Titus Intro: Doctrine Deeds Devotion

So, I have a question, and I'm afraid to hear the answer. How many of you have done your homework?

Raise your hands.

The dog ate the homework. Okay, there's one.

You weren't here.

All right. We tried. Okay, we tried. We prayed.

We tried.

We tried.

Okay.

A little bit.

Okay.

All right.

So this is going to be fun. All right. So, these all have your sheet, A sheet. We have ones back there if you didn't get one. Now, obviously, I called it the perfect Bible study.

It's not perfect.

The only thing perfect in our lives is our Savior, right? So, this is just a guide using the letter P to go through each of the steps. Let me just get this going. Okay, to go through each of the steps that we need to go through to do Bible study.

And I tried to, you know, do a comprehensive overview just to let you know, you do not have to do every single step every single time you read the Bible. In fact, especially with Paul's letters, once you understand who Paul is and what a servant of God is and what an apostle is and who Jesus Christ is and who the elect and the saints are, that's basically the way he starts off all of his epistles.

So, once you get that down, you don't need to do the preliminaries over and over and over again.

It's the same stuff.

Paul doesn't change from epistle to epistle, right? The audience changes, the time he wrote it changes, where it fits into the canon of Scripture changes from epistle to epistle. But who Paul is and the preliminaries are the same.

So, once you get those down, it's done. You don't need to do it again. So, the most important part of the process is to pray. We invoke the paraclete. The paraclete is the Holy Spirit. The one, the comforter.

Anybody want to tell me what the word comforter means? Paraclete support? Comforter? Most people think it's like a warm blanket. Oh, the Holy Spirit comforts me like I'm made to feel comfortable. Actually, the word means with strength.

Fort is to fortify, to strengthen. So, the Holy Spirit comes alongside us to strengthen us, to help us to understand the Scriptures. He reveals things to us. So, it's very important that before you start to do Bible study, you pray.

You invoke the author. Men were carried along by the Holy Spirit to pen the words that we have in front of us today. So, we have a big advantage over people who don't know the Lord. We invoke the author, okay?

So, the first P is to pray. So, you could check that one off. We prayed this morning, and before we study, we just pray. The next one is person.

Who wrote it? Who heard it?

Who's in it? All right, so, who wrote the epistle to Titus? Paul, good answer. How did you know that? He says so. All right, not hard.

What?

It's the very first word. Okay, so, now what I'm going to do, I'm going to go through how I do Bible study, and we're going to go word by word, very slow. No need to rush. No need to try to get to the end so that we finish it.

What you want to do is learn these things step by step and marinate in them. Once you understand who Paul is and why it's important that he's writing the letter to Titus, other things are going to fall into place for you.

So, again, I'm using Logos Bible software. I found an article on Paul, and I linked it to my note on Titus. Now, if you can see the top line, I called it Titus, Doctrine, Devotion, and Deeds. So, this letter is very much similar to Ephesians.

This letter, as most of Paul's letters, is chock full of doctrine. When you look at what Paul is doing in his letters, again, Mitch Mayer did clarifying the Bible, when you categorize the Bible, this is the explanation of Jesus.

The Old Testament is the anticipation. The Gospels are the manifestation of Messiah. Messiah is here. The book of Acts is the proclamation of Messiah to go out to the whole world, the message of the Gospel.

Paul's letters are the explanation of Messiah, who he is, how the Old Testament prophecies point to him, and how to set up the church. Book of Revelation is the consummation of the ages. So, this book, I titled it Doctrine, Devotion, and Deeds.

Paul has a lot of doctrine in here. He uses the word devote a few times, at least two that I remember. And he says, devote yourself to good deeds. And then deeds, deeds, right? So, deeds are good works.

And maybe we'll get into good works in the life of the Christian, if we can get through some of the stuff first. So, let's just, I'm going to highlight this article for Paul. Paul is known as soul of Tarsus, before his conversion to Christianity, and the most influential leader in the early days of the Christian church.

Through his ministry journeys to Asia Minor and Europe, Paul was the primary instrument, where is it, the primary instrument in the expansion of the gospel to the Gentiles. Moreover, his letters to various churches and individuals contain the most thorough and deliberate theological formations of the New Testament.

Okay, so now, why is it important, and there's so much more about Paul that we can dive into, why is it important that Paul wrote this letter? I shouldn't say important. Why is it significant to the churches that are receiving this letter to know that this was Paul?

Yes. Paul is a Jew.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes.

Right. Amen. That's an excellent summation. So, what's significant, right off the bat, is Paul was a persecutor of the way. He was a persecutor of Christians. He was struck down on the road to Damascus.

Just to let you know, he didn't fall off a horse. He wasn't struck down off a horse. Nowhere does Scripture say he fell off a horse. He was struck down. He fell to his knees. Light shone around him. He recognized that this is something of the Lord.

He says, Lord, the Lord says to him, Paul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Let me ask you something. Was Saul actually persecuting Jesus? Right. So, think about what God asked him. Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Jesus has ascended into heaven. Who is Saul persecuting? The church, the Lord's bride. An attack on the bride is an attack on the groom. You are so, as the church, so in union with Christ that when you get persecuted, when you get attacked, it's an actual attack on the Lord himself.

So that explains our union. So Saul, who was a persecutor of the way, now becomes a follower of the way. And this is a man, he's a Hebrew, Hebrew, a Pharisee of Pharisees, under Gamaliel. He was educated as far as the law, blameless.

He goes through that whole summation of who he is. For him to convert, this is huge. In fact, some of the church was like, no, no, no, don't send Paul. We heard what he's about. He's going to come, he's going to persecute us.

No, no, no, no, he's been changed. So now here's a Pharisee who was steeped, rooted, and grounded in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, now showing that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of the prophecies that the Old Testament Scriptures have been pointing to.

There is no better guy to educate the church, the Jews, and the Gentiles than Paul. He's perfectly suited for this. And now he's actually, he goes the opposite way. He's now a true believer in Jesus as the Messiah.

He's all about the building up of the church. And now he's coming against the Jews. And he's saying, he says to the Jews, who call themselves the circumcision, but we're the true circumcision. In other words, he's saying that the followers of Jesus were circumcised in heart, not in flesh.

Now, as a Jew, you would be circumcised to be brought into the covenant. To get into the covenant, the new covenant, your heart must be circumcised. So this is Paul, very important. He's a big figure at that time.

Some people were afraid of him. Some people come to know and love him because of the depth of his teaching. OK, so we know that Paul wrote it. Who heard it? Titus. Now, who is Titus? He's a Greek who converted to Christianity when Paul visited the island of Crete.

And Titus, along with two other epistles, are known as what? There's three epistles that Paul wrote out of all of his epistles that are categorized separately. Anybody know what those are? The pastoral epistles.

1st and 2nd Timothy, this is his protege. And now Titus, his true son in the faith. So those three epistles are written to Titus and Timothy as elders to establish the church in the regions that Paul had visited.

So again, what we want to do, whenever you're reading one of Paul's epistles, you want to go back into the book of Acts and see where did Paul visit and the church start? Because before you read this, the Bible interprets the Bible, Scripture interprets Scripture.

You go back into the book of Acts, you see where Paul gets to Crete and what happens there. And then this is kind of like part two, a continuation of the story. So Paul comes, yes, John? Yeah, I think it was, yes.

Yeah, I think it was on his second missionary journey and then he was going, that was, I think, the second time that he was at Crete. I'd have to look at it again to make sure. But what you want to do, like Ephesians, that starts in Acts chapter 19.

When you read Paul and what happens in Ephesus and how they're worshiping. Oh, what's the goddess's name? It'll come to me. But all the union guys, all the tradesmen are like, he's preaching against our God.

We're not going to be able to sell these statues anymore. And a riot arose and they pushed Paul out of the city and you read the whole account. Then you get to the book of Ephesians and you see the letter that he wrote to them.

It fills in the gaps. Yes, Jerry?

Yes, yes, exactly.

So this is Paul's, it's very similar to 1 Timothy in what the requirements of an elder are, what the qualifications of an elder are, and the fact that he has to set these elders up in the city so as to correctly teach the churches that are coming to Christ, right?

So it's important that Titus picks men of good repute, good reputation, who are submitted to the Lord, who are teachable, who are knowledgeable about the scriptures to convey that to the congregations, right?

There are certain, there are specific qualifications for elders and unfortunately, lots of churches have abandoned those, right? You know, we had talked about in the book of Acts how they cast lots to see who the next apostle was.

Sometimes we look out at the church and we're like, maybe they did cast lots out to see who these elders were. That's not normative. That was something that the apostles did, but that's not how we pick leaders.

You don't roll the dice. All right, you win.

You're the elder.

The elders had specific qualifications, one of them being a man, right? Women are not to lead and teach the congregation. It's very important. In fact, Isaiah chapter three, as a sign of judgment on Israel, he says, you will be led by young boys and women.

That's a sign of judgment, right? We avoided judgment here in this country, gratefully. We've been given a reprieve, but we have to remember, we do not trust in men. We do not trust in princes to guide our country.

We trust in the Lord and we have to pray fervently that the men and women who are in our government come to know God. That's more important than America being prosperous. You want prosperity? You want spiritual prosperity first.

The other stuff will follow. And when that stuff follows, you'll recognize that I cherish what's inside of me more than what's outside of me. You have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Your sins are forgiven.

Hell is not your destiny. You have everything in Christ, even in prison. Paul was in prison. Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice. He didn't care about what he didn't have. He cared about what he had. So that's Paul.

Next, he calls himself a servant of the Lord. Interesting. Why would he call himself a servant of the Lord? And what does that particular phrase, what's significant about that particular phrase? Now, some of you, this is going to be review.

Others of you, this is going to be deer in the headlights. What's going on? Oh, no.

Slave, sure.

It's the word doulos, slave of the Lord. Okay, so why, so using the term slave, Paul is saying he's a slave of Jesus Christ. Where has the term servant of God or servant of the Lord been used before? Yes, okay, let's see.

Servant of the Lord, a grand title applied to a variety of persons in the Bible. The basic term servant covers a range of meanings used some 800 times in the Old Testament alone. Servant refers to a slave with less stigma than in most recent history, to an officer close to the king or to a chosen leader of God's people.

Listen to this, this title is thus applicable to heroes of the faith, to patriarchs. So Genesis 26, and the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the Lord, God of Abraham, your father. Fear not, for I am with you to bless you.

Multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake. Abraham was a servant of the Lord. Ezekiel, thus says the Lord God, when I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered and manifest my holiness in them in the side of the nations, they shall dwell in their own land that I gave my servant Jacob.

Jacob was a servant of the Lord. 37, again, David, my servant shall be their prince. So when Paul says servant of the Lord, he's using a term that comes from the Old Testament. The Old Testament patriarchs were servants of God.

So there's two things going on here. First, he's identifying himself, same as the patriarchs. He's submitted to the Lord. He's submitted to God, servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ.

Elsewhere he'll say,.

I'm a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now in the Old Testament, if the term servant of God meant they were a servant of God Almighty, when he says I'm a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, what does that mean?

Jesus Christ is the Lord God Almighty.

Follow?

So if you saw my Bible, well, actually, here you go. See the little triangle? Right, that's my little marker that that's a reference to the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit. So when somebody says, oh, God, Jesus isn't the Lord, Jesus isn't God Almighty, you take them right to all of the beginning of Paul's epistles, where he says I'm a servant of God, Jesus Christ.

I'm a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is God. Worship the Lord your God and serve him only, only. So when Paul's submitted to Jesus as Lord, he's basically submitted to God. Okay, so again, we have Paul, we know who he is, we know his reputation, we know his background.

He's now submitted to Jesus as God. Again, for a Jew, that's revolutionary. God can't become a man. Well, he did, Paul said. And I'm a slave of his. And here's why. And then we're going to go through what the explanation is.

And an apostle. All right, so who can tell me what an apostle is? Yes, yep, okay. Okay, so, thank you. That's right. It's a called out one. Somebody who's chosen by Jesus to represent him to the churches and to the Gentiles.

So again, once you do the preliminaries, once you get this stuff down, like I have a note in my Bible software and I put the word apostle and I put all the things that you need to be an apostle. So I don't have to go through this, but for your sake,.

Let's go through it.

It's very important. It doesn't hurt to go over these things. So what are the requirements of an apostle? And does Paul meet the requirements? We know that he does, but let's say hypothetically, we're going to put Paul to the test.

Let's see what we have. So in 2 Corinthians 12, 12, Paul writes, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with the utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works. So Paul's saying, in order to be a true apostle, it must be confirmed by signs, wonders, and mighty works.

So the apostles were given authority to do something. These signs, wonders, and mighty works, or miracles, were meant to authenticate his office. They weren't meant for him to go out like with magic power to heal people and have them pay money to do it.

That's not what Paul did. Those signs, wonders, and miracles had a specific function to point to the authority of an apostle. If someone claimed to be an apostle and didn't have signs, wonders, and mighty works to confirm it, they were not apostles.

And we're going to get into that in a second. So an apostle had to be called or appointed by God himself. Mark 3, 14, and he, Jesus, appointed the 12,.

Excuse me,.

Whom he also named apostles. So they might be with him and he might send them out to preach. So Jesus specifically appointed and chose the 12. Luke 6, 13. And when the day came, he, Jesus, called his disciples and chose out of the disciples 12 whom he named apostles.

Getting the drift. You see, this has to be done by Jesus. Acts 1, 2. Acts 10, 41. He's talking about apostles. Galatians 1, 1. ...or from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.

Paul is saying his authority as an apostle does not come from humanity. It's not rooted in human rule. It is rooted in the divine. It's rooted in Father, Son, and Spirit. This is an authority he received from God.

He was not voted in by men.

In fact, you know what?

I want to shift real quick to something that I didn't get to yesterday but I think would be beneficial.

Okay.

So we understand that Paul is an apostle and that's rooted and grounded in God. To the saints who are in Ephesus, what is a saint?

A believer?

Someone who has been called out of the world, translated from the dominion of darkness and into the kingdom of God because God changed his heart, regenerated him? Let me just give a couple of minutes,.

A couple of seconds,.

Just to go through what a saint is.

We'll do this one.

So the Greek word, hagioi, refers to those who are set apart or who belong to God, not to the moral quality of being without sin. Paul applies the term to Gentile believers.

Who he will argue later,.

Are now incorporated into the people of God. So saints is another word for believers, human beings who have been set apart by God for his use. We want to see the lost saved, the saved sanctified, and the sanctified serving.

We want us as saints, believers in Christ, to serve the Lord. Now, this is what I wanted to get to you,.

To show you.

Saints, before I was a Christian, I was very confused. I started going to church services and there was a banner up in one of the services I went to and it says, to the saints. And I'm sitting in the pew and I'm like, to the saints, which one?

St. Anthony, St. Joseph, St. whoever. I'm coming from a Romanist background. Saints, there's saints here?

You're kidding me.

I didn't understand what the term meant. So obviously after I become a Christian, I start studying, I recognize saint is a believer, any believer, not by man, not through man. So what I wanted to do is look up what the Roman Catholic Church deems a saint.

Let's see.

So right here, and this is right from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. So this is not something that Anthony Uvino made up. I went on their website and I verified it. I fact-checked the Roman Catholic Church.

All Christians are called to be saints. Saints are persons in heaven, officially canonized or not, who lived heroically virtuous lives, offered their life for others, or were martyred for the faith and who are worthy of imitation.

Is that what Paul said? Close? Or far?

Far.

Okay, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Let's keep going. In official church procedures, the Roman Catholic Church procedures, there are three steps to sainthood. A candidate becomes venerable, then blessed, and then saint.

Do you see that in Ephesians 1 .1? Or Titus 1 .1? Venerable, blessed, then saint. No, you don't see that? Oh, you guys got to look harder.

Keep looking.

Venerable is the title given to a deceased person.

Paul says they're alive.

Deceased person, recognized formally by the pope as having lived a heroically virtuous life or offered their life. Just to let you know, the term pope wasn't even used for the first three or four centuries.

There's no such thing as pope when Paul writes this.

That's number one.

Chosen to be beatified and recognized as blessed, one miracle acquired through the candidate's intercession is required in addition to recognition of heroic virtue or offering of a life. So not only do you have to be a saint, you have to live a heroic life, you need to have performed a miracle.

Canonization requires a second miracle after beatification. So after you're beatified, you need to perform another miracle. The pope may waive these requirements.

Oh, okay.

A miracle is not required prior to a martyr's beatification, but one is required before canonization. This is in Appendix B to Paul's letter to Titus. Key terms, beatification. What is beatification? It's the second stage in the process of proclaiming a person as a saint.

It occurs after a diocese or an aparchy and the congregant for the causes of saints has conducted a rigorous investigation into the person's life and writings to determine whether or not he demonstrates.

A heroic, liberal virtue,.

Offered their life, or suffered a martyrdom. A miracle attributed to the person's intercession must also be proved. You track him with this? You see what's going on? Blessed, another term. Title bestowed on a person who has been beatified according to limited liturgical veneration.

You see the process that man puts in between you and God to be considered a saint in the Romanist system?

Sure.

It's what you've done.

Right.

What does the term saint, according to Paul, imply? You were appointed. You were set apart by God. This is not what you did to set yourself apart from everyone else and be considered a saint. Again, this is an emphasis on humanity, an emphasis on what we do in order to become a saint.

Canonization, the formal process by which the church declares a person to be a saint and worthy of universal veneration. Now you understand what veneration is? Veneration is special honor. You're going to honor the saints more than people who aren't saints.

In fact, you can pray to the saints. They'll answer your prayers. This is just a quick line away from the one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. When God sets his saints apart, his believers apart, they are saints at that moment.

There is no canonization. There is no veneration. There is none of that. This is a process by man for man to put you in a system to think that you're okay. The only way you're okay and have peace with God is through faith in the Messiah.

This process, this whole category of saints was unknown to the church at that time. And when you start to do Bible study and you recognize what a saint is, this becomes a springboard by which you can talk to other Romanists who don't know this.

You could open up the scripture and say, look to the saints who were in Ephesus. There was no canonization, beatification, veneration process. You are set apart by God once your faith and trust is in Jesus.

And I mean, it just goes on and on. Postio, a comprehensive summary of all the documentation. Postulated, a person appointed to guide or oversee the cause. The prefect, the head of any Roman curial congregations, usually a cardinal.

These are all the things and titles of the people you need to make sure that you're a saint. A relator, a person appointed by the congregation for the causes of saints to assemble the historic documentation for canonization.

It's so bad. It is so bad. It reminds me of the United States government. Department after department after department, you got 7 ,000 people all there to help you get a permit to put up a shed in your backyard.

This is man-made from beginning to end. This has no grounding in the scriptures whatsoever. So when we do Bible study and we just simply look up what that word saint actually means, we can help a ton of people who are following Rome to a bloody grave.

It's not going to be pretty for people whose faith and trust are not in Jesus. Now, here's what I'll tell you. Not everyone who subscribes to Roman Catholicism is damned. There are some Roman Catholics whose faith and trust is in Jesus Christ.

They're saved despite their doctrine. I will also tell you, not everyone who calls themselves Protestant is saved as well. There are Protestants who think that they're doing good. I come to church. I read my Bible.

I serve at the nursing home ministry.

I do this. I, I, I.

And they're deceiving themselves into thinking that it was something they did. Just because you call yourself a Calvinist, just because you call yourself an Arminian, a Provisionist, a Roman Catholic, a Methodist, that doesn't make you a Christian.

What makes you a Christian is renouncing everything that you've done, could do, or would do to earn God's favor and trust in the only one who deserves God's favor, which is Jesus. The only one willing to live the perfect life that you needed to live, but die the death that you deserved.

When you place your faith and trust in Him, you repent. You change your direction. Stop running away from God or thinking that your good works are going to impress God, and you come to God with the empty hand of faith and say, I trust in what you've done and only you.

I don't trust in Jesus and Mary. I don't trust in Jesus and St. Joseph. I don't trust in Jesus plus anyone else. Jesus is sufficient. He is enough. That's how you identify if somebody's a Christian or not.

Has their heart been changed? Are they living lives that emulate their Savior, display the work that He's done in their heart to the people around them? Are they opening their mouths and telling other people about the Savior that rescued them from their sins for all eternity?

Are you hungry for God's word? Are you praying, right? I want to spur you on to love and good works because, you know, oh, what a good segue. I didn't even mean to do that, but watch this. All right, so we're going to skip past the elect.

We're going to go to good works in the life of the Christian, and I want to give you five verses. You might want to write these down. If you're doing the perfect Bible study sheet, write them. There's a whole bunch of empty lines on this side.

So sometimes, as Protestants, we can overcorrect the wrong teaching of Rome and say, well, works, you're not saved by works, and works aren't important. That's a non-factor in your salvation. Now, are works not important?

No, no, no, no. Works are extremely important. Works display the fruit of a changed heart. You don't rely on your works. All your good works are filthy rags. You rely on the one who did the perfect work for you, but that doesn't mean that works don't follow.

James makes a big point of this. He says, you say you have faith. Can that faith save you? In other words, it's a said faith. Oh, yeah, I made a profession of faith. I have faith in Jesus. Okay, and what are you doing?

Nothing. Can that faith save you? Is it a real faith? No, it's not. So watch what Paul tells Titus, verse 116. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. So works can be a witness of you being a saint or not being a saint.

You're going to the bar.

You're getting drunk.

You're doing these things that are just part of the world, where John says friendship with the world is that you're at enmity with God. So by your works, you are a witness to either the truth of your salvation or the falsity of your salvation.

Works are a witness, Titus 2, 6 through 8. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of what? Good works. And in your teaching, show integrity, dignity, sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame having nothing evil to say about us.

Good works model what's happened in your heart and your love for your Savior. So they're a witness for good or bad, and now they're a reflection of a changed heart. Titus 2, 13 and 14. Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and purify himself a people for his own possession,.

Who are what?

Zealous for good works. We should want to do these things.

Why?

That's how we advance the kingdom. That's how we please our Savior. That's how we reflect him properly to the world around us. I want to die to myself, pick up my cross, and follow Jesus. You know what that involves?

That involves me being uncomfortable, wanting to do the things that the flesh wants but denying those and saying, you know what? You know what? I would love to go home on a Sunday afternoon at 1 o 'clock, 1 .30, and just sit down, watch football, put my feet up, but guess what?

God's changed my heart. I want to fellowship with the people of God. I want to break bread. I want to hear testimonies. I want to hear what you're learning in the Scriptures. I want to feed on God's word and feed God's people and be a blessing, right?

Our flesh just wants to relax. He's like, die to yourself. Die to yourself, okay? So we want to be zealous for good works. Works are a witness. They display a changed heart, and now you should be zealous for those things.

Titus 3 .8, the saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to what? Good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.

Your good works are excellent and profitable for people other than yourself. My talents, gifts, and abilities are not for me. I have them. My talents and gifts and abilities are for you. Your talents and gifts and abilities, yours, yours, yours, are not for you.

They're for everyone else because I don't have your talents and abilities. I don't have your talents and abilities. You don't have my talents. We who are many form one body. The hand can't say to the foot, I don't need you.

We need hands and we need feet. We need noses, we need ears, we need all parts of the body. And when we come together, now we have a functioning unit. So don't think every believer, as well as being blessed in the heavenlies and having every spiritual blessing, you have a talent, gift, or ability that the church needs.

Use it for the edification of the body, okay? So good works are excellent and profitable to people. It's gonna advance the kingdom of God. It's gonna display the work of God in our heart to the people around us.

And finally, Titus 3, 5. He saved us, here's the one negation, not because of works by us done in righteousness.

Follow?

So good works are important. They're a witness. They're a reflection of our heart. We should be zealous to do them, but we don't rely on those. We're not relying on those to get us saved or into heaven.

Why?

Because we were saved according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. It was God who changed our hearts, rescued us from our sins because of the perfect finished work of Jesus on the cross, not because of what we've done.

Good works are vital, but you don't rely on them to get to heaven, right? Sometimes we have a, especially in evangelical America, oh no, you don't have to do good works. You don't need good works. All you need is faith.

Well, faith without works is what? Dead, it's not alive. If God's changed your heart, you want to do these things. You want to serve the family of God. You wanna bring the message of the gospel to a lost and dying world.

I mean, do you realize what we've been saved from? Hell for all eternity? Like in torment forever? And now we don't love our neighbor as ourself and share the gospel, share Jesus with them? That's a sense of entitlement we have to get over.

We didn't deserve it. We did not deserve it. Look, if we got what we deserve, everyone would be hanging on a cross.