Turn with me in your Bible to
the book of Titus. You might wonder, did we leave
off from Hebrews? No, actually no. There were a
couple of good reasons for an interlude. with the relation
to the conference, but I'm kind of building up to the conclusion
in Hebrews chapter six, believe it or not. You might think that's
a stretch to claim that, but it isn't. I hope to bring another
sermon next week before we get back to Hebrews, and that sermon
will be from the book of Jude. But today I want to look at Titus
chapter three. I believe that everything that
happens in our lives is by God's work in his province, and because
of incidents that have happened recently, I was led to this scripture. I was reading it. myself and
reading it to Denise and I just thought I can't just let that
lay there. I have to revisit that with the
brothers and sisters and so we want to look at these verses
in Titus. If you have a If you've noticed,
there are several books of the Bible that start with a T in
the New Testament, like, not Taylor, but Titus and Timothy
and Thessalonians. They're all in alphabetical order.
So if you find one of the T's, you can find the others. Titus
chapter three, let's pray. Father, we pray that you would
hear our need and you would hear the right of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the gospel that you gave to him to give to us and fulfill
for us. And then you gave to your apostles
to preach and write that we might have it in our own hand and read
it with our own eyes and hear it with our own ears. And you
didn't stop there, but you continued your grace from your throne and
glory, Lord Jesus, to send your people throughout this world
that we might hear it hear it even in our own heart, as if
from our own mother, in our own language, so that we could understand
it by your spirit and live by it. And so we pray, Lord, that
you would remove the barrier that is naturally there to hearing
from you, and that you would take away the natural self-deception
that is in us and the pride And we would be humbled before you
in order that we might see your glory in our salvation by the
Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord, that you've
done everything, though we've done nothing, not only nothing
to save ourselves, but everything against our salvation. Thank
you for this word of truth and great comfort and hope from your
word that instructs us. We pray that you would hear us
for Christ's sake and save us for his sake and bring us to
yourself to see your glory in him, in Jesus' name we pray,
amen. Titus chapter three, I wanna
begin with verse one. We're gonna read through verse
eight, but I wanna focus especially on verses three through eight. It says in verse 1 of Titus 3,
put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers,
to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak
evil of no man, to be no brawlers. You get a picture of somebody
who's constantly wrestling and in the street, punching and gouging
and kicking and biting and spitting, a brawler. to be no brawlers,
but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. For we ourselves
also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving
divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and
hating one another. But after that the kindness and
love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He
saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,
which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
that being justified by His grace we should be made heirs according
to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and
these things I will that thou affirm constantly that they which
have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works.
These things are good and profitable unto men. I've entitled this
message, He Saved Us. Notice in these verses that we
just read there, there's no mention of us doing something by which
we were saved. No mention at all. No positive
movement on our part. God's salvation, from our experience,
in how it came to us, we didn't seek it. We weren't in the process
of saving ourselves, and God swooped in, in order to make
up the difference. We weren't flailing in the ocean,
trying to get out. We were damning ourselves, and
God stepped in and rescued us. That's the account given here.
He saved us. He saved us. There is no other
way that God saves. God alone saves. He finds us
as described here, a terrible condition. And he saved us. And we're going to look at this.
We want to consider this, first of all, Verse three, it tells
us who we are and ourselves apart from Christ by nature. It tells
us how we think. It tells us what we do and what
we pursue. And it tells us what all that
we are and did means to God in his holy character, to our shame
and to our condemnation. That's what the third verse is
about. who we are, what we've done, what it means to God in
His glory and His holiness, and how this was to our shame, and
because of who we must answer to, to our condemnation. I want
to read this verse to you in Isaiah chapter one. This sums
it up. This sums up our condition. Isaiah
in chapter one, Lord is teaching us these things and has taught
us these things and continues to do so. In Isaiah chapter 1,
I'll start from verse 1. We'll read the first nine verses.
The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amos, which he saw concerning
Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah,
the kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear,
O earth. For the Lord hath spoken, I have
nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against
me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib. But Israel does not know. My
people does not consider a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity,
a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors. They have
forsaken the Lord. They have provoked the Holy One
of Israel to anger. They are gone away backward. Why should you be stricken any
more? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the
whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even
unto the head, there is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. They have not been closed, neither
bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire.
Your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate
as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left
as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,
as a besieged city, except the Lord of hosts." Here's the statement
of God. This is our condition, what he's
just said there. Because even though it was spoken
of Judah and Jerusalem, the nation of Israel, these things were
written for our learning. Are we better than they? No,
in no wise, Romans 3 verse 9. No, we're no better than they. Verse 9 here. Here is the only reason that
we are saved. Except the Lord of hosts had
left us, had left to us a very small remnant. We should have
been as Sodom and we should have been like Gomorrah. Sodom and
Gomorrah were destroyed by fire from heaven that fell upon them
and destroyed the cities and burned up everything, the people,
the animals, everything. That's what we would be unless
God saved us. That's the message of the gospel.
There's no reason to think that we can save ourselves. This is
God's word. And notice in Titus chapter three
now, if you're back there, he tells us not to speak evil of
any man and to be no brawler, always constantly wrestling and
struggling and fighting with people, but showing all meekness
unto all men. And here's why. Because we also,
we ourselves, we're also just like them. It's easy to see fault
in others, because we are guilty of it ourselves. But we are to
consider what we were when the Lord saved us, and therefore
in meekness. In meekness, consider and be
gentle towards all men, desiring, as the Lord Jesus Christ did,
their salvation, and humbling ourselves, that we might instruct
those who oppose themselves, that God might peradventure give
them a repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, which is after
godliness, according to 2 Timothy 2, verse 25. Here he begins though, consider
yourself, consider yourself. Now this is something that we
need to do. What we were when the Lord saved
us. How we contributed nothing because
we couldn't. We not only couldn't, we wouldn't. The carnal mind, what we are
outside of Christ, what we are in ourselves by nature is described
in Romans 8, verse 7. It says the carnal mind is hostility,
enmity against God. It is not subject to the law
of God. Neither indeed can be. We're
like a wild beast, an animal, out of control. And we can't
control ourselves. We're not subject to anything
that is true. We won't be. We refuse to be.
The ox knows his owner, and the ass knows his master's crib,
but we don't know our God. It's important that we start
here. Years ago, maybe hundreds of years ago, it's not like that
today, but years ago, the preacher would stand and preach, and in
those days, Men in the congregation understood something that the
preacher was preaching. He would preach the sovereignty
of God. And they understood it. And that was the second thing
that he would preach. Because the first thing that
the preacher would preach is what God says about us outside
of Christ. Because until we know what we
are outside of Christ, we will have no need and no desire or
interest in God's salvation. We will make it up ourselves.
We'll create an idol and we will come to God in the way that we
imagine our idols will accept us. That's what religion does. That's what we see in churches
today. And you can see this by the kinds
of books that are written. How about this one, how to be
born again? You would probably find it on
Amazon as salvation for dummies. This is how you do it. Here's
the process you follow, a recipe, a step-by-step guide to how to
be saved. Take the steps, follow the book,
and you'll be saved. Make an appointment with God,
just do what's right, and you'll be saved. Isn't that the message
today? You know the one thing that will
rile men up more quickly than anything? You know in your own
experience, what riles you up? What makes you angry in an uncontrollable
rage more quickly than anything in your natural self? Isn't it
when someone tells you you're wrong? You are wrong. Everything you believe is contrary
to God. The way you think you are saved
is not the way of salvation. That riles you up, doesn't it?
It stiffens us, like God described Israel, stiff neck. It hardens
us in our heart, like God described Pharaoh. We have an adamant heart,
a heart of stone. God has to take that out. That's
what we are by nature. And here we read this in Titus
3.3, for we ourselves also were sometimes foolish. What does
it mean to be foolish? It means to be contrary to the
obvious truth. We see this today. It's evident
in the public life of our country. Foolish. Calling black white
and white black. Calling good evil and evil good. It's so apparent. How can you
shamelessly Claim that to be true. And to claim the lie is
true. We were foolish. But the Bible
talks about foolishness in a different way, too. It says in Psalm 14,
1, the fool has said in his heart, no, God. No, God. He denies his
own creator. He denies the truth God has put
innately in us when we were born, when he created us in the womb.
We have to suppress the truth. That's what a fool does. No God. I'll make up my own God. I don't
like the God who is true, who made me, so I'm going to make
one up myself. Foolish. No fear of God before
their eyes. In Romans 3, verse 18, that's
the summary, that's the conclusion of what we are. No fear of God. Foolish. Denying God and foolish. and foolish in our unbelief.
We call God a liar. We call the lie that we make
up the truth. We deceive ourselves. We convince
ourselves that what we believe is true about the wrong, about
what is wrong. And God is not like us. When we meet people, we tend
to try to be nice and flatter them, make them feel good so
that we won't be at strife and so on. But God isn't like that.
He cannot lie about our condition. He tells the truth. It's not
like God is so picky that He can't find something good with
us. There's nothing good to find.
He says there's none good, not one, none righteous. In Jeremiah
17, verse 9, the Lord says this about our heart. This is what
we are. He says, the heart of man is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked, incurably wicked. That's our heart by nature. We deceive ourselves. We think
about ourselves in a false way. We think we're good. We think
somehow God is going to accept us. We think that God is, because
he's love, he cannot reject us. These are false thoughts. We
deceive ourselves. We think that we have a high
opinion of ourselves and therefore we have a low opinion of God.
And because we have a high opinion of ourselves, we don't need God's
salvation. And when we hear the truth of
His salvation because of our high opinion of ourselves and
our low opinion of God, we reject it, we hate it. This is the way
God saves? No, I can't handle that. I can't
have God ruling. I can't have Him deciding. I can't have salvation by his
will alone and his work alone. It's got to be something I can
take control of, I can contribute to. And so we go on in our lives,
even in believers, we doubt, we lack assurance. Why? Because
we have a high opinion of ourselves and we think that somehow our
peace and assurance is based on what we do, what we bring
to God in our own performance. And we will not be satisfied
with Christ. This is our nature. We deceive
ourselves. And so he says, we were sometimes also foolish,
disobedient, deceived. That's what we were by nature.
He describes us. God tells us who we are by nature
outside of Christ. He tells us what we do. Listen,
we were disobedient and deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures,
living in malice and envy. What's more shameful? than a
person who is enslaved to their own desires and arrogantly presumes
in their ignorance that they know the truth and they will
not listen. They will not learn from God
what he says because they think, I know it all. I know it. I don't
need someone to tell me. We're only happy when people
tell us what we think is right. And what the Bible says, what
God says in conflict with us, it strikes us in such a way that
we rise up in hostility. And so he says, serving divers
lusts, slaves to our own desires. Pleasures. Living in malice. This describes us to a T, doesn't
it? By nature. Living in malice and envy. Malice
means constantly angry at others. Why? Because we think we're right. We think we're right and we judge
everybody by ourselves, by our own standards. Someone did me
wrong. I gotta cut that off. I gotta
deal with that. They offended me. And when God's
word comes to us, we get angry at Him. We can't tolerate it. And so, and we also envy. You know what envy is? It's hating
someone else for good done to them. It's seeing some good given
to them, and we measure, well, that's better than what I got.
And so we hate them. Cain envied Abel and killed him
because God favored Abel for the sacrifice. Jacob's sons killed
or wanted to kill their brother Joseph because Jacob loved Joseph
because he was better than they were. He loved his son, Joseph. And of course, they killed Christ
out of envy, envy. Envy is so opposed to God. Envy means that I covet what
God has not given me because I think I deserve it. And I don't
want to be left out of the limelight. I don't want to be left with
less than someone else has. That's envy. And this we find
in ourselves, don't we? So this is what we are. And what
good is there in this, in all of this? Malice and envy, hateful
and hating one another? There's no good. We're hateful
to God by nature. By nature, we are the children
of wrath, even as others. And Ephesians chapter two, verse
three, that's what it says about us. By nature, apart from Christ,
we are no different than others. We are just as guilty, just as
sinful, And even more so, when the Lord saves us, he teaches
us that we were the worst of sinners. I want you to look at
a couple of places in scripture to see the way that this envy
rises up, this self-righteous pride that is naturally in us. And God says, this is what we
are by nature. Look at Matthew chapter nine. I'll read a few verses to you
along these lines. Matthew chapter nine. It says in Matthew 9, verse 10,
And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold,
many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his
disciples. Publicans were like tax collectors. They're like
government officials. We can always find something
wrong with them, can't we? And it says, and sinners, all kinds
of sinners. And so it says that these people
that came to the house where Jesus were, were publicans and
sinners, notable sinners. Obviously, that's a sinner. He
just walked through the door. I remember him. I saw him. These
publicans and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it,
they said to his disciples, why does your master eat with publicans
and sinners? As if we would never do that.
We have, we're discerning. He must not be able to discern.
But when Jesus heard it, he said to them, they that be whole need
not a physician. In other words, the healthy don't
need a doctor. But they that are sick, they
can't help themselves. They have an illness. They have
a need. They can't meet it. They're the
ones who need a doctor. Of course, this is an analogy
to their spiritual condition. You don't know your sickness,
so you didn't come to me as a sinner. These did, they came. I'm the
physician. I can heal them. Verse 13. But
go ye and learn what that meaneth. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. For I am not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. It is awesome. We can't be saved
if we're righteous. We cannot be saved if we're righteous.
Look at Matthew. Chapter 13, he had just given
a parable to those who heard him. In verse 10, and the disciples
came and said to him, why speakest thou unto them in parables? And
he answered and said to them, because it is given to you to
know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is
not given. Wow, that's pretty amazing, isn't
it? I thought that God loved everybody
and was gonna save everybody. Obviously not. Jesus said, to
you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but
to them it is not given. For whosoever has, to him shall
be given. What? He already has something. And listen, and he shall have
more in abundance. But whosoever has not, from him
shall be taken away even that he has. That doesn't seem fair,
does it? You have to realize that this
strikes at the heart of our hatred and hostility against God, because
Jesus is saying that God will give to those who have, and he
will take away from those who do not have. But what's he talking
about here? Verse 13, therefore, speak I
to them in parables, because they, seeing, see not, and hearing,
hear not, neither do they understand. They say that they see, but they
do not see because they're blind, and so even what they claim to
see will be taken from them. And yet those who are blind say,
we're blind. But that blindness, that awareness
of their sinfulness before God was a gift to them, and so more
is given to them. Grace is given to them. Jesus
said this in John chapter 9. Let me read this to you. It's
basically what I just said, and that's where I got it from. John
chapter 9, verse 39. Jesus had just healed a man born
blind. John 9, 39. Jesus had just healed this man
born blind. From his birth, he was blind. No one had ever healed
a man born blind. But when Jesus opened his eyes,
the Pharisees kept wondering, what happened here? How could
this have happened? They asked his parents. Was he
truly born blind? It couldn't have been. It couldn't
have been. And so he asked them. They said, well, we know it's
our son. We know he was born blind, but I don't know how he
got to, he can now see. So they asked the man, what happened
to you? You tell us. Well, he said, I was blind. Jesus came. He made me see. and
they couldn't believe it. No, this man who was born blind
was a sinner. There's no possibility he can
teach us, and they were angry. And Jesus said this in verse
39. Jesus said, for judgment I am come into this world, that
they which see not, the blind, might see, and that they which
see might be made blind. You see this? You see how God
humbles the proud heart of a man hostile against his sovereign
mercy? I can see. God should save me. No, he never starts there. He
never comes to a man trying to save himself. He comes to those
who are damning themselves and saves them in spite of their
sin. He removes the barrier they raised between themselves and
God, and he saves them by his sovereign grace. That's the teaching
of scripture. We don't make an appointment.
We don't create a stepwise plan of salvation. We don't write
down a prayer for sinners to pray. To do so is to practice
priest craft. It's to assume the office of
the mediator. We don't intercede between men
and God in order to get men saved. God does it. God saves through
Christ alone. All we can do is declare His
salvation. We can say what God says about us, and we can join
the ranks of the foolish and disobedient and deceived, those
who live in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another,
serving divers lusts and pleasures. We can join the ranks of them,
but all we can do is point to Christ and say, He's the Savior.
Go to Him. He came to me, He opened my eyes.
That's all I know. He told me the truth, and now
I believe it. Look at Matthew chapter 20 also
now. You can see this natural hostility
towards God because we think so highly of ourselves. And we
have wrong views of God in His character and His salvation,
and wrong views of ourselves. In Matthew 20, it says in verse
1 that the kingdom of heaven is like to a man that is a householder
which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the
laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing
idle in the marketplace. And he said to them, go ye also
into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right, I will give it to you.
And they went their way. Again, he went out about the
sixth and ninth hour and did likewise. The ninth hour, if
they started at 6 a.m. in the morning, that would have
been, what, 3 p.m. in the afternoon. So you go out,
and they did likewise. And about the 11th hour, Now
it's 11 hours of working, no breaks either. About the 11th
hour, he went out and found others standing idle, and he said to
them, why stand you here all the day idle? They say to him,
Because no one has hired us. He said to them, Go ye also into
the vineyard, and whatever is ripe, that shall you receive.
So when even was come, they worked all day, now is evening time,
the lord of the vineyard said to his steward, Call the laborers,
and give them their hire, beginning from the last to the first. Those
who came and only worked one hour, he said. Verse nine, And
when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, They received every man a penny.
That's pretty gracious, isn't it? Well, when the first came,
they supposed that they should have received more, and they
likewise received every man a penny. They saw, this man got a penny.
He only worked an hour. Let's see, I calculated. I should
receive 12 pennies. And when they had received it,
they murmured against the good men of the house, saying, These
last have worked, or wrought, but one hour, and thou hast made
them equal to us, which have borne the burden and heat of
the day. But he answered one of them, Listen, this is the
Lord Jesus Christ giving out what is his, He says, friend,
I do thee no wrong. Didst thou not agree? Didst not
thou agree with me for a penny? We agreed. We had a bargain.
You work, you get a penny all day. And then he said to that
man, take that thine is, and go thy way. I will give unto
this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do
what I will with mine own? That is speaking loudly, both
against us and what we are outside of Christ by nature, and what
God's salvation looks like to us. By nature, when we find that
others have received Grace from God because he gave them a penny
for only one hour's labor, we get indignant. Look, I labored
for this. I deserve it. That's what we
think. God is unfair. He's given me
less than I deserve. I deserve more from him. And
we begin to think hostile attitudes towards the Lord. He's not fair. I'm better than he is. If I were
him, I would have given me more. And so we have a high opinion
of ourselves and a very low opinion of God by nature. And the Lord
says, isn't it right for me to give what I will of my own? Are
you trying to be God? And so this is also seen in Matthew
23. I'm just showing you these different
ways in which we are naturally disobedient, deceived, and foolish.
and living in malice and envy, hateful, hateful to God, and
hating one another in ourselves, outside of Christ. Look at Matthew
23. And this is a rebuke to the Pharisees. You should read it sometime in
your own time, but I'm gonna read just these couple verses
here. In verse 23, he says to this, woe, woe, woe. Woe unto
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you pay tithe of mint and
anise and cumin. You take those spices from your
cupboard and you say, I'm gonna divide a little of this, a little
of that, okay, I'll give a tenth of that, I'll give a tenth of
that, I'll give a tenth of that. But you have omitted the weightier
matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. These ought
you to have done, and not to leave the other undone. You blind
guides, you strain at a gnat, and you swallow a camel. This
is us by nature. We exact the things that are
trivial and insignificant, and yet we completely ignore judgment,
mercy, and faith. These are the weightier matters.
We're not concerned about God's view of us, and we're not concerned
about God's character. What we are, what we do, It has
a meaning to God. He describes it. We're deceived.
Our heart is deceitful. Our heart is hard. And we cannot
help ourselves. And then we see in God's holiness
what he thinks about us. And it offends us that he would
think such low thoughts of us. From the sole of your foot to
the crown of your head, there's no soundness. Full of wounds
and bruises and putrefying sores. Blind and unaware of your blindness,
you claim to be able to see. That's deception, isn't it? Like
a blind man, completely in the dark spiritually, and we think
we're okay. And it offends us. God has to
come to us. That's what Titus chapter three
is talking about. Do you see now how we see that God is the
one who must save, and yet, He must save us. We can't save ourselves. We can't take a step-wise approach
to this. Our salvation is in His hands.
And so He has to do something. And here in Titus chapter 3 and
verse 4, we see now not our character, not our works which are all sinful
outside of Christ, but now we see God's character and His work. Listen, Titus chapter 3 verse
4, but after that the kindness and love of God our Savior. In
other words, but when the kindness and love of God our Savior toward
man appeared, God's kindness and love was always there towards
his elect people, but it didn't appear. And how did it appear? Notice verse five. He tells us
how we were saved, and he tells us how we were not saved. He
says, but after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward
man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he
saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost."
Washing. God did this. Regeneration. You know what regeneration means?
It means to create something new to create it again, regenerated. It's like Genesis all over again.
In the first creation, we were created physically, given a soul. But in the second, because we
died for our sin, we have to be created new again. We have
to be created, we have to be born from above. We have to be
created in Christ Jesus the second time. The first time, we were
created in Adam. God has to create us now in the
Lord Jesus Christ. He has to raise us from the dead.
He has to open our blind eyes. He has to take away the stony
heart and give us a heart of flesh. God has to do this. We can do all sorts of outward
things. but it doesn't contribute to
our salvation. We can say words. We can go through
a process. We can raise our hand in church.
We can walk down the aisle. We can even reform our lives,
but that doesn't save us. God must save us. And not only God can save, but
only God will save a sinner. Because we're hateful. There's
no reason found in us for any to save us, and no one would
do it. Romans chapter 5 says, when we were yet without strength,
we couldn't save ourselves. We were not only sinful, but
we were helplessly condemned, helplessly enslaved to sin, and
helplessly hostile toward God. Have you ever tried to correct
a child who's just like a whirling dervish, a Tasmanian devil, they're
just pitching a wall-eyed fit, and it seems like they can't
be tamed? That's what we are. We can't be tamed. No man tried
to bind us. They tried to hold us down, but
we wouldn't have it. We're like the demoniac. We're
in the tombs, living among the dead, destroying ourselves, opposed
to God and his salvation. Then the Lord Jesus came and
saved that demoniac. That's our salvation. He does
for us what we cannot do. We're enslaved to sin, we're
self-deceived, we're arrogant, therefore we judge others and
we have anger towards them, we have a vengeful, revengeful attitude.
They cut me off in traffic, we want to take them out. Right? That's the way we are by nature. He offended me, how dare he?
Me? Oh, he got something, you praised
him or her? No. That's really something. I worked harder for that. And
we see ourselves like the prodigal son's brother. You never gave
me a kid. I never departed from you. I've
served you. And the father said, this was
the father's gift to a prodigal. And that boy, that older boy,
he thought his salvation was what he did. I've served you
all these years and you never gave me anything. That's what
we are by nature, foolish, disobedient, deceived, proud, hateful, envious. There's no reason for God to
save us. Every reason for God to damn
us, we even turned away from the Lord. And so he says, after
that, when the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man
appeared, now God steps in and rescues his people. except the
Lord had left a very small remnant. We had all been destroyed. The
whole world would have been destroyed, and deservedly so. What are we
going to do? God first convinces us of our
condition. He first convinces us of our
loathsome, horrible, dangerous position we are in. The infinite
holy God His justice demands our destruction. His justice
finds us hateful. His law describes us and curses
us. And the Holy God, infinitely Holy God, even before, obligated
Himself fully for our salvation out of His kindness and love.
That's the nature of God. That's what He did in contrast
to all that we are and did. You see the contrast? And it's
not by works of righteousness which we have done. Works of
righteousness are things done in faith. We can't do anything
right unless we believe the truth, unless we're aligned in our minds
with the way things are. Love comes out of faith. And only what's done in love
and thankfulness, without trying to earn from God, but because
we received it from Him freely, and it's His, and we want to
give it back in worship, only that constitutes a good work.
And there's no one, at least before salvation, who ever does
that. So it's not speaking of our works
before our salvation. They certainly contributed nothing.
We were all these other things, completely alienated from God,
without the life of God. But here, he's saying even the
works we do after, not only even, but especially. Those works which
were done in faith, out of love, those works were not the reason
why God saved us. That makes no sense at all, does
it? That God would, it's like, I'm going to act in this way
to save this sinner because he's gonna do something later, which
is all a result of my grace to him. We love him because he first
loved us. How could that possibly make any sense? It's illogical.
That's the way foolishness works. It's completely illogical. It
denies the truth. So it's not by works of righteousness,
and he has to, God has to tell us this over and over again because
what is our problem? We have a high opinion of ourselves.
We are righteous in our own eyes. We will not submit to the righteousness
of God, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. So he emphasizes it. The kindness and love of God
our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but how? According to his mercy, he, he
did it. He saved us. And he saved us. It's done, right? He saved us. Notice how he did it. By the
washing of regeneration, creating us new, birthing us again, only
this time spiritually, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit
of God is given to us. He creates life. He gives us
faith. He persuades us of the truth,
opens our eyes, raises us from the dead. draws us to Christ,
and as a sinner under the wrath of God, and justly so, without
any possible interest in or help, ability to save ourselves, then
God comes and He shows us our salvation in Christ. Remember
the people of Nineveh? God sent Jonah to Nineveh. He
said, I want you to go to Nineveh and preach to them. And Jonah
didn't. He went the other way. And finally,
God brought Jonah to Nineveh. Long story. You can read it in
the book of Jonah. And what happened? Jonah was
angry. He was angry at God and he hated
the Ninevites. They were not Israelites and
he knew they were sinners and he hated them. Living in malice. Hating, hateful. Jonah goes into
the city and he cries against it. He says, in 40 days, God
is gonna destroy this city. Did he preach, God loves everyone,
has a wonderful plan for your life, Jesus died for everyone,
all you have to do is say the sinner's prayer and you're good
to go. No, he didn't say that. He was actually hoping God would
destroy them. A city of 120,000 plus people
with all their animals. And so he goes and he says, God's
gonna destroy this city. And you know what the people
did? They knew that he was telling the truth. They knew they were
sinners and they knew they were under the condemnation and judgment
of an infinitely holy God and they could do nothing about it.
And what did they do? While they knew they were in
the hand of God in his holiness and sovereign authority over
them to destroy them, to take their life and to wipe them out
just like he did Sodom and Gomorrah. What did they do? They said,
the king said, Who can tell if God will be merciful? And he
commanded everyone, you repent in sackcloth and ashes. Who can tell? And that was exactly
God's grace towards them. He turned them. And while they
were under the condemnation of God, subject to his sovereignty,
he could do with them as he pleased, And they threw themselves at
his mercy. And God had mercy upon them.
And is teaching us that God shows to sinners their horrible condition. Then they cry to the Lord. Then
he has mercy upon them. And so we say, well, I don't
know what to do. I mean, I want to be saved. I want to do something. What
should I do? Well, that's the problem. We always want to do
something. And the rich young ruler came to Jesus, good master,
what shall I do to have eternal life? And Jesus did not tell
him, I want you to say the sinner's prayer, did he? What you need
to do is invite Jesus into your heart. He did not say that, did
he? He said, well, keep the commandments. Well, I've done all that. You
see how self-righteous he was? Well then, go and sell everything
you have and give it to the poor, and then come and follow me.
He couldn't do it. Why? Because we can't. We can't save ourselves. We can't
contribute. And he went away. And so the
Lord has to bring us to the point where we have nothing and can
do nothing about our condition and we stand before a sovereign
God. Then you know what? We'll be very interested in unconditional
election on God's part. Then we'll be very interested
in irresistible grace. Then we'll be very interested
in an atonement that actually takes away our sin, even though
it's discriminating and only particular to some. We'll be
very interested in that because we know that there's no other
way we can be saved unless God does it. And this is God's salvation. And then we'll be very pleading
with God that he would do for us, for Christ's sake. And we
will find, in coming to him, that everything in our salvation
is accomplished by Christ. Therefore he has made us aware
of this, of our condition, and shown us his salvation. And we
find that this is itself the washing of regeneration. He has
died for his people, his blood has cleansed their sins before
God, and now, through the Spirit of God, he points them to Christ
and he washes them, like Jesus told his disciples, you're clean.
You're clean, but I'm going to wash your feet. And so the Holy
Spirit is given to us. He creates us new. He gives us
a new heart. He circumcises the foreskin of
our heart. He raises us from the dead. He
opens our eyes. He heals our leprosy. He does
all these things. figuratively, which are pointing
to our spiritual life and salvation. And it's all known through the
gift of faith in Christ. Nicodemus said, how can these
things be? How can a man be born again? How can he be born from above?
I can't initiate it. It didn't happen through my parents.
How can it happen? And Jesus said, you are as guilty
as those sinners in the wilderness. who were bitten without a remedy
and were dying. And God told Moses, hang that
serpent on a pole, look at that cursed pole where the cursed
serpent is hanging. And that, in seeing that, see
Christ cursed. Cursed for our sin. And so he
says this is the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy
Ghost. And why did this happen? Look at verse 6. Which he shed
on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. What was shed
on us abundantly? What was poured out upon us abundantly?
The Spirit of God. The washing of the Holy Spirit. when He gave us life and faith
in Christ and saw that our cleansing was in the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That abundant outpouring of God's
Spirit was because of Jesus Christ, listen, which He shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ, our Savior. It was by His blood that the
Spirit of God was given, because in shedding His blood, He answered
God, fulfilled God's righteousness, and saved His people He obtained
eternal redemption for them. Remember last week, what God
ordained, Christ obtained, and now He gives. And from His throne
on high, as our mediator, only He can bring us to God. Only
through Him can we come to God. He sends His Spirit in order
that we might be brought to God in ourselves, in our own experience.
The Spirit of God is poured out on us through our reigning mediator. That's the only way we can receive
anything from God. I'm going to read this to you
and see if this resonates with this scripture. Listen, in John
chapter 1 and verse 3 it says, All things were made by Him,
by Christ, and without Him was not anything made that was made. And that's creation. What does
that mean then about our own spiritual creation? It's through
Jesus Christ, our mediator. Of Him, through Him, and to Him.
Christ, our mediator, are all things. And so we're saved only
because of the blood of Christ and by Jesus Christ. He gives
us His Spirit. He gives to us the salvation
He obtained by His blood. And notice verse seven, that
being justified by His grace, justified before God. God looks
upon us in His infinite holiness, who describes us as we are in
our heart, and He looks upon us for Christ's sake, and He
says, enough. pure, righteous, and holy, and
perfect before me in my Son, who shed his blood for them."
That's justification. God counts us, because of the
righteousness of Christ, righteous for his righteousness. And he
says, justified. The court of heaven passes down
his decision. We're right in the sight of God
because of the blood of Christ. And notice how God starts with
our experience as a sinner And in the desperation we find ourselves
in pointing us to Christ. reveals to us that that's his
spirit, his own spirit that saves us, and then he tells us the
basis of it. He starts from our experience
and he works back to the ground of our salvation, which is the
Lord Jesus Christ, in hope of eternal life. Being justified
by his grace, we should be made heirs, heirs of God, the sons
of God, children of God, heirs by Jesus Christ. according to
the hope of eternal life." Amazing grace. We were doomed because
of our sin, consigned by God to eternal damnation, and now,
by Jesus Christ, we are heirs of eternal life. It's all by
Jesus Christ, brought to us by His Spirit. Therefore, we have
assurance, don't we? Because it's all by Jesus Christ.
We have no confidence in the flesh, no confidence in ourselves. Every reason in ourselves to
doubt, but no reason to doubt Christ. Why else, how else could
we be assured? And why would we not be assured
if it's all on Christ? Because all of our sense of our
own worth has been taken away by God's testimony of what we
are. And his same testimony, because
we agree with God about what he says about us, now we can
understand what we are in Christ. Verse eight, this is a faithful
saying. All the things I'm telling you here is a faithful saying,
and these things I will that thou affirm constantly. We need
to hear this all the time. He saved us when we were like
this. Affirm constantly that they which
have believed God might be careful to maintain good works. Don't
preach good works to me unless you preach Christ and Him crucified.
You can't love God unless you know first that he loved you
in Christ. God's kindness and love alone
can woo the heart of a sinner. I will draw them with the cords
of a man with the bands of love. This is the way God works. And
when he tells us these things, what do we do? We submit to him
gladly, don't we? God's way is the only way. His
salvation in the way that God saves is the only way I can be
saved, and it's the only way I want to be saved. This is the
way God turns us. Jeremiah said, turn thou me,
and I shall be turned. Until you turned me, I was not
turned. But when you turned me, then
I repented. And so God has to do this. He has to turn, open
our eyes. And when he does this, we do
good works. But what are these works? What are good works? It's
doing, living everything we do for the glory of God out of a
thankful heart. Not to earn, but because we have
all that we have from God out of grace. He gave me a penny.
I didn't do anything. Showed up at the end of the day.
Get this free grace. He did what he wanted with his
own, and I'm thankful to him. What a good master. Oh, my greatest
privilege would be to serve him. That's freedom, serving Christ. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for
your mercy. The kindness and love of God
our Savior appeared when the Spirit of God was given to us
and washed us Our experience of this saving accomplishment
of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby he justified us by his blood
and his obedience, is brought to us when he sends his Spirit,
the Spirit of God, to us to live, and in so living we believe.
And in believing we see Christ, and in seeing Him we rejoice,
and we want to submit in all things to Him. We know He can
do what we could never do. Take away this stony heart, Lord.
Give us this heart of flesh to love our Savior and to trust
Him. And help us to never put any confidence in our flesh,
but to put all confidence in Christ and to know that we have
an expectation of eternal life because of Him and because of
Him alone. Salvation by our sovereign God,
His kindness and love, His Holy Spirit given to us to know Christ
our Savior and what He's done for us. We pray that you would
give and maintain this grace, that you would bring us to yourself
that we might know you and we would live our lives as those
saved by the Lord and know it too. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.