Titus 3:3-7
Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to Paul’s letter to Titus. Our reading today will
be chapter three of Titus, verses three through seven. Somehow,
magically, in planning out a series on Titus, I was able to land
in the exact passage I wanted for Easter while having started
this seven or eight weeks back. I don’t know how that happened,
but thank the Lord that it did. But today’s wonderful passage
explains to us some of the nuts and bolts of the gospel, some
of the nuts and bolts of Jesus’ work of redemption. And so we
will hear from these wonderful truths today and then enjoy the
Lord’s Supper together. Now, before we read from chapter
three, I want to remind you that in our study of Titus, what the
apostle Paul is attempting to teach Titus, the young pastor
on the island of Crete, is that if you teach the churches on
Crete to live well, to live a gospel life, it will be the best witness
possible. And so remember that great truth
as we continue in our study of this wonderful little letter.
Let us hear from God’s word now from Titus chapter three, beginning
at verse three. For we ourselves were once foolish. Disobedient, led astray, slaves
to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and
envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness
and the loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved
us. not because of works done by
us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing
of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured
out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being
justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the
hope of eternal life. Amen. This is God’s holy and
inspired word. Pray with me. Our Lord, we ask
for your help. We ask for your grace, that we
might see the gospel, that we might hear the gospel, and that
we might, in our hearts, believe the gospel, and that in our lives,
we might live the gospel. Without your help, it couldn’t
be done, and so we need it. So come and be with us. Open
our eyes, our ears, soften our hearts, so that we can know what
is your holy will, what is the way of salvation, and what is
our calling as Christians, as we live life before the watching
world and before your holy face. We give you thanks for your word
and its instruction and its encouragement in our lives, and we trust it.
And so we want you to come, oh Lord, and speak to us. And it’s
in the name of Jesus, our great savior. We do pray in his name,
amen. I’m guessing that every one of
you this week was irritated. Irritated about something. Irritated
because the kids were noisy. Irritated because it was simply
just one of those days. Irritated because someone else
was slow. Someone else was talkative. Someone
else was in your way. Or as we like to say, someone
was ignorant. Maybe you were irritated because
someone was pushy, because they were angry, or as we love to
say in the South, they were ugly or hateful. Or maybe we were
irritated because someone, someone out there lived a hedonistic
life and they did things that we would never, ever do. You were irritated. No, you had
righteous indignation. You felt justified in your irritation,
in your indignation. You were snooty, as we call it. You were irritable. And as we
look at the scripture, as we read God’s word, as we have studied
Titus, and as we do today, we must remember that the gospel
comes into the world It comes into the world that is ugly.
It is pushy. It is angry. It is hateful. It
is slow. It is hedonistic. It is all the
things that irritate us. And we must remember that as
Christians, we are called to live a life that adorns the gospel,
a life that is faithful to the words of the scripture, so that
a dark and dying world, a world that irritates us, can know who
Jesus is and what he is like. As a Christian, as a church,
we must love others. We must love the sick. And we
must love others that irritate us, others who bother us, who
make us feel uncomfortable. And this little passage in Titus,
I think, is one of the best places to go if you’re a Christian And
you’re feeling irritated. You’re feeling a bit snooty,
as it were, about the way you live and the things you would
never do, but you see others doing. This is a passage that
reminds us that we, too, were once foolish. We were disobedient. We were led astray. We were enslaved
to passions and pleasures. We were living life with malice
and envy, hated by others and hating other people. You see, a verse like this wakes
us up out of our self-righteous stupor. It wakes us up out of
our, what do we say? We look down
our noses at others. And it puts us back into reality.
It reminds us who we once were and who we now are in Christ.
And I hope that it does two things for us. It reminds us of how
far down we were before Christ. And it puts us into a frame of
mind to be compassionate towards others. It calls us to remember
who we once were, who we were before Christ. Now, some of you
have grown up in the church all your life. You’ve never known
a day without Christianity. You’ve never known a time where
you lived around others who did not bear the fruit of the spirit.
You lived in a covenant home with a covenant family. You were
in church. You were, what do we say, sheltered. You’ve lived
a peaceful, quiet life. And maybe, maybe some who’ve
been raised that way don’t understand why the world is the way it is
because we’ve just never seen it. We understand it intellectually.
We know the Bible tells us that it’s that way, but we’ve lived
a relatively quiet and peaceful life. Only look inside your heart
and look at that remaining sin that is in you. That sin that
rears its ugly head and it takes you into places you said you
would never ever go. And Christ rescues you and forgives
you and cleans you up. But only look at that remnant
sin and just think of it as exponentially worse. That’s what it’s like
to live apart from Christ. Now, others of you have come
to faith later in life. And you can tell tales that you
would rather not tell. You can tell stories of a time
and a period in your life where you live just like Titus chapter
three, verse three describes. You were foolish, disobedient.
You were led astray, enslaved. You were living in malice and
envy and pleasure and whatever else, hating others and hating
the world. The call today for us as Christians
is don’t be irritable. Remember who you once were. and
be compassionate toward others. Now Titus chapter three, verses
three through seven in verse eight is called a trustworthy
statement. Notice what he says, verse eight, the saying is trustworthy. I want you to insist on these
things so that those who have believed in God may be careful
to devote themselves to good works. So as we look at chapter
three, verses three to seven, notice that verse eight tells
us, Verses three through seven are a trustworthy statement.
In the Bible, that’s more or less code for this is good stuff,
this is theological, this is doctrine, this is biblical. This
will make it with you all the way to the end. Think on this,
believe on this, live this way, serve this way. And in verses three through seven,
as we look at it for a few moments today, we will see Trinitarian
salvation to the church. but also to us as individuals. And the way I want us to pick
this passage apart for the next few moments is three very simple
words, three simple words that are words you should remember
very often as you read the Bible. The character of God, the actions
of God, and the benefits of salvation. Let’s first look for a moment,
if we can, at the character of God. Have any of you ever seen
God? Of course you haven’t. How do
you know God? What is God like? Well, in some
way you think God is like those around me. We’re after all made
in his image and somehow we reflect God. Well, there’s some truth
to that. Maybe some of you think God is
like my parents. If I have a heavenly father, my earthly father must
be somewhat like him. Or God is like the men and women
of the church. They somehow reflect who he is.
And there’s some truth to all of that. But where do we know
the character of God? We know it from the Bible, from
the book of Genesis all the way to the end in the book of Revelation.
We see who God is, his character. We see what God has done or is
doing or will do. That’s his actions. And then
we read of the benefits of his salvation to us. But the character
of God, who has ever seen him? What is he like? Who is he? Well,
this passage tells us five things about him. If you look, beginning
at verse three, it says, we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient,
led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing
our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one
another. But when the goodness and the loving kindness of God
our Savior appeared, he saved us. Not because of works done
by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing
of the regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured
out on us richly or generously through Jesus Christ, our Savior,
so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs
according to the hope of eternal life. What is God like? Well, we could look at the whole
Bible and find hundreds of descriptions of what God is like. But here
we have five. The goodness of God, the loving
kindness of God, the mercy of God, the generosity of God, and
the grace of God. Each of these words means something
to us because they are who God is. God is a good God. He’s not bad. He’s not evil.
He’s not wicked. There is no darkness in him at
all. In him there is only light. And
so the goodness of God has saved us. The loving kindness of God
has saved us. We used to sing a song as a kid
in church, thy loving kindness is better than life. That loving-kindness
is better than life. It is so rich, it is so free,
it is so wonderful. That’s the key word throughout
the Bible. God is a God of loving-kindness. He’s a God of hesed, as we say
in the Old Testament Hebrew. He is a God who loves mankind. I bet every one of you knows
in your heart, for God so loved the world, For God so loved the
world that so hated him. For God so loved the world that
was at odds with him. For God so loved the world that
didn’t worship him, but worship themselves. For God so loved
the world, and you can fill in the blank with whatever evil
you want to fill in the blank with. For God so loved that world
that he sent his only begotten son. that whosoever should believe
on him will have everlasting life. That is God’s loving kindness.
He loves mankind who hates him. He loves mankind who, read verse
three, who are foolish, who are disobedient, who are led astray,
who are slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing days in
malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. There
is the loving kindness of God. He loves sinners. He loves people
who hate him. He loves people who rebel against
him. He loves them in Christ. God
is a God of goodness, of loving kindness. He’s a God of mercy.
He’s a God who does not give you what you deserve. But he
gives you everything. He’s a God of mercy. He doesn’t
repay you evil for evil. But in his mercy, he washes away
your sin. He’s a generous God. He’s a God
who pours out his Holy Spirit on us and not just a little bitty
trickle. And not refills or 50 cents. but he pours out his spirit
on you lavishly and it drips down your head and down your
whole body. Your garments are wet and you are cleansed. He’s a God of grace. You’ve been
saved not by your works, but you’ve been saved by his grace.
So what is the character of God? Well, the character of God is
a God who loves the unlovable. He saves the unsavable. He brings to heaven those who
ought to be destined for hell. That is the character of God.
And notice how our passage says it so well in verse four. Friends, God comes looking for
his children. You remember, I’m sure so well,
the story of Adam and Eve in chapters two and three of Genesis.
God told Adam and Eve, you can do whatever you wish as you eat,
except do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. In the day you eat of it, you will surely die. Well, chapter
three comes along. Satan comes in the garden. He
tempts Adam and Eve. They eat. God’s got to punish. There’s death. They go, they
hide, they sow fig leaves. And what does God do? Does he
cross his arms up in his divine throne room, say, oh, there they
go. I knew they would do it. Well,
I guess that’s the end of that. He goes looking. He comes walking
in the garden, in the cool of the day, and he’s calling, as
you can imagine, Adam, Eve, where are you? Oh, we’re hiding. Why are you hiding? Because we’ve
sinned. You see, dear brothers and sisters,
that is the character of Almighty God. Very often, that’s not our
character, is it? We look at people and we’re irritated.
We call them names, we do whatever it is we do, and we dust our
hands off and say, we’re done. That’s it. Last chance. Not so
with the character of God. Notice the actions of God. Some of you little ones have
probably been to school or in some setting where you were asked,
what do your parents do? And so you wrote a description.
My daddy does this. My mommy does that. And you may talk about working
and cooking and cleaning and washing the cars and mowing the
yard and what daddy does for a job. Mommy does for a job,
what they do in their daytime hours. What does God do? What is God in the business of
doing? Well, if you read the Bible, you’ll find out. If you
read this little passage in Titus chapter three, you’ll find out.
You can zip through these couple of verses and see that God appeared
or he came into this world. He saved us. He washed us with
regeneration. He’s renewed us by his Holy Spirit
poured out upon us, and he has justified us. Those are five
wonderful actions of Almighty God, and they are rooted in his
character, the things we’ve just observed. His character always
leads to his actions. I mean, sometimes we say, why
did so-and-so rob a bank? Well, he’s a bad character. Why
did so-and-so do X, Y or Z? It’s always rooted in their character
and God’s actions are rooted in his character. He’s a good
God, a loving kindness God, a God of mercy and generosity and grace. And that led him to appear in
the person of Jesus. That led him to save us through
his own son’s death on the cross. It led him to wash us and cleanse
us and regenerate us and take us from death to life and take
us from dirty to clean. And it led him to regenerate
us by the rich and generous outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and it led
him to justify us. Now, what are each of those actions?
The appearing of Christ. He was born. He was made under
the law. He lived and he taught and he
performed miracles. He had an earthly ministry. He
suffered under Pontius Pilate. He was crucified. All of the
sins of God’s children were laid on him on the cross. And he died. He suffered the wrath of God,
the death, the grave, and he was raised again to save us.
We’re regenerated. We are made new. Remember Nicodemus
coming to Jesus by night and he said, what must one do to
enter the kingdom of heaven? And God or Jesus says, you must
be born again. And the Holy Spirit regenerates
us. It gives us new life. We were
dead. Or if you just read one chapter
next after Ezekiel 36, that’s that famous valley of dry bones
chapter. Can these dead bones live? And
the answer in God’s sovereignty and in his power and in the saving
work is yes. God can raise dead bones and
give them life. And that is indeed what he has
done for us in the washing of regeneration. He renews us by
the Holy Spirit. It simply means he makes us new.
He gives us a new heart, a new mind, a new disposition, one
that loves him and worships him and is allegiant to him who believes
and loves on his gospel and serves him. He justifies us. He declares us righteous in his
sight. God sees us as if we’ve never
sinned and as if we have always obeyed. And that gift comes to
us through faith as we receive the work of Jesus on the cross
and we rest in him alone for our salvation. And so what does
God do? What are his actions? If you
were a child in school and said, who is your God and what does
he do? You can say that he comes and he seeks and saves the lost. And as the book of Hebrews says,
he saves us to the uttermost. He saves us completely. And so
you have the character and the actions of God. What about the
benefits? That’s our third thing to consider.
I would bet that every one of you, at least who are of age
and have a house or a car or insurance or whatever, you get
these policies in the mail. And I would bet also that not
a one of you ever reads the life insurance policy. Not a one of
you ever reads the car insurance policy. Not a one of you ever
reads the health insurance policy. If you do, you need some help
and counseling, and we can provide that. But you don’t read those
things. And I bet it’s also very true
that we don’t know the benefits as completely as we ought about
what Christ has done for us. You know, our Bibles sit idly
sometimes. We carry them to church. We put
them down at home if they don’t stay in the car or on the pew.
We don’t read them as we ought. It’s a plague that every one
of us suffers with from time to time. I’m very sure of it.
But in the Bible, And it is not like reading an insurance policy,
trust me. But in the Bible, we hear of, we are taught by God,
the benefits of his work, the benefits of his actions, the
benefits of his character. And you only can, you only must
start really with verse three and say, I am no longer because
of Christ foolish. I am no longer because of Christ
disobedient. I am no longer because of Christ
led astray or enslaved to passions and pleasures or living a life
of malice and envy. I am no longer hated and hating
because the goodness and the loving kindness of God, my Savior,
has come. Jesus has come into this world
and he has washed me clean. He has made me new. He has united himself to me. And he has made me one of his
children. He’s made me one of his heirs. He has justified me. He has declared me righteous.
And he has given me the hope of eternal life. Dear brothers
and sisters, we live in a dark world. We live in a dying world. We live in the midst of a crooked
and depraved generation. The Bible tells us that and makes
it very clear to us. But our experience also confirms
it. You go outside these sanctuary
doors, you go back into the world, you turn on the television and
see the evening news, you see the sirens whiz by you. You know
what’s in your own heart, that remaining sin, you see it in
the world around. It’s a dark and dying world that
needs Jesus. And it’s a dark and dying world
that needs us as Christians not to be irritable. And not to be self-righteous.
But to remember who we once were. and to have compassion towards
others, and to show them Jesus, and to tell them of all that
he is able to do because of his character, because of his actions,
and also the benefits of the gospel. Pray with me. Our Lord
and God, we thank you so much that you love us with a love
that will never, ever let us go. We thank you and we praise
you that your gospel is true, that it is powerful, that it
is amazing and help us to live lives that show the watching
world who Jesus is and what he has done and the benefits and
the glories of salvation. Help us in this. We need your
help and grace and we ask for it in Jesus name. Amen.