A Zealous People

Sustaining zeal is challenging. We looked at this topic last week. The beginning of zeal is by drawing near to God and then God will draw near to us ().

The flames of zeal are extinguished when something else begins to compete for our attention.

Zeal is about maintaining focus and having a clear goal in mind.

Our actions do not necessarily make us zealous.

God created us to be a people who would be zealous to work! What sort of work should we be involved in?

Courageous Leadership

One of the things that God determined the Lord’s church needed was biblical leadership -

Male leadership -

A man who is attentive, loving, and caring; like a father towards his children -

A man who is concerned about others and does not manipulate people for his own gain -

A man who is a people person, friendly, and hospitable -

A man who is faithful to the word of God and teaches people -

It takes zeal — dedication, courage, and commitment — to be a leader in the Lord’s church!

Maybe you battle self-doubt and you cannot envision yourself as a leader or elder in the local congregation.

That’s when we need to realize being a leader requires a great deal of courage -

Courage is required because leaders must make important decisions.

Courage is required because leaders will not be able to please everybody.

Courage is required because godly leaders must put truth as the standard that is required, not personal feelings.

Courage is required because godly leaders must discern between those who appear to be good, but are inwardly opposed to the truth.

Leadership is about helping other people remain faithful and sustain their zeal for God and Christ!

Grace to Share

We have been saved by the grace of God to be zealous. Part of the “good works” we should be committed to is sharing the gospel with others -

One way we may know that we have a zeal crisis on our hands is the lack of evangelistic efforts the Lord’s church makes.

We say “times have changed…gospel meetings don’t work like they used to.” Or we may say “people aren’t interested in going to church and doing what’s right.”

There may be partial truths within some of those statements, but they are looking for numeric results that are dependent on OTHER PEOPLE.

Those statements are NOT evaluating the effort and planning that WE should be putting into our evangelism efforts.

Paul is explaining the gospel to Titus, who believes these statements. But Paul explained the gospel in order to motivate Titus to teach others. We have to be busy about sharing the grace of God with the people who need it.

The gospel is for all people.

All people need God’s grace -

The worldly, unrighteous, ungodly, and evil people need the gospel - ,

Jesus died to save us from evil actions -

If we are going to restore our zeal in evangelism we have to first recognize that we needed God’s grace. And if we need it then we should be able to see that everyone will need God’s grace.

There will be no room for pride or arrogance.

It’s not that the Bible and God’s grace are only for me or the church.

The grace of God is intended for everyone.

Paul sees himself in this passage.

God’s grace “instructs us” -

Jesus died to “redeem us” -

Having a zeal for God will lead to a zeal for sharing the gospel with others.

Protection of the Church

One thing that zeal and leadership have in common is that they cause us to look out for the needs of others.

Within the context of the local church, we must look out for each other’s spiritual welfare - ;

Our spiritual health will come through the instruction and teaching of God’s word and maintaining the purity of the church.

We must protect unity and purity of the church by creating an environment that discourages sin and holds each member accountable when we are aware of sin in our lives.

Zeal will not be maintained if we do not hold one another accountable.

There are times when we will have to reject certain people because of their sinful choices -

Accountability is why we go to someone when someone has sinned against another person - ; ;

Zeal will not allow room for a compromising spirit!

Jesus ran out the compromisers from the temple -

When we have a zealous spirit for God, then we will want to protect the church from all spiritual harm, destructive doctrines, and divisive people.

Zeal will lead us to protect the church and each precious soul that is here.

Conclusion

God saved us to make us a holy people and a zealous people that would do good works.

Our zeal to do good things should lead us to promote godly leadership within the local church. If we do NOT have godly leadership, then we should not be surprised when people lose their zeal and enthusiasm for the Lord. The environment of the local church could become discouraging and toxic. Godly leadership help fend those things off.

Our zeal should cause us to share the gospel with everyone in the community. Every person we know, we should seek to teach them. Starting with our family and closest friends and neighbors, then spreading out from there.

Our zeal should create within us the desire to protect the local church. We should hold each other accountable. Exhort them when they do wrong. We should never seek to compromise the truth of God’s word.

If we can work on those three things we will be a people who are a zealous people.

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