Neighborhood Group Foundations: Our Shared Salvation

Motivation is a funny thing. Motivation is literally the desire to do things. It’s the difference between waking up before dawn to get after your day or lazing around the house all day. Motivation is the reason for people’s actions, desires, and needs. On Thursday, we saw the culmination of the motivation of two people who have a desire to bless children. The afternoon before the Shoe Box Packing party, I both saw and heard that motivation when Dave Douglas said, “I just love doing this, we’ve already started purchasing items for next year. I just have a big heart for kids who have nothing.”

There are things that really motivate you to get out of bed in the morning. For some, you can’t wait to get up and go play pickle ball, or golf, or just enjoy a cup of coffee with your spouse. For others, you plan your whole year around trips to see your grandchildren or that cruise you’ve always dreamed of. But for some, our motivations are small. We’re just happy to see the blue sky and feel the warmth of the sun on our shoulders. And for others, you’ve experienced some difficult things that have actually demotivated you. For example, some of you were once highly motivated to live out your faith, but your failures or others criticisms of you wounded you so severely that you’ve decided that now it’s just safer to keep a low profile – to stay out of the fray. Then there are others of you who’ve been demotivate because you’ve served diligently, but no one ever really appreciated you or helped you. Or some of you wanted to serve, but it seemed that no one ever believed in you, encouraged you or gave you a chance. So now your faith is stuck in neutral. You’d like to really dive in and live out your faith – but you’re afraid it just won’t work… Motivation is a tenuous thing. So if you’ve ever been demotivated, wounded, lost heart, been burnt out or wished you could live confidently for Jesus, but just don’t know where to start, then I believe what God’s Word has to say to you this morning can be a life changer for you.

For as we look at what we NEED to live out the good news of Jesus Christ in our everyday activities and relationships, as we look at what its going to TAKE to help our church be a blessing together – if we are truly going to LAUNCH these communities of grace – our Neighborhood Groups – then what we need is motivation: a Jesus inspired incentive that will fuel us to get up every morning and live out the good news of Jesus Christ in our everyday lives. So that’s what we’re going to dig into today by looking at what Jesus has done, is doing and will do that will help you live out the good news in your everyday life. For what we’re going to look at today is simply this: OUR SHARED SALVATION.

For before we ever attempt to launch one Neighborhood Group, we’ve got to awaken our lives to WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR US to help us live out the good news of Jesus. In other words, we need to EXPERIENCE the Good News of Jesus Christ daily if we’re going to live out the good news of Jesus Christ in our everyday lives. So here’s our working definition of Neighborhood Groups: A Neighborhood Group is a Community of Christ Followers on mission with God who are living out the good news of Jesus Christ through their everyday activities and relationships. If you were here last week, we unpacked the first building block of our Neighborhood Groups: Our shared identity and we learned the following things we share in common:

We share a family connection: we are all adopted of the Father. That makes us a community of God’s people. So we are in this together!

We share a follower calling: we are all apprentices of Jesus. Which means we are all Christ Followers on the move with Jesus who’s at work in us to make us fishers of men. We are in this with Jesus!

We share a friend commission: we are all sent into the world like Jesus. We are now on mission with Jesus because God gave us His missionary Spirit – the Holy Spirit. He gave us His Spirit to help us. So we are in this together. We are in this with Jesus. And Jesus gave us His Spirit to help us live on mission together with Him. But NOW we get to see what Jesus has done, is doing and will do to help us live out the good news together. So lets begin with looking at what has Jesus done? That’s truth #1

Truth #1 We Have Been Saved:   Jesus Did It Better  Let me explain this for us. The truth is that no matter how hard we might have tried to earn our salvation, we just didn’t have it in us to do that. We didn’t have the kind of righteousness in us that would measure up to God’s holy standards for Life.   And the reason we didn’t have it in us has to do with The Deadly Damage of Sin: We couldn’t please God.   The Bible is very clear on this. God’s Word declares For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23

To sin is to think, believe or act in any way that is not like God or in submission to what God commands. We’ve all fallen short. God is the target for true righteous living. But compared to His righteousness, we don’t come anywhere close. And the reason we don’t come anywhere close, is that sin has damaged us. It has impaired our thinking – so we don’t think righteous or pure thoughts. It has twisted our motives – so we don’t always do the right thing, and on that rare occasion when we do do the right thing, we don’t always do it for the right reason.   Not only that, but sin has tainted our relationships – and keeps us from loving others the way God would love. Basically, sin keeps us from living the life we were made to live. But the greatest damage caused by our sin is the destruction of our relationship with God.

The Bible says it this way: For the wages of sin is death Romans 6:23a Yes, one of the consequences of sin, is that we all die physically. But that’s not the worst part. For the Bible also reminds us that when we do sin, we actually sin against God. We refuse to believe His way is the right way. We rebel against Him and the result of our rebellion is a broken relationship with God: what the Bible calls “spiritual death.” And so the sad truth of our sinfulness is that we are now dead to God. And the consequences of our rebellion is that we were left to navigate life alone, with no hope, no peace, and no relationship with the very One who made us. And if we continue down that road, refusing to turn back to God, to trust God through Jesus Christ, there’s one more consequence, and that is this: we will spend eternity separated from God, separated from love, separated form all that is good. That’s the damage of sin. That’s why we can’t please God – for our righteousness was RUINED by our sin – and even though we might try to do some good things, and we might try hard live morally decent lives – our token righteousness just doesn’t even come close to God’s righteousness. We all fall short – far short of the glory of God.

But the GOOD NEWS IS that God has made a way to make us completely righteous, totally acceptable and pleasing in His eyes. How? With the Beautiful Righteousness of Jesus: Jesus did please God. Here’s the Good News: But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.  This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. Romans 3:21-22

Since no “sin-damaged human” has ever lived or ever will live a life that perfectly glorifies God, Jesus came in the flesh to do for us what we could not do. Jesus became for humanity the true and better human, He submitted himself perfectly to God the Father. He obeyed him in everything, doing only what the Father told him to do. An His perfect obedience – His perfect life – his beautiful righteousness – has now been given to anyone who will receive it. Jesus is the gift of God to us all. So here’s The Good News: God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21

By faith in Jesus Christ, we have been saved from the need to live a perfect life to gain God’s approval. That’s Good News. Paul says that once you’ve trusted in Jesus, you now become the righteousness of God – you become perfect in His eyes. God now sees Jesus’ perfect life in your life. And that means you no longer have to perform to get God’s approval. HE accepts you completely now because of how Jesus lived.

Let this sink in: Once you’ve trusted in Jesus – THE PRESSURE IS OFF! You no longer need to perform to gain God’s approval. When you mess up – when you get angry and say or do something stupid – you not have to try harder to get God to love you. You don’t have to do penance to get rid of your guilt. Jesus has already lived the perfect life for you. Jesus has already did your penance by dying in your place. All you need to do is believe the Good News; confess your sin, come back to your true self. You see, if you are going to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ in your everyday life, it starts here. It starts by believing what Jesus did for you is sufficient – that it is enough! Believe you are forgiven. Believe that His righteousness is in you and you are totally accepted by God – and nothing can ever change that!

See, the reason so many Christians don’t live out their faith with confidence everydat is that we stop believing Jesus is enough. We think we’ve got to perform to get God’s approval. And if you think like that, then the weight of trying to always measure up will wear you out, bum you out and burn you out. And you’ll end up never truly living out the life God saved you for!

Are you starting to see why, our shared salvation is so foundational to living out our faith? It starts here: God wants you free so you can be the blessing He created you to be. So BELIEVE. Believe that Jesus did it better. Believe that the righteousness He gave you is enough. Believe it everyday. Because we are so quick to FORGET – and as a result we end up carrying guilt we were never meant to carry; and we can’t live like Jesus because we’re too busy trying to prove our worth to God over and over again.

I need Jesus everyday. How about you? Do you believe that what Jesus did was enough? Followers of Jesus believe this. We have to. We can’t live the life Jesus calls us to live apart from it. So let me ask you: Are you still striving to gain God’s approval? God? Are you living with regret or self-hatred over some sin in the past? Are you still trying to remove your own guilt? You see, the good news says you don’t have to do any of that any longer. Just trust that what Jesus did on the cross was enough.

The truth is, We’ve all sinned, but Jesus lived a sinless life – a righteous life. And now because of him, we are forgiven and cleansed; we are loved and accepted by God. THIS IS OUR SHARED SALVATION! We’ve been saved from sin so we don’t need to save ourselves any longer. Do you have that freedom? Have you entered that rest?   If you have, you are now free to live out the good news in your daily life! That’s the first truth: We have been saved: All because of Jesus.

Now, Truth #2 We Are Being Saved: Jesus Does it Better Even though Jesus DID it better so you could be saved – have you ever wondered why you struggle with living and loving like Jesus? Why you still think bad thoughts, still judge people too quickly, and find yourself reluctant to love that neighbor who drives you crazy? Have you ever thought that living out the good news in your everyday life is just too hard to do?   If you have, you need to grasp the good news of Jesus for your everyday life. And The Good News is this: Jesus’ life and power are now available for us to live this new life

Listen to this truth from 1 Corinthians. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:1-2

I love those three phrases about the gospel: the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved. The first two phrases basically refer to what we just unpacked: We have been saved. Jesus did it better. This is the gospel we received. What put our faith in what Jesus did. And now we stand on the truth of the gospel. We stand on the truth because we are no longing trying to save ourselves. We stand on what Jesus did so we can now live out the gospel. But did you catch that last phrase “by which you are being saved?” That implies a process. We may be “righteous” in God’s eyes because of what Jesus did, but God still has a lot of work to do in us to make us like Jesus.

Paul says it this way in Philippians 1, I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6 In other words, God knows that we still struggle with sin. He knows we’re going to think bad thoughts, say stupid things and do selfish stuff. But we’re going to get better. Why? Because God promises to change us. He’s not going to leave us the way we are. He is going to change us and make us more and more and more like Jesus –everyday.

That’s The Good News: God promises to help you live the new life now. Here’s His promise Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:12-13 You see, the good news is that when you received Jesus you didn’t just receive his perfect righteousness – you received His life. His Holy Spirit took up residence in you. Now, the DNA of the resurrected Jesus Christ is percolating in your soul. You are spiritually alive. You now have all the potential to live out the good news of Jesus Christ everyday, because the resurrected Jesus is alive in you.

But Here’s Our Problem: We come into Christianity by receiving Jesus Christ by faith, but then we try to live this new life OUT OF OUR OWN ABILITY and STRENGTH. And when we do that we fail. We try to love but we can’t. We try to be kind but sometimes we don’t really feel like it. We try to not get angry, but we lose our cool. And then we feel like we’ve let God down; so we try again. But we fail again and again and again. And eventually we find it’s TOO HARD to live this new life, so we stop trying. Oh a part of you still wishes you could live this new life, but you’ve figured it’s just not worth the aggravation or disappointment. And if that’s where you find yourself this morning, then I have some good news for you. You are right! You can’t live this new life, but Jesus can.

That’s why Paul said, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.  You can’t live this life, but Jesus can. He is more than able to change your desires and your abilities to do what He wants. He is more than able to overcome your anger. He is more than able to help you love the unlovable. He is more than able to satisfy your longings.

You see it was Jesus himself who said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” And yet for some strange reason we fall into this trap of thinking we can live this new life in our own strength. And God never meant it to work like that. Because if He did, He would have never given us Jesus. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus is alive. He rose from the dead, and now because He is living in those who trust in Him, He is the one who not only gives us the desire to live out the good news, He’s the one who wants to live it out through us – if we’d just learn to let Him.

And so just as you received Jesus by faith, we are to live this new life by faith! That’s why Jesus said, “If you want to be my disciple, you’ve got to take up your cross daily and follow me.” Because living this new life means dying to our old life. That’s why Paul wrote:  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20 Is this starting to make sense? You can’t live out the good news in your own strength, any more than you can save yourself. But Jesus is able! So let me ask you: Do you believe Jesus is able to live through you? Do you believe Jesus is able to change your desires so you will want what God wants? Do you believe Jesus is able to give you the power to live like Him?

If you believe Jesus can work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure, then He will. And what that means for most of us here this morning is very simple: We just need to start praying this Scripture in our lives. We need to believe God lives in us. We need to believe God wants to change our wills so we will want what He wants and change our ways so we live more and more like Jesus.

So this is where we need to stop this morning. We need to ask God to do what He says He will do. We need to pray. Will you pray with me?

Father, we confess that for too long we’ve tried to live this life out of our own wisdom and strength, out of our own will and determination. And we confess that we can’t live this life without your Son. So help us believe in Jesus. Awaken our hearts to the truth that You have given Your Son to live through us. Give us Your desires so we will want what You want. Give us Faith so we will learn to let Him live through us. Help us believe that His resurrection power is alive in us. And let Jesus reign in us so He will live through us. And we ask all this in the powerful name of Jesus, our resurrected and living Savior. Amen.