If you don’t know who I am, I’m Ben. I’m associate vicar here. It’s really a pleasure to be here once more and to open this series of distinctives. You know, what does, what does a Christian look like? How is a Christian different to other people around? You know, what are their sort of identifying traits? I guess this is kind of what the series is about. So we’re going to start with one today. But let’s pray as we come to God’s word. Father, we do thank you that we can meet together and read your word. Thank you that we can be expectant to hear your voice tonight, knowing that you want to speak to us. So we pray that you would send your holy spirit to prepare our hearts to receive your word to us tonight that we wouldn’t just be hearing human voices, but your voice, Lord, in Jesus precious name, amen. So tonight we’re thinking about having a new perspective, like a big perspective on life. As I was thinking about this, I was wondering what are the most offensive things you can say about someone today? Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you all the things that I came up with, but something that is really offensive to say to people today. You’re narrow minded. That’s one of the worst things, isn’t it? You know, you are a narrow minded person. That’s terrible if somebody says that about you, isn’t it? It’s really, really bad. One of the things that people can say today. But I wonder what that means. What is a narrow minded person? What do we think of when we hear that often it’s used, isn’t it, to speak of somebody who thinks they’re right normally about something that you think they’re wrong about. So you say you’re narrow minded. Why? Because I know I’m right and I’m not narrow minded. It tends to be how we use it. But actually, if you think of it literally, what the words mean, it sort of means having a small vision, doesn’t it? Like your mind has kind of got blinkers on, you know, like a horse having its blinkers so it doesn’t look to the side. And actually, Christians cannot be narrow minded in that sense. Christians cannot be narrow minded in that sense. In fact, christians can be only the most broad minded people in the whole world. Because actually being narrow minded in that sense of not really being able to see a wide vision of reality comes from sort of sticking to what’s in front of you. I can just see what’s in front of me. And that’s it. That must just be what’s true. But actually, what’s happened as a Christian is that someone, some God, has come and broken into our reality, and he’s given us the big picture to say, this is how the whole thing actually works out. So we have a much bigger picture. Think of it like this. Take this illustration has been through iterations with various people. I immediately took it from a guy, Eugene Peterson, who nicked it from a german bloke, car, Baart. But it goes like this. Imagine that there was a group of people, and they were. They were sort of shut up in a massive warehouse, I guess, like the Truman show, if you’re old enough to remember that. Shut up in a massive warehouse. And they sort of. This was all they knew, the inside of this warehouse. The windows had sort of got all dusty and blocked up. You couldn’t really see out of them. And so these people in the warehouse, they explored every inch of the warehouse. They knew absolutely everything in it. They’re like, we know everything there is to know about this warehouse. I’ve been to the edge. I’ve touched the edge of the warehouse. I know what’s at the back. You know, they know everything about it. Yeah. Then one day, someone sort of climbs up and notices there’s a window and smudges open a little hole, and they see out, and they’re like, oh, my goodness. There are people outside. They look outside and there’s this thing called a car. I don’t know what it is. They’ve never seen a car, but they see a car going past, they see people going to work, and they’re like, man, this isn’t all there is. There’s a whole lot more guys, you should come and look out of this window. I’m sure there’ll be some in the warehouse being like, no, I know everything there is today. The warehouse. Don’t tell me about that. And then just imagine that there was a massive storm and the roof just got absolutely blown off. And people looked up. They were like, what? There’s, like, stars. I’ve got to come up with a new word for it. I’ve never seen those. There’s stars and there’s a heaven and there’s birds, and there’s all sorts. The world is a much bigger place. There’s way more going on than I’ve ever noticed before. I’ve got a bigger vision. I’ve got a massive perspective. And I realised before, when I was in the warehouse, and all I could do was be like, yeah, I can just touch the edge of the warehouse, man. I know everything. You really didn’t know everything at all. And you see, what’s happened in Jesus Christ is that God has come from the outside and he’s blown the roof off our understanding, you know, where before we sort of groped around and just only saw what our eyes saw in front of us. He’s given us this perspective that’s like, I can actually tell you what happened right at the beginning. I can tell you why you were made. I can tell you what’s going to come at the end. No longer are you sort of grappling around, not really understanding the big picture. You no longer are going to be narrow minded because Jesus has come. This is what we’re talking about tonight. This is a unique christian perspective that we’ve got from God, who’s broken into our reality and sort of blown the ends off, taken the roof off so we can see the whole lot. And this is what we actually see from Paul’s message tonight, because we’re going to look at three things in reverse order. Actually, we’re going to go through our passage backwards for reasons that I hope will make sense. Obviously, you’ve done it. Verse 14, we’ll talk about who we are, you know, where we’ve come from. Verse 13 will say where we’re going. It will talk about our future. And then verse, verse twelve speaks about how we behave in the present. And all of these things flow out of verse eleven, which is this grace, you know, Christ coming has appeared and shows us the new reality. So let’s look with me first at verse 14, where we know where we’re from. Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us. That’s it. That’s it. That’s the key thing. That is the key thing. We’ve come from Christ’s redemption, the one who has saved us. Now, you might say, wait a second. That’s not really what. That’s not an answer to where we’ve come from, is it? Being redeemed? Surely that’s a different question where I’ve come from. Surely we need to be getting into sort of like, you know, evolution and who my family are or what country I’m from. But actually, do you know what, in the Bible, creation and salvation are spoken of in the same breath, you know, over and over again? You know, it’s the same God. You know, in Hebrew, there’s a really rare verb that only God does, a word of creating. It’s in Genesis one, where he creates out of nothing. And it’s in Psalm 51 where David prayed, created me a new heart. This salvation is our new creation. And that’s important for us because it’s the most important fact for us to know. The most important fact of where we’re from is what Christ has done for us, who he is for us. And the great thing about this is that it begins from God. It begins even before we’ve done anything. Thinking back to Genesis one, I’ve just mentioned it. Creation can’t say, God, I’d really love to exist. Can you please speak so that I might exist? No, I mean, he has to speak, doesn’t he, and bring it into existence. It’s the same thing with our salvation. We don’t say, God, can you do this for me? He goes before and he does it for us. He creates us anew. And the great thing is that this is from our God and we know who this God is. He is Jesus. This is just one of the most exciting half of the verses that you could ever imagine that you’d probably skip over if you didn’t know about it. But verse 13 b says, our great God and saviour Jesus Christ, you can sort of skip over that really, really fast. But, you know, there’s one person being spoken of here, the great God and saviour Jesus Christ. It’s not like there’s a great God far away in the clouds somewhere and then there’s a saviour, Jesus Christ. There’s not two people. It’s one person are great God and saviour. I think maybe like with fish and chips, they should put just an n with apostrophe on each side. He’s a God and saviour. You know, like one thing, you know, at least that’s what it would say in Greek. You know, in English, we might be able to separate those somehow, but that’s impossible. In the Greek, it’s definitely one person, God and saviour. So this Jesus who redeemed us, he is our great God and he is our saviour. He’s the one that’s come for us. That’s great news because it’s not our work. Who are we? We’re who Christ made us to be. Well, that’s great news in itself. But it’s not only that. We go on in the verse who gave himself for us to redeem us. Now, we’ve already mentioned this, but let’s just pull on that for a second because if Jesus is the God and saviour and he wants to redeem us. Is he able to do it? Lots of blank faces. I’m hoping your heart was skipping for joy, thinking, yes, of course he can. You know, it’s not like jesus sits on the sideline and says, oh, I just really wanted to redeem you. If only that had worked out. No, he’s our great God and saviour, Jesus Christ, come to redeem. So what’s going to happen? He has done it. He’s obviously done it, hasn’t he? If he wants to, he does it. He wants to, so he’s done it. He saved us. It’s out of our hands. That’s a great. That’s a great thing, isn’t it? And he does it to purify us for himself, make us the people that are his very own. His very own. That’s what Jesus wants for us. He wants to make us pure people for himself. And actually, there’s something even even more amazing that that phrase for his very own is actually just one word. It’s just one word in Greek. And what Paul is doing is he’s alluding back to an earlier passage in the Old Testament, and it’s in deuteronomy, chapter seven. You may actually want to look it up because this is just a passage to take for your comfort when you need it. Deuteronomy, chapter seven. And I’m going to turn it up, so you have a second to catch up with me if you want to. Deuteronomy, seven. And we’re going to look at verse six because Paul is talking about this, this passage. This passage is all about how Israel has been saved out of Egypt. And then Moses is sort of chatting to them before they go into the promised land. And he’s like, these are all the things you need to remember. And he talks about how the Lord has redeemed them. And he says to them, well, let’s read it. The Lord, your God, this is deuteronomy, seven six. The Lord, your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. That’s all. For his very own. That word there is alluding to this word treasured possession here in Hebrew. And what Paul is saying is that Jesus is that same Lord who’s redeemed you and me for himself to be his treasured possession. You might want to keep a finger in that because I’ve got one more comment to make on it in a minute. But look, let’s just think about that for a second, because what this means is that who am I? Where do I come from? I come from God, who’s redeemed me and made me to be his treasured possession. That’s what God does. Who am I? I’m a treasured possession. Sounds cheesy, doesn’t it? But it’s a cheesy truth. It’s a cheesy truth. That’s absolutely true. Everyone here who knows Christ as their saviour is his treasured possession. That is who you are. And, you know, this is the bit I can’t resist, because back in deuteronomy, if you still had it with you, in chapter seven, verse seven, Moses talks about the Lord setting his affections on his people. Now, given that this is the passage that Paul has in mind, as he’s writing this bit entitled, he’s saying, you are a treasured possession. You are the one who the Lord God has set his affections on. That’s who you are. He set his affections on you to make you his treasured possession. That is who you are. That is who you are. This is such a key truth to know, isn’t it? Such a key truth to know because. Because there are all sorts of ways we might be called, you know, who do you want to be? Who do you want to define yourself to be? And you sort of work yourself up in knots thinking, I’m not really sure. I don’t know. You scrabble around. But we, our perspective as Christians, our distinctive, is to say, I know who I am. I know who I am in Christ. I’m his treasured possession. I’m the one who the Lord has set his affections on. Me. There’s a lovely phrase in the Jesus storybook Bible, if anyone’s ever read that, you know, you’re lovely because you’re loved, you know, that’s a beautiful phrase, isn’t it? And this is kind of what he’s getting at. This is who we are in Christ. And this is something for us to know. And we know this and we need to test those things around us. You know, if we start to be told, you know, we’re animals, aren’t we? So, you know, it’s not really our fault that we behave this way and we just, blah, blah, blah. This is not really who we are. It’s not really who we are. We’re who we are in Christ. Maybe we get told to define ourselves, but again, we don’t need to do that. That’s the pressure we don’t need to put on ourselves because we’ve got a. We’ve got an identity, a treasure possession, one on whom the Lord Almighty has set his affections on. So that’s the first thing, the first part of our distinctive. And verse 14, let’s move now to verse 13 because Paul turns. I can’t say he turns now because we’re going backwards in the passage. He had turned already to talk about where things are going in the future. Verse 13. Let’s read that while we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and saviour, Jesus Christ. This blessed hope, this is a distinctive. This is a distinctive hope that. That christians have, because the world can be like a quite fearful place, can’t it? When you think about the future, I mean, we don’t often read, you know, great news, the future’s going to be smashing. You know, you don’t see that very often, do you? It’s more like someone’s just invented a robot that’s going to kill you, you know, or, you know, if you keep using that car, it’s all just going to burn up, you know, the future isn’t very happy place as a general rule, is it? You know, and I’m not saying those things aren’t true, I have no idea. But I do know that beyond that, there’s a happy hope, a blessed hope that is bigger than all these things, you know, much bigger. And this is not just a wish. You know, sometimes hope is a wish, isn’t it? You know, I hope one day to have an amazing six pack. It’s really not going to happen, you know, it’s just something I’m, you know, I really want to be true, but I sort of deep down know it’s really unlikely. And as the years, it gets less and less likely. Our hope is like a hope that, you know, something’s going to happen, you’re just waiting for it. The hope is the expectation, right? Like, you know, you’ve got a bank account you can have when you’re 18, you know, you’re hoping forward to that day. If that’s ever happened to anybody. It’s an exciting moment. You can go and spend the whole lot on the guitar, but I’ll tell you about that later. You know, there’s this hope, and that’s kind of what the expectation of the future is. This blessed hope, this happy hope is a sure expectation of what’s to come. And what is to come is the appearing of Jesus glory. There’s a choice made in our translation that says, the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ. I actually think if I were the translator and I’m not, I think I would have put the glory of our Jesus Christ appears. The glory of our Lord Jesus Christ appears. It’s his glory that’s going to appear and it’s going to just be a majestic moment when it comes. You know, the images of. I mean, you know, when Charles first became king, his glory wasn’t apparent, was it? At least it wasn’t sort of like a great, glorious moment. He was just chilling in Buckingham Palace. I don’t really know what kings do. I like to imagine that he tried on all the crown jewels and stuff like this. If they belonged to me, you’d definitely be doing that, wouldn’t you? Sit at the dinner table, I will put my crown on. So the glory might kind of be there, but it wasn’t revealed, you know, was it? It was just sort of behind closed doors. And then it comes to the coronation, you know, and you get the whole garb on and you look absolutely amazing and you’re in that golden chariot, which must be so comfortable. And, you know, all the horses are there and blokes and massive hats with fluff on and, you know, all that glory appears finally when. When that day comes. Here’s the thing. Jesus is our glorious, great God, but there is this day coming where that’s going to be revealed, just like coronation day, you know, kind of thing, where actually Jesus is going to come back and we’re going to participate in all that glory. That is the future. That’s the real future, you know, so it’s not the fearful future that we have. This is a huge distinctive as Christians, you know, because what does the future hold without Christ? You maybe hope that you live on in memory, but even that will end, you know, you think, well, maybe ultimately the universe is just going to run out of steam and it will just get cold and that will be the end. It’s quite depressing, isn’t it? You have to spend quite a lot of time sort of pretending that stuff doesn’t matter and that you don’t think about it. You shove it out of your mind, don’t you, really, to be like, you know what, it counts. It’s just fine, whatever’s going on now. But we can look to the future positively, you know, that’s a Christian distinctive. I’m looking forward to the future because Jesus is coming back. There might be stuff in between, obviously, there might be stuff in between. It’s not like bad things may not happen, but beyond that bad thing is something else. Christ’s return. So we can’t be as christians. We can’t ultimately be pessimists in the final sort of a way. You know, it’s just not really a christian way to be, is it? I speak that hard to myself. That’s difficult, because I think I’m definitely like that by nature. But actually it’s not really open to us, is it? Because if our hope, our blessed hope, our happy hope, is to wait for the glory of Christ coming back. For who? For his treasured possession, the one he set his affections on, how can I be miserable about that, you know? Yeah, obviously things happen in between, but the end of the story is a good thing. The end of the story is majestic. So as Christians, we can’t ultimately be pessimists. This also speaks, I think, to something that I’ve just noticed. Definitely in my generation, it may be for others, but, you know, I could speak as a millennial. There’s just this real sense that often you kind of get to your mid thirties, forties, and you just say, is this it? I don’t know if you ever. I mean, maybe everyone’s thought that, you know, you know, really, is this it? You know, in my year six levers thing, I’m sure they told us we could be whatever we wanted. And I said, astronaut, you know, I’ve not once been to the moon, you know, and that sounds silly, doesn’t it? But that really, in all, much more serious ways, really does, you know, weigh on you, you know, is this really what life is? Is this all that’s going to be? You know, maybe I’ve reached. Reached my retirement and I wanted to change the world in some way, and it doesn’t seem to have happened. You know, is this really it? Now, that’s a prevailing opinion for many, many of us, isn’t it? Do you want the answer to that? Is no. No, it’s not, because we’re not even close to the end. Not even close, you know, so when that sort of creeping, that creeping pessimism, that’s like, oh, my goodness, life has really not turned out as I’d hoped. Is this it? No, is the answer, because the glorious Christ is going to appear and he set his affections on me. He’s coming back for me. What a great day that’s going to be. Well, let’s look at the final thing. Living well in the present, because this is really what Paul’s main thrust actually was. The reason he goes backwards. No, I went backwards. That was terrible, wasn’t it? Paul goes forwards, I’m going backwards, is that actually he starts from here and then builds his argument to say, the thing I’ve just said is true because of this and this, and we’re building it the other way. But verse twelve, it that is the grace of God that brings salvation. The appearance of Christ teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age. In this present age. In Titus, verses one to verses one to ten, Paul has told Titus, you need to preach and you need to teach in this way that people live godly lives and they behave in ways according to God’s will. And the question, of course, with that is like, why bother? Isn’t it? Why bother? Do I need to bother? And that’s the question Paul wants to say, well, yes, bother why? Because the grace has appeared. And it’s the grace that has taught us to live for him. It’s because of grace, because Christ has appeared, because we know who we are in him, because we know where everything’s going. Then of course, we live for him in the present. It makes all the difference in the world. And that grace teaches us to say no. Teaches us to say no. Verse twelve, to ungodliness and worldly passions, say no. You see, because of Christ, our perspective is totally changed. The ends have been blasted off, the roof’s been taken out, you can see the whole thing. And of course that affects that present decision. Think about your response to a Mars bar. I mean, I’m thinking about a Mars bar right now. I had one after lunch. Yeah, you see a Mars bar and you might have different responses to that Mars bar. You know, you might say, yes, it looks delicious, I will have that. Yeah. That might be your response to Mars bars and chocolate. You also might say, oh, I’m really trying to get my running a little bit faster. I’ve got a marathon in a month. I better not have the Mars bar. You know? And then you might be able to resist. You still might not be able to, but you might be able to. But you know, that perspective makes all the difference in the world, doesn’t it, what you’re doing? You know, either you value the flavour that you’re about to have in 10 seconds, or you value your time in the marathon. Whatever it might be. The perspective effects your response to that thing, that temptation. But, you know, even if we can resist Mars bars because we’re doing a marathon, it’s still pretty short sighted in the great scheme of things, you know, even if you can, you know, eat heart smart, because, you know, you know, you need to, you know, for the rest of your life. Still. It’s still relatively short sighted compared to eternity even then. Even I’m eating healthy for the next 30 years, whatever. Still short sighted in the light of eternity. And so when we have eternity in view, of course that affects decisions we make in the present, doesn’t it? That would just be nonsense not to. But it says, it also teaches us that his grace appearing teaches us, disciplines us, to live self controlled, upright and godly lives. The flip side of saying yes to godliness. Why? Because we see its value. We see it’s great. Because when we meet Christ, we want to have lived a godly life, don’t we? I mean, we don’t want to tell him I said, why bother? I didn’t really. And of course on that day, I want to have done when we used to go on holiday as. As kids, I don’t know, do you get holiday money? You probably got, like, you know, given a fiverr these days. Probably a lot more inflation. Get given a fiverr at the beginning of your holiday. And there’s definitely different responses. My response was, where’s the nearest service station? I need to spend this thing, you know, be like, what do you want? I don’t know, you know, if you ever had that, you know, my granddad Ben. Oh, that’s that five quid burning hole in your pocket, isn’t it? No. What do you want to buy then? I don’t know, you know, I’ll find out when I’m there, you know, it could be absolutely anything by the time you arrive at the holiday. I’ve already spent it. I didn’t really need that magazine, not even that into trains, you know, whatever it might be. My brother, on the other hand, is totally different. Totally different. He would get to the end of the holiday and didn’t see anything worthwhile to spend it on, you know? You know, some people are just like that, aren’t they? You know, always there’s gonna be something better. Yeah. These decisions are based on expectation, aren’t they? Decisions of expectation. Do I think, you know that in Smiths at Cobham services or whatever it’s gonna be, the best thing is gonna be there. I don’t know what it is, but it’s just gonna be amazing. Or do I think, do you know what? There might just be something amazing if I spent my fiver. I can’t get my badge of Mont Saint Michel. You know what’s coming next? I don’t know. Our expectations make a massive difference, not just in the silly things like that. Not just in silly things. But obviously it’s the same dynamic, goes from these silly areas, doesn’t it, to all the big areas in our life. It’s exactly the same dynamic. If you’re thinking, do I want to get in massive debt to go to university, you know, it’s still exactly the same thing, isn’t it? You’re still weighing up the benefits. Am I going to earn loads more in my life? That’s going to be worth it? It’s still your expectation, isn’t it, that makes a difference. Should I put a conservatory on my house? Is it going to be worth it? Is the house price going to go up? It depends what you expect, doesn’t it, what you expect to come from that makes that decision. And so for us today, having this new perspective of where we’ve come from and where we’re going, having the roof taken off, so to speak, so you can see the whole thing means that in the present we have sort of a new set of expectations. I’m not saying this answers every question. Whether you should get a conservatory, I don’t know, but it’s still a factor that plays in, isn’t it? You know, how’s it looking in the light of eternity? What role does it play there? And so here’s the thing. This distinctive viewpoint of christians should affect everything, this broad mindedness. Don’t be narrow minded. Oh, yeah, I can see what’s in the present. I just need it right now. We want to be broad minded, right? To see the beginning from the end and to place everything in the middle in its perspective. We want to be disciplined by grace, but in a wonderful way. Grace disciplines us because it teaches us what’s really, really worthwhile. So as we live our lives in the light of who Christ has made us to be, one who set his affection on and made us his treasure, possession, what’s coming, his glory to return, that we will participate in. We live in the present. In light of all of that, we pray. Father, we thank you so much that your son Jesus gives us this perspective, that he blows the roof off our building, that we can really see things as they really are. I pray that we would be able to have that perspective, Lord, and that we would be able to be critical of other views that tempt us to think other things, that we might live in light of eternity and in light of who we are in your son Jesus. So we pray, be with us this week and always, Lord, that we might have the right expectations, and we might live in a joyful, happy hope of your coming. In Jesus name, amen.