I want to begin reading in verse
4 and read down through verse 9. But after that the kindness and
love of God our Savior towards 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 man. But avoid foolish questions and
genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law, for
they are unprofitable and vain." Our text here tonight is in verse
8. This is a faithful saying. You see these in the Scripture. There are a number of them. This
is a faithful saying. Obviously, the church said these
things a lot. There were certain things that
the church made mention of. Faithful saiyans. But they weren't
just saiyans that originated in somebody's heart. You know,
we've heard preachers. Sometimes we quote preachers
and said, oh, so-and-so said this, and oh, so-and-so said
that. Well, that originated with that fellow. And people give
him credit for it. But these saiyans here are faithful
saiyans And they are faithful sayings that the church often
repeated because it was sayings that God had given them. They were inspired sayings. And
let me read you about three more of them. We have one in 1 Timothy
4, 8. Listen to this one. This is concerning
godliness. Paul said bodily exercise profiteth
little. It may not profit much. a lot long-term, but it profits
little, doesn't it? Body exercise profits little,
but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of
the life that now is and of that which is to come. This is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation. Godliness is profitable, a faithful
saying. And the second one, the second
faithful saying in II Timothy 2.11, it is a faithful If we be dead with Him, we shall
also live with Him. If we suffer, we shall reign
with Him. If we deny Him, He'll deny us. If we believe not, yet He abideth
faithful. He cannot deny Himself. That's
another faithful saith. One of the most probably well-known
to all of us is in I Timothy 1.15. This is a faithful saith
and worthy of all acceptation. that Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Therefore I obtain
mercy. That's a very familiar saying,
isn't it? But isn't it an inspired saying? And this one here in
our text in chapter 3 of Titus in verse 8, this is a faithful
saying. And what does he mean when he
says this? What's he referring to? He's
not referring to what he's getting ready to say, but he's referring
back to what he's already said. What is a faithful saiyan? Well,
if we go back up to verse 3 that you and I have studied on. Verses
3 through 7 are faithful saiyans. Take them as a whole. And this
is a faithful saiyan. What is a faithful saiyan? Well,
if we start there in verse 3, and we don't want to review that,
but if we start there, this is a faithful saiyan. What you and
I are by nature. What we are by nature. What are
we by nature? foolish, disobedient, deceived,
serving divers lust. That is a faithful saying. You
know the world does not like to hear that. The world even
gets angry, but you know it is a faithful saying. It is a faithful
saying. And then there beginning in verse
4 that we read to you through verse 7, the appearing of those
things that saves us, those things in God that saves us, that rescues
us. He mentions these four things,
His kindness, His love, His mercy, His grace. Send in the Holy Spirit
to call us and wash us and regenerate us and justify us from all things,
from all of our sins and all charges. He said, these are faithful
saiyans. And He did all of these things
through the Lord Jesus Christ. Then He said, these are faithful
saiyans. This is a faithful saiyan. Brothers and sisters, this is
not a fairy tale. It's not a fairy tale. This is
not man's opinion that gave us these things. It's not that back
yonder in the history of the world, all of these different
men got together and just mysteriously and accidentally agreed about
all of these things and wrote them down. And lo and behold,
look how it is in agreement. It is not like that at all, is
it? It is a faithful saying. It is inspired of God. What Paul
has been saying here is faithful. That word means it's trustworthy,
it's true, it's sure. These are sayings that God has
borne witness to. He's given to men, holy men by
His Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ who is the faithful and true
witness come and borne witness to these things. They are pure
sayings that you and I can put all our confidence in. As opposed
to what? If we don't have these true sayings,
what do we have? We've got man's opinions. We've
got man's convictions. We've got man's commandments. We've got doctrines of devils.
We only have one thing that we can put our confidence in, these
faithful saints. That's it, isn't it? Someone
said, I read this, I don't know if this is true or not, but I've
heard this from different people, that Psalms 118 verse 8 is the
center verse of all the Bible. And if that's so, it's a wonderful
verse. And it says this, it's better
to put your trust in the Lord. It's better to put your trust
in the Lord than to have confidence in man. Boy, that's good, isn't
it? That's good. You know, we got
a lot of confusion today about a lot of things, haven't we?
Man thinks he's so smart now. What do we do when these brilliant
scientists come to us and says we have all kinds of evidence
that the world was created out of a big bang. Are we going to put our trust
in the Lord? Or are we going to put our confidence in man?
When religion comes to us and says, now listen, you work your
way to heaven, what are we going to say? Are
we going to put our confidence in man? Or are we going to put
our trust in the Lord? It's better to put your trust
in the Lord. Why is that? These are faithful
sayings. When the wise and the prudent
and the natural thinkers deny the miraculous, who are we going
to put our trust in? You and I will be the first ones
to admit that the Bible is like no other book. When you open
this Bible, you enter another realm. You enter a spiritual
realm, a heavenly realm. You enter a realm where God is
revealed. And with God, all things are
possible. These are the faithful sayings
of God. Aren't you glad He left them?
This is a faithful saying. And this realm can only be entered
through the aid of the Holy Spirit. And its teachings can only be
grasped savingly and understood to the profit of our souls by
faith. Through faith we understand that
the worlds were framed by the Word of God. Somebody said, why
do you believe that the world was framed by God's Word? Why
do you believe that He spoke all of this into existence? Because
I believe it. I believe it. That's my understanding of God's
Word. Prove it. I've got all kinds of proof. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. Faith. Faith. How in the world
can we begin to grasp the Trinity? God the Father and God the Son
and God the Holy Spirit. Three distinct persons and one
God. Faith enters into that. But you
can't figure that out. You can't explain that, can you?
Through faith we understand. And Paul says here in our text,
this is a faithful saying. This is God's Word. This is God's
Word. These things that we've looked
at in the last few weeks, this is a faithful saying. Put them
together as a whole and it's a faithful saying. And then he
says, I will. I will. This is a faithful saying
and these things I will that thou affirm constantly. These things here in our context,
verses 3 through 7. He said, I will that you affirm
these things constantly. to solemnly declare these things,
to assert positively with confidence, to be willing to proclaim it
and stand by it. And he says, do it constantly.
Do it continually, perseveringly. Do it. Now why is that? Why is he so dogmatic about this?
Why does he make such a statement about these faithful saints?
I will that you affirm Constantly these things. Affirm them constantly.
Why does He tell us to do this constantly with conviction of
soul? Well, let me give you a couple
of reasons why He tells us to do this. Don't we quickly forget
these things? Don't we quickly forget these
things that we've been studying about? These things regarding
our God and His love and His kindness and mercy and grace
and how He justifies us and how He's made us heirs and given
us this hope. Don't we have a tendency to forget
all of this? Why, sure we do. I want you to
put your little marker there because we're coming back. And
look over to Galatians just a minute. Galatians chapter 1. The Apostle Paul had come here
to Galatia. and mostly made up of Gentiles. And he tells them in chapter
3, he says, when I come to you preaching Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. He said, as I was preaching to
you, the Spirit of God set Jesus Christ before your eyes, the
eyes of your mind, And it was just like He was being clearly
crucified before you. It's just like you saw Him through
the eyes of your understanding. That He was suffering for your
sins. And you heard this message and you believed it. And the
Holy Spirit come to your heart crying, Father, Father. But you
know when Paul left, almost immediately, they left that Gospel. I'd have
never believed that if he hadn't have told us this in the Word.
But look what he said here in chapter 1 and look in verse 6.
I marvel, not that you've just left Him that called you into
the grace of Christ, but I marvel that you are so soon removed
from Him that called you into the grace of Christ and to another
gospel. which is not another, but there
be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from
heaven, preach any other gospel unto you, than that which we
have preached, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now
again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you, than that
which you have received, let him be accursed." Removed! so soon, so soon. That's a sad indictment against
us as believers, is it not? I've never been able to forget
my wife. I've never been able to forget my children. I've got
friends, I've got old friends that I still remember from high
school. But to my shame, I say this, there are some things that
I have a tendency to forget and leave. And one of them is this
blessed gospel of the grace of Christ. That's shameful and awful,
is it not? Dear old John Bunyan, one of
the greatest Puritans of the Puritans, wrote a book, Grace
Aboundant to the Chief of Sinners. And he said he found seven abominations
in his heart to that very day. And one was this, forgetting
the love of Christ for his soul. Forgetting the love of Christ
for his soul. He said there was days he almost
lived in utter despair. And when he examined himself
to find out what it was, he had forgotten that Christ loved him. Now that's sad, but it's true,
isn't it? It's true. We forget these things. We just
forget them. We have to have them affirmed
to us constantly. Luther, some in Luther's congregation
came to him one time and said, Luther said, every service you're
preaching the Gospel. Every service you're preaching
the Gospel. And he said, I'll tell you why I do that. You forget
it. You forget it. And we do, don't
we? We do. Oh, you can never tell
that by looking at us. But we know it. We know it, don't
we? How many hours sometimes? How
many days can some people go and they forgot the Gospel? They're
leaning towards this or leaning towards that. But they forgot
the Gospel of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. David Plager
made a statement years and years ago that has really stayed with
me. He's the pastor of the Lincolnwood Baptist Church there in Texas,
Houston, Texas. And he made this statement. He
said, He said the Gospel is so easily
lost that if we don't constantly proclaim it, the next generation
will not have it. If we don't constantly proclaim
it, the next generation has lost it. The Gospel doesn't come to
us like some process of osmosis. We don't go to sleep. an unsaved
man, ignorant of the Gospel, and wake up the next morning
and say, oh my, I've got such a clear view of the Gospel. It
doesn't happen that way, does it? How do we learn the Gospel? You say, well, the Holy Spirit
teaches us. But how does He teach us? Doesn't
He send a preacher? How shall they hear without a
preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? This is why we need to constantly
affirm these blessed truths of the Gospel. The Lord was telling
Moses just before Moses was taken up on the mountain to die, the
children of Israel were going into the land of Canaan, and
Moses had delivered them the first four books of the Bible.
And here is what the Lord told Moses to tell the men of Israel. All these words which I command
you, shall be in thine heart, first of all in my heart, I don't
want to forget it, and then thou shalt teach them diligently unto
thy children, the next generation. And you shall talk of them when
you set in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie
down, when you rise up. You shall bind them upon thine
hands, upon the frontlet of your eyes. You shall hang them on
the post of your houses and your gates." See how important the
Word of God was? Just talk about it all the time.
Put it everywhere. Hang it on you. Of course, they
started doing this literally and didn't even have it in their
hearts, did they? But this is why we need to proclaim these
things. We forget it. We forget these things. I bet you anything, every last
one of us here tonight, we could go to some of these churches
that don't even preach the Gospel. They say so many things that
are so appealing. And you can hear them preach
sometimes and you're just sitting there. You know George Myers?
Have you ever heard George Myers preach? Sometimes I start listening
and I thought, man, what a speaker she is. What a motivational speaker
that woman is. But you know there's places that
we could go and sit down and if we weren't careful, we'd start
thinking, this ain't too bad. This ain't too bad. Until the Lord come and smote
our conscience. You say, Bruce, I'll never do that. I tell my
grandbabies, be careful. Be careful. We don't want to
eat our words, do we? That's why we constantly. The
second reason is this, and Paul mentions it here back over in
our text. Another reason for constantly
affirming these things. He says here in verse 8, these
are faithful sayings. These things I will therefore
that thou affirm constantly that they which have believed in God
might be careful to maintain good works. Careful to maintain good works. Not just to do a few good moral
deeds, that's not what he's saying, but a lifestyle. That word maintain
means to practice, to keep something up, don't let it degenerate.
To do everything in your life, every day of your life for God's
glory. to do it by faith. Whatsoever
you do in word or deed, whether you drink, whether you eat, whatsoever
you do, do all to the glory of God. Now there's a vast difference,
isn't there, in doing something to be seen of man as opposed
to doing it by faith for God's glory. It's easy to do something
that you can get a pat on the back or somebody bragging about
you. As opposed to doing it in the secret of your heart for
the glory of God. And that's what he's talking
about here. Be careful to practice, to maintain good works. Don't let your lifestyle diminish. Keep up a lifestyle every day
that maintains the glory of God in your life. My son come down
to my house the other day, and he said, Daddy, I'm having all
kinds of trouble with my truck. He said, it's making all kinds
of racket. And I said, well, let's go out and see what's the
matter with it. And we drove down the road, and man, we had
no sooner got out on the street. It was beating and banging. And
I said, son, how long's this been doing this? Well, he said,
a while. My wife said, a long while, a long while. And this
whole universal joint was just ready to fall out. We like to
never got it fixed because he just let it go. I said, son,
you got to maintain these vehicles. You can't wait and try to fix
it. Maintain it. And that's what Paul's talking
about. Maintaining. Don't let our spiritual life
diminish into nothing. Maintain. Be careful to maintain. And what Paul is saying here
in verse 8, he's not saying be careful to maintain good works.
That's not what he's saying. Of course we should be careful.
We must be careful to maintain good works. But what he's speaking
here as to motives for good works. We need to be motivated to maintain
good works. What is it that motivates us
to good works? It goes right back to what he's
saying here, affirming the Gospel constantly so those who believe
in God will be motivated to maintain good works. He's going to motive. He's going to motive. Brother
Mahan used to say you cannot improve on Jesus Christ and His
Gospel as a motivating force. to live our daily life by. That's
what Paul said. We need to be motivated, don't
we? We believe in motivational preaching, but it depends on
what we've been motivated by. These things that we've been
talking about the last few weeks, Paul said, affirm these things
constantly. Affirm the Gospel constantly.
This will motivate people. This is why Paul said, I determine
to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified."
The Apostle Paul knew a lot of spiritual truths, didn't he?
But what he's saying here, Christ and Him crucified, is the center
of everything I preach. Everything I preach rotates around
Christ and His Gospel. For instance, how can we preach
on given, given of ourselves, given of our time, giving our
possessions without preaching, Christ gave Himself for us. What is it that motivates you
to give? Christ gave Himself. How can we preach loving one
another without preaching greater love hath no man than this? How
can we preach on being faithful without preaching, God is faithful,
who will not suffer you to be tempted, above that you are able
to bear? Faithful is He that calleth you. Great is thy faithfulness, O
God my Father. There is no shadow of turning
with thee. If you and I have experienced
the kindness of God in Christ, can I live my life being unkind
to others? The very experience of that kindness
will cause me to be kind. If I'm living in the experiential
knowledge of Christ's love, can I shut up my vows of compassion
from those who are in need? Why, no. If I have truly obtained
mercy, will that not motivate me to be merciful? Of course
it will. If I live in the awareness of
that grace that is saving me, will that not make me gracious? If I'm convinced that I'm an
heir of God, Will that not motivate me to look upon the castles of
this world as nothing but toys of dust? It will. If God has given us a good hope
of eternal life in the world that's to come, will this not
purify our hearts to live for His glory in this present world? See what the Apostle Paul is
saying? Constantly hearing these things. Keeping these things
in lively exercise in our hearts, living by faith in these things,
will produce a holy anxiety to live my life for the good of
my fellow man and for the glory of God. These are excellent motivating
forces for that. And I tell you, if the Gospel
does not motivate us, I do not know what will. I do not know
what will. Did you ever notice, and I've
noticed this being around a lot of grace people now for all these
decades, I've noticed that those who live upon Jesus Christ, that
that's what they want to hear, just give me Christ, and they
love His gospel, that is some of the sweetest people, some
of the kindest people, some of the most loving and generous
people in the world. That's the way I found it to
be. And lastly, in our text, look
at this. The last portion is this. These
things are good and profitable unto men. Now, he's not speaking
here about these good works are good and profitable to men, even
though they are. Even though they are. Look how
much good the children of God have done in this world, how
much relief, how much help that they brought. And the Lord Jesus
is going to recognize it on the Day of Judgment. I was hungry. You gave me meat. Boy, that's
good, ain't it? I was sick and you came to me.
I was thirsty and you brought me water. I was in prison and
you came to me. That's good. Look at the relief.
Look at the help the church has given to this world. It's good
and profitable. I tell you, the works of the
church is good and profitable to men, isn't it? And it will
be recognized on the Day of Judgment. It does matter how believers
live their life in public as well as in private because their
lives lived according to God's Word. In their family, it will
be profitable to the family. In the community, It'll be good
and profitable in the community, even a nation, and to this world. You know the Bible says that
the church is the salt? And you know what salt does?
It preserves that. You take the church out of this
world and you talk about a fast rot. And I'm just convinced of
this. There's whole communities and
maybe even nations that God spares because His church is in it.
He told Abraham, if I find ten righteous men down in Sodom,
I'll spare it. If I find ten of my people there
that believe in me and love me, I'll spare it. He didn't find
them, did he? But I tell you one thing, if
he'd have found them, he'd have spared it. Maybe why he's sparing this
country. You're the light of this dark
world. And you take the church out of
this world and you talk about darkness. You talk about darkness. It is profitable, isn't it? The
church is good and profitable in this world. Be careful, therefore. Be careful how you live your
life. Have this holy anxiety about you, never to do anything
but good and profitable things to this world. But what the Apostle
Paul is saying here is these things that we've been talking
about, through verses 4 through verse 7. These doctrines of the
Gospel, that's what he's saying is profitable. These things are
profitable. They motivate people to live their lives for God's
glory. The doctrines of the Gospel are profitable for the salvation
and the comfort and joy and peace and stability of our souls in
this world. And you recognize that, don't
you? What would it profit us if we
gained the world and lose our souls? No profit,
is there? No profit? How much has the Gospel
profited you? What has the Gospel done for
your very spirit? If the Lord could just reach
down and snatch the Gospel, take it away from you, take all His
saving benefits away from you, how would that affect you? I'd
rather never to have been born. To live my life in this world
right now without hope, without hope of life eternal, I would
much rather never to have any kind of existence whatsoever.
It would have been better for me if I had never been born.
The stability of my soul is dependent upon these blessed sayings, these
truths of the I never can understand somebody that says, I'm moving.
Where are you moving to? I'm moving over yonder to another
state somewhere. Where are you going to hear the
Gospel? I ain't thought about that. Why
are you moving over there for? I don't know. I can't understand
that. I can't understand that. I can't live without it, can
you? I can't. I can't live without this Gospel.
I've got to hear it. Somebody's got to preach it to
me. I wish I had somebody to preach it to me. Instead of me
trying to preach it to myself. But I can't live without the
Gospel. It's good and it's profitable to my soul. And I tell you what,
if we can't live without it while we're living, we sure can't die
without it, can we? Man, we're seeing people die
all around us. And one of the questions we're confronted with
in our mind, did they have a good home? Did that person know the
Lord? Were they saved? And we say that
because, boy, this is critical, isn't it? Good and profitable to our souls
in this present world and in the world to come. Lord, bless this word. Brother
Larry, would you dismiss this please?