2025-11-16 Sermon Notes
| Speaker | Archibald Allison |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-11-16 |
| Location | Emmaus Orthodox Presbyterian Church |
| Passage | Galatians 2:3-5 |
| Title | The Gospel is for Sinners |
| Takeaways | [object Object] |
| Subjects | ["[[Good News |
💡Big Idea
Takeaways and Next Steps
📖Bible Passage
But not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage, to whom we gave no place in the way of subjection, not for an hour, that the truth of the Good News might continue with you.
Points
- ❓: Who is the Good News for? Is it only for those who follow the Law? Only for the Jews? Or is it for all peoples, even the Gentiles, all those who trust in Jesus Christ?
- The question is is Jesus Christ sufficient to save sinners. And the answer is yes!
Titus had liberty from sin
- The Gospel is the message of freedom from sin to all who believe in Him, that is Jesus Christ!
- Romans teaches us clearly that we are all slaves to our sin and we can only be freed from this slavery by faith in Jesus Christ.
- By nature we are all wicked, both those in the church and out of the church.
-
1 Peter 4:1-6 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past time doing the desire of the Gentiles, and having walked in lewdness, lusts, drunken binges, orgies, carousings, and abominable idolatries. They think it is strange that you don't run with them into the same excess of riot, blaspheming. They will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For to this end the Good News was preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed as men in the flesh, but live as to God in the spirit.
-
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in sanctification and honor, not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don't know God, that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified. For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. Therefore he who rejects this doesn't reject man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you.
- Without God there is massive ignorance of God. We were dead in our sins.
-
- Titus represents all of us. Like all of us he was born in bondage to sin.
- But the difference is that Titus was set free from sin.
- How did this happen? Was it because Titus was smarter or better? No. Jesus Christ set Titus free! and likewise this same freedom is available to us through the Gospel.
- But the difference is that Titus was set free from sin.
- Who is the Gospel for? It is for all of us! The Gospel is for sinners. The Gospel is for you and me.
- The Judaisers taught that the Gospel is only for those who obey the Law.
- They taught If you obey then grace will come but this is not so. It is the other way around. If you have grace, then you will obey.
- The Judaisers taught that the Gospel is only for those who obey the Law.
Titus had liberty from the law
- The Gospel is also for the spiritually helpless. Those who live under the law are spiritually helpless.
- Once you introduce human obedience as a necessary prerequisite for salvation, then you keep on adding to the requirements. It never ends.
- If we start introducing anything other than Jesus Christ as the sole means for righteousness then we will never stop.
- Titus was a man who was free not by any of his works but only by the works of Christ.
-
Titus 3:5-6 not by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly, through Jesus Christ our Savior;
-
- There is nothing that we have done, need to do, or even could do that would earn our salvation.
- Liberty is only through Jesus Christ, and the closer you get to Jesus Christ the more free you are!
- Jesus has freed me from the sentence of my sin, the bondage of my sin, the penalty of my sin, the guilt of my sin, the temptation of my sin.
- ❓: What will free you from sin? Is it more ardently following the Law? No. It is delight and gratitude in Christ who has renewed your heart and your mind.
- The closer we are to Christ, the more free from sin we truly are.
- What is our motivation to holiness? Do we desire to be more holy so that Jesus will supposedly love us more? No. There is nothing that we could do that could make Him love us anymore. No we desire holiness because we have drawn near to Him. We desire holiness because He is holy and He desires for us to be holy, and we desire to please Him, and to draw nearer still to Him.
- Christian liberty does not mean the freedom to continue in sin.
- Quite the opposite, we see how sin has enslaved us and we do not want to return to such slavery.
- Christian liberty is freedom from bondage to sin.
- And so we abstain from sin, not out of arbitrary duty, or legalism, or self-righteousness. We abstain because we do not want to return to the slavery of addiction to sin.
Titus had liberty to serve
- We are freed from sin and The Law, but we are freed to serve.
- The Gospel makes a man fit to serve the Lord
- The Gospel is empowering! It radically changes weak, perverse, unworthy, disobedient, cowardly, selfish sinners into mighty servants of the Lord!
- Who made Paul fit to be the Apostle to the Gentiles? Was it Paul’s hard work and study? No. It was Jesus Christ. His grace alone. Nothing else.
- And the same power that empowered Paul to serve Christ is the same power that empowered Titus and has the power to empower you and me.
Application
- Jesus Christ is all we need. Nothing more needs to be added
- trust only in Him and He will save you.