I'm chasing after this and every time we get together all you want to do is tell me that Jesus is better and that I need to turn from my sin and I need to can't we talk about something else? And you get to say, no. No we can't. But I am willing to continue to hang out with you forever.
Every day for the rest of your life. Not allowing you to disregard me. So that's how we exhort, that's how we encourage and it's how we correct, it's how we rebuke. So that what he's saying is that he called us away from sin and he called us to good work so that when someone in your group is just exhausted, they just don't, like I just can't, I just can't anymore. Like I just, if they call me one more time, I'm just, I just can't, I'm just not going to answer. Like I just have no desire to do anymore.
Like I'm done with them. And what you get to step in and say, no, let me encourage you in how good the gospel is and how grace has worked on your behalf and how you've been equipped and called for good works. And when someone's chasing after old sin, you get to step in and say, no, let me tell you how we've been called out of that. Not so that you might earn your salvation, but because Jesus has already laid down his life for you and you have a better savior. You have a greater love that we exhort and rebuke with it. Now, we're going to move into chapter three and chapters and verses in the Bible were added later.
They are helpful because they help you find things. It'd be really hard if you were like, hey, turn, if we stood up and said, turn to the middle of Isaiah, kind of under, like it would take us forever. So they were added later to help us find things. But Paul didn't write that giant three right there. So one of the problems that I have sometimes is that you're reading, you hit the end of two, you see that giant three and you think, well, I should be done for a little while.
He stopped his thought. It's like, no, he didn't. He just wrote a letter. We added the three later. So ignore the three and let's move on.
He says, remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. I love the beginning of this verse, these few verses we just read. Remind them. Isn't that encouraging? You know what Paul just assumed? We're going to forget this.
You're not going to be gentle. You're going to not want to submit to rulers and authorities. You're not going to want to be ready for every good work. Like, that we're going to drift from where we're supposed to be and that one of the things we're supposed to do collectively as pastors and as each other in church families is to remind each other, hey, no, that actually isn't the best. Like, you shouldn't be doing that. Like, he assumes that our hearts will drift and he keeps going.
Verse 3. 4. So he says, this is what you do. Remind them. Call them back to the good things because, that's what 4 means, for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. He said, this is what we used to be like.
You've got to remind them because here's what we used to be like. And I love the phrase where he says, slaves to various passions and pleasures. That one of the reasons we need to be reminded about the goodness of Jesus, that we need to exhort and declare to one another about the gospel is because we used to have another master. We used to be enslaved to our desires. We used to be enslaved to our passions. We used to build our life around our pleasures and we're called now to a greater love, a greater hope, a better master.
We're betrothed to one who is greater and more enjoyable and more to be desired. I played football throughout my life. I started when, I used to play baseball and then I started playing football when I was like 11 and I went home one day and was like, football is better than baseball and I will never play baseball again because I get to, one of the things that had a problem with baseball was when they hit you with the ball, you just get to take, you just get to go to first base. You don't get to try to hurt them. I mean, you can't in the pros some. They really frowned on it in the little league.
But in football, if you hurt me, hey, next play, bro. Like I get to try to come back and I remember being in football in college. I was playing in college and it was right before, it was the most depressing hour of the day, right before we began to stretch and have to start practice and all the guys are just kind of standing around talking to each other and I remember picking up one of the footballs and I was just kind of looking at it and I held up and said, hey, just a few guys around me and I said, hey, you ever thought about how much of your time, how much of your energy, your life, your sweat has been devoted to this oddly shaped brown object? You ever thought about that?
And I said to one of the guys, his name was Antoine, he was All-American and he went, hey, y'all shut up. Everybody shut up. Listen to this. Say it again. And I was like, nobody was paying attention to me but they listened to Antoine so everybody now, all the defensive players are looking at me and I said, have you ever thought about how much time, how much of your life you've devoted to this? And I just, I remember them just looking at it and going, like there were some guys that you were like, that guy's doing some good math and you're like, your math's not great but you know it's a lot.
And when he says that you used to be slaves to various passions and pleasures, what that means is they used to tell you where to go, what to do. You weren't at liberty. They owned you. They owned your schedule. They told you how to spend your time, how to spend your money. They told you what life was going to look like for you.
That your passions owned you. And so I don't know what I could, if I had a big bag, if I could pull something out. I don't know for you what would be the thing that you've devoted so much of your life to. I don't know if I could pick out a mirror. I don't know if I could pick up a paycheck. I don't know if I could hold up a title. or a plaque that you'd set on a really nice mahogany desk.
I don't know if I could pull out of this bag and hold up something that was, I don't know. I don't know for you what would be the thing that you could look at, the object that you could look at and say, no, I've really spent a lot of my life obeying that. I don't know if you spent your time chasing after being admired or being desired. But what we know is we as Christians were slaves. We have former masters that told us where to go and what to do and what mattered and how to spend our time and how to make friends. Which friends to keep, which friends to lose.
We have masters that have owned us. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaved to various passions and pleasures, passing our day in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But, when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, that's verse 4, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy. by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Alright, so this passage, this verse, what He says, just parallels perfectly with what He said earlier. So what He says is, but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, so what did He say appeared earlier?
Grace. What's He saying appeared now? Goodness and love and kindness from God. It's the same thing. It's the same thing that appeared. It's Jesus.
That when Jesus showed up, we saw how good God was. We saw how loving He was. We saw how kind He is that He would redeem, that He would lay His life down. And He says the same thing. Earlier He said, bringing salvation for all people. What's He say here?
He saved us. That His goodness, His loving, His kindness saved us and now it's more personal. So what He's saying is for your life, there was a moment where God's goodness intercepted you. Where He claimed you. Where He made you His. If you're a Christian, there's a moment where His goodness and His kindness saved you.
And then He says, not because of works done by us in righteousness. So earlier He was saving us away from the sinful things and here He says it in a different way but what He says is, God did not save you because you had it together, because you were good, because you were holy, because you were perfect. He wasn't looking around going, who do I need on my team? That person. No, He chose us while we were in the midst of being slaves to our passions and our pleasures. Setting our whole calendars around food and sex and drink.
Setting our whole calendars around ambition. That He redeemed us in the middle of that. And that He washed us, renewed us through the Holy Spirit. And then in verse 6, talking about the Holy Spirit, He says, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. And so that's the same thing where we have a blessed hope, now He says it's according to the hope of eternal life. We have a new hope, a new longing that we're now heirs belonging to Jesus.
Verse 8. The saying is trustworthy and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for the people. So He says, this saying is trustworthy, this gospel saying I just said, and then He says, I want you to insist on these things. And so the two words here is insist on these things. I want you to hammer on this.
I want you to pound on this. I want you to make this the thing that you talk about. And these things, He says that a couple of times. I want you to declare these things. I want you to insist on these things. It's this truth about the gospel that He said.
But I want you all to notice who He says to insist on this too. So that those who have believed. Who are you insisting on the gospel to? The people who need to be reminded. The people who used to have a former master. You're insisting on the gospel to them so that they might be changed, be claimed, continue to run towards Jesus.
That they might have grace change their hearts and call them away from them worldly passions. That grace might train them. We insist on the gospel repeatedly over and over and over and over and over and over again. That's our job as Christians with each other because Jesus is better. So when someone's drifting and running after something else, we try to remind them and insist and declare.
And this is what He's saying. This is worth waiting in. I was at a football game for my younger brother and we were watching and they had a running back that had just marched the ball down the field. They get right at the goal line and they start trying to throw some passes. It's an incomplete pass. Incomplete pass.
My dad's sitting there like just, you know, like he's just getting, he's just crawling all over him. Finally, he just, they throw another pass that's incomplete and he stands up and yells at the top of his lungs. Dance with the one what brung ya! You guys, I was so excited. I just froze. I smiled.
I turned at him and I said, what? What on earth are you talking about? He's like, you know, a pretty girl takes a guy to a dance and then when they get there she dances with everybody else. Dance with the one what brung ya. He marched it all the way down the field. Let him score the touchdown.
Quit trying to get cute. Hand the ball off. He's gotten five yards every daggum time. Oh, dance with the one what brung ya. Okay. I will totally use this again in life.
I'm ready. That's what Paul's saying. When he says insist on these things, he's saying dance with the one what brung ya. He's saying that Jesus got us here. Grace got us here. It wasn't about you learning all these new and wonderful things and learning all these rules, but it was that Jesus stole your heart and so that when someone's drifting, when someone's chasing after something else, that we collectively as a church sit them down and say dance with the one what brung ya.
We sit them down and say Jesus is better. He's more glorious, more holy, more to be desired, more lovely than the thing you're chasing after. That he ultimately is what will fulfill your soul, your desires, your hope, and that he's brought you this far and we're not changing the story and we're not changing the things that we declare. We're insisting on this. I often, when I'm reading the Bible, look up words. I just hit a word and it's like, I kind of know what that means.
I think I could use it in a sentence and not look like a moron, but I want to know what it means. I want to fully, and so I just, in this one, I just looked up the word insist. Like I know the word insist. I got it. But I wanted to read and I love the definition.
There's two. Demanding something forcefully, not accepting refusal. And Paul says, insist on this. He means demand forcefully and don't accept refusal. Don't let them squirm out. The second one is this.
Persist in doing something even though it is annoying or odd. When the people in our church family come to you and they're in the middle of sin or they're talking about their life or they're confessing things or they're just talking, like a lot of times when people are doing that, they really want three things. One of three things. They may want you to advise them. You're close enough. You're in a relationship to where it's like that.
I just want some life coaching here. I want some good ideas here. They may want you to empathize with them. They just want you to look at them and say, I'm so sorry. It sounds so tough. And the person who wants advice doesn't really care about your empathy.
That's so hard. It's like, yeah, okay. You got any ideas? It's like, I ain't trying to get a hug. I ain't telling you this just because of that. And the person who wants you to empathize is so mad at you when you give advice.
They're like, I just wanted you to say it was terrible and give me a hug. And you're like, well, but here's what you really need to do. They maybe just want you to listen. A good way to tell is if it's a phone conversation. Right after they're done talking and you start talking, they get really busy. They've said all their stuff and you're like, well, hey, let me, oh, well, look at that.
My cat just caught on fire and they just hang out the phone. They didn't want you to say anything. They really, empathy would be okay. Advice is terrible. And you know what we do? As Christians, as church families, those who belong to one another and belong to Jesus, we do something very odd and annoying and we don't stop.
We say, you need Jesus. If you're tired, you need Jesus. If you're sad and lonely, you need Jesus. You need to remember the gospel. If you're frustrated, if you're hurting, if you're in the middle of sin, if you need to be encouraged or you need to be rebuked, I have one message. I have one thing to insist on.
I may have some coaching later. I may have some advice later. Certainly, you can have some empathy, but the one main thing you need to get out of this is that you need Jesus, that He's ultimately better. You just lost your job? I'm so sorry. You didn't lose Jesus.
When you just lost your job, it's like, shut up. No. No, I'm not going to because He says, these things are excellent and profitable for people. You want empathy, but you really need a balm that heals. You need wounds that are bound up and guess what? Jesus does that.
You need to run from your sin and guess what? Jesus works in that. You need to be redeemed and forgiven and guess what? Jesus works in that. You need to calm and quiet your soul. You need to know that someone else rules over the universe and guess what?
Jesus does that. And so that when we are walking with people in life and something happens, our response is, Jesus is better and more glorious. That at the end of this, I have nothing better to offer you than Jesus. And even if you follow my wonderful, intelligent, super great advice and you don't end up with Jesus, I've failed you. I haven't helped you because what you need is Him. And so we insist so they won't ignore us and we persist in it even though it's annoying.
This is as a church when we say like, you'll hear someone say, yeah, I had the chance to gospel them. That's what we mean. I had the chance to tell them this message again. These things again. I insisted once again on these things for them. You'll hear someone talk about gospel fluency and that's what we've taught before.
It's just that the gospel is our native language. This is what we talk about. We say that we give good news before good advice or that we talk about Jesus before we talk about you. We've labeled it with 13,000 different things but it's this, that we insist on this message. So when He says these things, it's the two things that He said multiple times.
We'll reread verses 4 through 7. That's the most close one but He said the same thing earlier when He said declare these things. He was talking about that same kind of framework of grace has appeared, it saved us, that He called us away from our worldly passions, that He gave up His life for us. So let's read verses 4 through 7 where He's saying the same thing. He even does it in this passage. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness but according to His own mercy by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.
So that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. So that's the message. a good, loving, kind God had grace breakthrough in your life and He saved you away from your worldly passions, your sin, and your former slave master and towards, and not because, any of your own good work, merit, effort. Washed you, cleansed you, gave you a new hope, a new longing, a new desire, and, on the back end of that, some good work to do. That's what we declare, that's what we proclaim over and over and over again. So that when someone's lonely and sad, we say, hey, I insist that there's a good and loving and kind God that wants to redeem you and make you His.
I insist that He made you an heir, which means He made you family. When someone's chasing after something, they say, if I could just have this, then everything would be fine. And you say, I insist that you have a better hope. I insist that there's something more to be looked forward to and more to be desired than that. When someone's chasing after sin, we sit down with them and we say, I insist that God's called you away from that, that He's a better master, that He's a better lover, that He's a better, that He can woo you and steal your heart than that thing will ever be. And we do this over and over and over again.
And we have to remind one another over and over and over again because you know who can be tricked by their former masters? All of us. You know who can be called back into their past pleasures and passions? All of us. I want to talk to y'all. I think it's a good example of this.
It's one of the great characters in American theater. Ron Swanson. He's a character on Parks and Rec if you're unfamiliar with the show. He is one of my favorite characters ever. He's one of the most put together people in the show. Like he has some eccentric.
He's eccentric. But he's kind of even keely kind of like for the most part. And one of the big storylines with him is that he has some former wives named Tammy. They're different wives from different stages in life but they're both named Tammy. And he's terrified of them because they're crazy. That's the way I'm not saying all ex-wives are.
I'm just saying these are in the story. All right. So he's terrified of them because they're crazy. And what we see is that he's got all these plans and all these things and all these guardrails up to keep them away from him. But there are a few times in the show when they show back up and he's suddenly like, you know, they're not as bad as we like made out to be.
And the people around him are going, no, yes they are. And he's like, well, one lunch won't hurt. And the people around him are going, yes it will. One lunch will hurt. And he's like, no. And then what happens in these few episodes where they do this, he completely gets owned by these ladies.
They change his whole personality. They change everything about him. And they reclaim him. And it's his friends around him that have to step in and fight on his behalf even though he doesn't want to hear it. Because he's lost his senses and re-submitted himself to a former master. That's you.
You have a former master. In Jesus, he's stolen your heart. And there are moments in your life when you're going, I'll never, ever look longingly at that again because he's so glorious. And the people around you are going, yeah, that's right. You do confession and sin. You go, I just am so free from this.
And your group's like, yeah, that's right. You're free from that. That's beautiful. And then six months later you're like, well, you know a little bit of that. And your group's going, what? Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.
And you're going, no, no, no, it's not that big a deal. Like I just, we just kind of, you know, I just picked up a little bit of that. I just started a little bit. It's just online. It's just, and you have all these lame excuses, but you're unwilling to listen to anybody in your group's going, whoa, ho, ho, ho, and we're designed as church family to grab you and smack your head against the wall and say, no, no, no, no, no. Jesus is better and that's about to reclaim you and I insist that you remember the basics.
Not, you need to behave. Not, this is going to, like, no, Jesus is more glorious and more holy and more beautiful and he can steal your heart and his grace is for you and you never earned this in the first place and you need him and we're meant to do that because we all so easily can go astray that you are not responsible for the people around you. You cannot repent for them, you cannot make them behave, but you have a responsibility to them to insist on the gospel, to hold up for them these things that Jesus Christ is good and glorious and gracious and that he saves based off of his good work, not ours, that he calls us away from our effort, our self-sufficiency, that he calls us away from our former slavery to passions and pleasures and that he calls us into a better family with a better hope. And if you are a Christian, you need to memorize these things so that you can insist on them.
That's step one. If you're a Christian and when you go to talk to somebody about this, you just kind of don't have, you need to start memorizing some Bible verses, you need to start memorizing and reciting this for yourself so that you can point other people back to it because we believe that Jesus is better and so that when someone in our church family is sitting with you and they said, well, I just don't see why God would say no to this if it makes me so happy, you can say, whoa, the reason he'd say no to that is because he gave himself up for you that you might be ultimately happy and joyous and engulfed in an eternity of joy rather than this little thing that's right in front of you right now. When someone in our church family looks at you and says, well, I prayed about it, I just don't feel convicted which, by the way, please never say that. If the Bible specifically says something is to be repented of, don't announce I'm so far away from Jesus I can't even hear that anymore.
That's all you're saying and when someone says that to you, you can say, okay, I honestly don't care. We're sinful. You're messed up. Of course you're not convicted. You love this thing. It's your former slave owner.
You can't see it but I can and I'm insisting that Jesus is better. Like we said last week when someone says, well, I think God just wants me to be happy. You can agree wholeheartedly but their happiness will be found only in him and so you're willing to fight alongside of them so that they'll ultimately get Jesus. The band's going to come back up. This is the message that we declare. We have been invited to the dance by Jesus.
He's the one who saved us. He's the one who's redeemed us. He's the one who's claimed us. He bought our corsage. We're going to keep dancing with Jesus. We weren't perfected by good works.
We weren't welcomed in because we got in our mess together. We were invited in in spite of our mess and without any good works to present. We weren't the ugly girl at the beginning of the rom-com who later fixes her hair and gets her glasses off and is now beautiful. We're ugly when we showed up to the dance. But that we belong to him and that he changes our hearts and he claims us and makes us his and we will forever point to one thing and one thing only.
Jesus. That he's better, that he's more glorious, that he redeems, that he claims, and that you want him above everything else. Let's pray. God, I pray that our church family would so believe that you are better, that it would be natural and easy and unacceptable in our own hearts to point to anything else. And I pray, Lord, that you would bless our church with the grace to when others point us to Jesus that we would yield, that we would bend, that we would listen. And I pray that you'd bless our church with the grace to be unyielding, to declare, to insist that you are better.
May this grace forever apply to us. And for those in this room this morning who need to stop pointing people to something else, I pray that they would. And for those in this room this morning that needed to hear that you are ultimately better, I pray that they would believe it. That your grace would train them to turn away from their old passions. And to be swept up in your love. In Jesus' name.
Amen.
