My Pulpit Message Notes: STRONG IN THE GRACE

STRONG IN THE GRACE

My Pulpit Message Notes are transcribed from the sermon preached at the Nairobi Baptist Church (NBC) Ngong Road on Sunday 15th January, 2023. Preacher - Reverend Munengi Mulandi, Senior Pastor NBC. Scripture: 2 Timothy 1-2:1. Topic: Strong in the Grace

Be strong.

2 Timothy 2:1 says

“You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”

- Before we can rush into ‘Be strong’, it is qualified, ‘…be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus’ This is important because it defines where our strength comes from, where our activation / power comes from.

- Paul writes to Timothy and tells him, the only means that you can be strong, the only sure foundation / platform that you can be stable enough to be strong is in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and so he shares what looks like a personal testimony in 2 Timothy 1:9-12-

“He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11 And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. 12 That is why I am suffering as I am.” Grace

Paul describes this grace in three ways:

1. Old

2. Sufficient

3. Effective

This grace is old - 2 Timothy 1:9

Paul describes this grace as having been before the beginning of time. It precedes us and our sin chronologically. Before you and I came into place, before your and my sin came into place, this grace had been before the beginning. God reveals it a little later in full in coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, but Paul says it had been there in the beginning. It precedes you sin and my sin in terms of supply and demand.

- Before our sins got us to a place where we needed grace, this grace was there. It is older than your / my sinning. Before Adam and Eve sinned and were covered with these garments of animals that God offered to cover their sins, the plan of God had already been in place. It was not a haphazard knee-jerk reaction, no. This grace is old.

- Romans 5:8

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

- When you and I have this understanding that God’s love is older than our need for that grace He provides in His love, then all doubt, or validity or viability of our … is nonsense because we realised we are loved, we are redeemed by choice ages ago.

2. This grace is sufficient - 2 Timothy 1:9-10

“He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.”

- This grace is enough. It does not need additives, seasoning, multi-vitamin etc says Paul in 2 Timothy 1:9

“…- not because of anything we have done.” In fact the Bible says that our righteous acts are like fifty rags before God.”

So God knowing how fallen we are, He makes this provision that doesn’t need you and I to make a contribution to it. He covers the sin adequately 2 Timothy 1:10 “who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

- He did not attack death and left it seriously injured. It is not maimed, no. He defeated / destroyed death completely and effectively and then brings to us life and immortality.

When you and I realise how covered we are by God’s grace, that we are not just trying to swim in a basin, or a bath tub, we are completely submerged by the love of God’s grace, completely covering us, then we can walk with a little more confidence and lift burdens that are beyond us,

- It doesn’t depend on us, or our contribution because what we receive from God, that grace is sufficient.

Theologians call this atonement; what we celebrate during Easter. If you like splitting hairs, there are two things that happen at the cross, expiation and propitiation. Expiation, that our sin was completely paid for, but in that and at the same action, something else was achieved for us, that the righteous wrath of God was appeased. And so we don’t hover around in doubt, or flex with our own resources. We flex with resources that have been given to us. Expiation and propitiation all done by Jesus Christ.

- Don’t go strong in your own might. We go and lift weights that are heavier than us because in 2 Corinthians 5:21 “God made Him who had no sin to become sin that we might become the righteousness of God.” This grace is old, it is sufficient, it is enough and that knowledge that it is old and enough gives us firm ground to stand and be able to lift weights in 2023 and say “Strong” as a Christ-centred church that is building strong families and transforming nations.

This grace is effective

- It is effective enough, Paul says, sharing his testimony, to turn the blasphemer and persecutor of Acts chapters 6,7, 8 through a Damascus experience in Acts chapter 9 into what he describes in 2 Timothy 1:11-12, a herald - one who announces like an evangelist the good news of Jesus Christ, an apostleone who takes leadership and propagates the good news among the churches, a teacher, one who precept upon precept grounds people in the word of God, and one who is able to endure suffering as a good soldier, an athlete and a farmer that he shares in 2 Timothy 2:2-6.

- This grace is available to you and I because the Bible says, its effectiveness is to the tune that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, KJV says, “Behold all things have become new.”

- Acts 17:6, it is said of these ones who had encountered Christ, Look at these men who have come into our city who have turned the world upside down. And they were just normal men and women like you and I with the same kind of infirmities, internal pressures, living in an environment with the same external pressures, but they fought the self-doubt and all these pressures because they were on firm ground that this grace is old, sufficient and effective.

- Acts 4:13, talking about these fishermen, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”

- The problem with you and I, people realise that we have done our MBA, doctoral studies (nothing wrong with that), that first and only we have experience etc. What if on top of our education, experiences of travel and exposure to all kinds of things and having high offices and titles, what if they realise that “these men and women had been with Jesus?” Wouldn’t the narrative be different? Wouldn’t we then be able to exercise more confidence and be strong?

Those who study tell me, the more you study, the more you concentrate on a particular area, so when you leave that area, you are no longer an authority. But if you are recognised for having been with Jesus, your studies, titles, education, experience would be useful, a platform, but the ground will be people saying that you have been with Jesus, because if it wasn’t Jesus, how do you as an engineer know things that are medical? Why, because Peter and John said, “Silver and gold have I none, but walk”. Wasn’t that medicine, analogy of anatomy and physiology?

- You know the prophecy of preaching to dry bones, they were very dry and Ezekiel prophesied to them and they became flesh. Isn’t that medicine? Did he know femur?

- In 2023 God is calling us to a new level and we can only go to that level of strength commensurate to our confidence on the ground that we stand.

- You and I are being called to areas that we do not have strength for, although we are muscled by God’s blessings in different areas. That we need to build by the grace of God, to appreciate that grace of God a firm foundation on which we can stand and lift weights that are heavier than a 65 year old church can do by the grace of God.

- This grace is old, this grace is sufficient, this grace is effective. Proverbs 21:31 “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory rests with the Lord.” I like the word ‘rests’. The LORD doesn’t have to tether victory so that He is always holding it nearby, no. It is at rest because of the LORD is in control.

- As individuals and as a church, we want to make the horse ready for battle, but victory rests with the LORD.