Titus 3, Saved from a Dog-Eat-Dog World, Dr. John B. Carpenter

Titus chapter 3, be reading the entire chapter, here's the word of the Lord. Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle and show perfect courtesy toward all people.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray to various passions and pleasures, passing our day in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

But when the goodness and loving -kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the

Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us ritually through Jesus Christ our

Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

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 good works.

These things are excellent and profitable for people, but avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

As for a person who stirs up division after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful.

He is self -condemned. When I send Artemis or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me in Decapolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there.

Do your best to speed Zenos, the lawyer, and Apollos on their way. See that they lack nothing, and let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need and not be unfruitful.

All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all.

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, did you ever break up a fight?

When we started the gym program here, someone said that it wouldn't work because there'd be too many fights.

Well, after all, it's a dog -eat -dog world, and these rough kids will show it by fighting.

But we've actually had very few fights in about the 15 years we've been here, maybe three or four. One was between two brothers.

I got between them. The worst was between two girls. They got into a brawl, and so I took one of the girls outside, right out that door right there.

When she tried to come back inside to come join the fight again, I forced her to the ground and held her there.

That night, she went home, got her parents, came back here to complain about me, about her being mistreated.

And I was thinking, you know, you want to know why your daughter is so wild? It's because you take her side over every authority.

Even the pastor had to drag her out of a brawl. I didn't say that. Another was just last year, you know, in our van, in our parking lot.

I was a little uneasy about letting those boys go with Mary by herself, and so I told them to behave, and they gave me some disrespectful back talk.

And then before the van had even left the parking lot, I could see as it was going down, it was rocking, and finally it stopped, and I went to it and opened the door, and the boy in the front seat was kind of twisted around, turned around, wrestling, and trying to punch the boy in the seat behind.

So I dragged him out by his hoodie and tearing it in the process, and then they walked off, and soon as they called their mother, and soon the mother came, and she called the police on us, on me in particular.

And when the deputy was here, I said something like, deputies here, right outside the front door there, and the mother, and I said, your son is a troublemaker because you enable him.

Yes, this time I actually said it. Well, it's a dog -eat -dog world, you know, what do you expect? Out there, it's the law of the jungle, every person for himself.

You know, people, they're not punching each other, then they try to cheat each other, try to destroy each other. You know, you just know.

If you get an email from someone, from some stranger, some Nigerian prince or somebody like that, it's promising to send you millions of dollars, you just know it's someone trying to steal from you.

You just know, that's the way the world is. Hopefully you know that. If you don't, you're one of the few people that gets caught in that scam.

Some say it's because of systems, like capitalism. People are actually naturally good, they say, but these systems, these outside systems twist people and it makes them bad, makes them fight and cheat.

Socialism promised that it would take away all the forces in society that make us into dogs, that make us fight each other, take away the jungle.

And once at a meeting of African leaders, you know, some African nations decided to be socialists and some decided to be capitalists, though with a lot of corruption.

The leader of a socialist nation, Tanzania, told the leader of Kenya, which is mostly a capitalist way, he said, you know, capitalism makes society into a dog -eat - dog world.

And the Kenyan leader retorted, yes, but socialism makes society into a man -eat -dog world.

We don't see a lot of real fights in the world because we learned growing up that fistfights usually aren't an effective way of getting what we want.

It's not the way to win friends and influence people. And so civilization, even religion, teaches people to appear nice, put up a good front, put on a mask of civility.

But that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of hostility beneath our mask, beneath the veneer of civilization.

There is a hidden hostility. It's being hateful and hating. It's rarely boiling over.

It's usually at a low simmer. You hear it in the subtle conspiracy theories, the way people talk, you know, that they are out to get you.

They are out to deceive you. They are out to cheat you. Who is they? Who is this they?

Are you they? Who's the they? Well, that's the suspicion that's in the air, that there's hostile people all around us.

You're not sure exactly who they are, but they're all around us. And what's worse, a lot of the time, is true.

They are out to get you because it really is a dog -eat -dog world.

So how are we to live in it? Here we see how to live in this hostile world. We see that in four parts.

First, remind. Second, regenerate. Third, rebuke.

And finally, remind again. Well, first, remind. Remind the

Christians to be a list of things Paul gives. Submissive, obedient, ready for every good work.

We can say charitable, hospitable, peaceable, gentle, forbearing, that is patient and courteous.

We could sum it up, I suppose, with the word kindness or loving. It's a hostile world, but you be this way, particularly in the church.

The Apostle Paul tells Titus to remind us of this. The verb remind is here a present active imperative.

Imperative means to command, present. In other words, right now tell them this, command them this, active, you know, do it.

Not just passively allow it to happen. Tell them to specifically do this, a command to keep on reminding.

And we need to be presently, actively reminded to be kind and loving because we presently, actively keep forgetting.

We slip back into an old way of life, living in a dog -eat -dog world. We all want to be the top dog. And we resent the idea that there are some authorities over us to which we must be subject.

But the Christian should not be that way. After all, we believe in the God who is the ultimate authority.

We saw that in Psalm 82, right? You set yourself at the head of the council of all authorities.

You're at the head of them all. You're the king of the kings, the judge of the judges. And that's who we believe in.

And so we should have a capacity to trust the lesser judges and authorities under God.

He is the ultimate authority who has loved us and he will give us every good thing. So every authority comes from him and so all, so authorities are for our good.

At least they can be. And this submissive attitude must then change all our relationships. The world is marked by disobedience.

Many are insubordinate. Remember he said in chapter 1, and pushing and shoving for what's mine, give me mine.

Like the woman at Walmart who pepper sprayed other shoppers on Black Friday so she could get what's hers. Great way to start

Christmas shopping season. Christmas is trying to be marked by meekness, laying down one's rights, not demanding one's way.

But sadly some church people forget that and they insist that there will be done. And if something is done, no matter how minor, like the way we take up tiles on the floor that they don't like, they'll storm off.

They'll raise a storm and try to shred the church in their attempt to get others to go along with their way.

And no attempt to get them to remember the church covenant will get through to them. They don't remember the body and so don't remember

Jesus. When taking the Lord's Supper, the Apostle Paul tells us to remember not only the historical

Jesus, people say, well we remember the death of Jesus, certainly that's primary, how he died, but also he says to discern, which means to think about, to consider the body, which means the church, our impact on it.

That's why we read through the church covenant, that's why you get this preparation. Are you thinking about the other members of the body?

And the Lord's Supper, like these instructions here in Titus, exists to remind you that you are not a detached individual, a lone wolf, a dog, at least you better not be.

We have to train dogs not to act like dogs. You know, that's how we get along with them. We can train them to not be a dog or not act like it most of the time, some of the time, except when someone comes near the door and they bark.

You still can't train them to stop barking, but whatever. But in the church we should be different among one another. We should seek one another's good willingly.

We should not be trained like it's against our nature, should be coming out of our nature, of who we are now. As it says at the end of verse 1, we are to be ready for every good work in our individualistic culture where people are told to grab what's theirs and live and let die.

We need to be reminded of this and reminded often. Also in verse 2 we're be reminded that we are to slander no one.

If you accuse someone of something, you better be right. You know, you don't get to just make up stuff just because you don't like somebody.

We see that's on the internet all the time. People don't like somebody, some preacher or whatever, and maybe they don't even know exactly why they don't like him.

They think they could just make up anything about this. Saw it just this morning. He's a blasphemer. Really? What did he blaspheme about?

Quote him. They don't know. They just don't like him. You can't be inaccurate. You can't just exaggerate for effect.

He's a heretic. Really? What's his heresy? You might be. Quote him. Show him the source. You just can't say it just because you don't like the person.

We are to avoid arguing for argument's sake. We're to be peaceable, forbearing, and gentle.

Unlike the dog -eat -dog world, we in the church, now remember he's talking to Christians. He begins here in verse 1.

Remind them, Paul to Titus. Think of Titus like the pastor. Remind them, them as the church members.

This is the way we'd be. He's not talking about the whole world because you're not going to train the whole world to not act like dogs because they are dogs.

Remind them that you don't have to be at each other's throat all the time, suspecting each other, undermining each other.

In the world now, that's different. Sometimes we are so deceived though by the world in our day, by mask of civility, superficial courtesy, the training that makes many people act better than they really are.

And we live in a society in which the government is taking over a lot of charity for the poor. So we just imagine we live in such a charitable society.

We live in such a generous, giving, and considerate. We're looking after the rights of people. Not really. Unless we classify them as non -people, then we kill them.

Right? That's the society we live in. But we're so deceived by the way we package it all that we forget what kind of society we really live in.

We forget what the world is really like. We forget what we were really like. Like the older lady who once told

Mary that she's never been hostile to anyone. Everyone, she's so gentle and kind and loving. That's what she thought of herself.

But in reality, she was so abrasive and bitter, even her family couldn't stand to be around her. In verse 3,

Paul shows us what we're really like beneath the mask. And he shows us this. He shows us this is our true nature in verse 3.

What we were like. This is we were. And so that we'll actually be more sympathetic, more patient with the people in the world.

So when we see the sins of the world, like when those gym kids act up, we don't think, well I was never like that.

Yeah, you'd probably be like that too if you're raised in the same environment. We're reminded in verse 3 of seven characteristics that we would have if we were left to ourselves.

First, foolish. It's without spiritual understanding. We don't naturally know the right way to go.

We're so foolish. This is how foolish we could be. We believe that an accused conman found golden tablets, which he never presented, in the woods written in Egyptian, mind you, that he could magically translate if he put them in a hat.

Who is so foolish that they would believe such a story? Well, we are. People all around us are. We don't have the wisdom that produces self -control.

So we spend too much, we get in debt. Second, we're disobedient. We do our own thing to our own heart.

We don't listen to advice. Naturally insubordinate and rebellious and chafed at the idea of having to submit to or even to listen to others.

You see that in the kind of kids who come here often. And we can be led astray from the

Lord. There's no commitments or no covenants can tie you down because you get blown around by whatever it is, by new doctrines, by your feelings, but by some guy on the internet who just looks cool, sounds cool, has a great delivery, and you get led astray.

Fourth, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures because it was from the physical world alone that we could gain satisfaction.

Fifth, spending our life in malice and envy. Resenting others that they have something we don't.

Some malice. We wish them ill. Wish they would lose. Six, hateful.

Actively hating good things. You find that all the time in this culture. You're calling people bigots for believing in sexual morality.

They're hateful. You believe in actual morality, you are the bigot, they'll say.

If you believe in biology, you're the bigot. Well, how does that work? Regarding other good as loathsome.

Calling good evil. Seventh, hating one another. Creating a dog -eat -dog world.

You know, that's us. That's us described in verse 3. In reality. Second, degenerate.

Then comes the most dramatic word in the passage. This passage right after verse 3. A simple conjunction, but.

We are hateful and hating each other, but something appeared.

You have our sin, you have particularly our lawlessness, our hate. We could cover that up with a mask of civilization, but God sees through the mask.

We demand our way. We're malicious, we're resentful, we're rebellious, but God's goodness, his loving -kindness, his mercy, his grace appeared in the middle of our hatefulness and our hatred, our hostility in this dog -eat -dog world.

His goodness and loving -kindness appeared, and it appeared means it's not just a sentiment.

It's not as though God just looked down on our hateful world. We're fighting each other, we're destroying each other, and he kind of looked down and he sweetly loved us and we're supposed to believe that sweetness.

That's not just it. He says it appeared, that means you could see it. It was manifest, it was made visible.

It's incarnate in Christ, the second person of the Trinity, coming in the flesh.

In him, you see the goodness and loving -kindness of God.

And the word loving -kindness there in Greek is something like philopthropy, like philanthropy, literally love of people.

God's love of people was made visible in Jesus. And the result of that, he saved us, in verse 5.

Notice how total it is. He didn't just give us a check for our debt but leave it up to us to deposit.

It doesn't say he made a way for us to be saved or he made a salvation available, kind of like a store makes milk available, right?

Food Lion makes milk available. You can go get it if you want it or not. If you don't, you can pass by.

No, here, he saved us. He delivered the bill to you. He didn't just throw us a life preserver and leave it up to us to take hold of it.

No, he saved us. That's the difference between us,

God's people, and those, in verse 3, whom we would be like if his goodness and loving -kindness hadn't appeared to us.

He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness. He did not save us because of anything we had done, because we prayed a prayer, because we got baptized.

And this is important because Paul is not saying, last week I mentioned how people use this verse, verse 5, talk about baptismal regeneration.

There's the baptism that makes you regenerate and therefore safe. But think how absurd that makes his statement because he first says he saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness.

He's not saying, in the first half of verse 5, that God saved us not because of works and then immediately says, in the same verse, that God saved us by a work, by baptism.

That would not make any sense. He says he saved us not by works, not by anything we have done, but by regenerating us.

And that watches us. So he saved us because he is good and he is merciful and he saved us to the degree according to this much his own mercy.

Not to the degree of our religious obedience, to the degree of our morality, to the degree of our prayers, our asking.

No, to the degree according to his own mercy. It was his mercy that caused our salvation, not our will, not our effort, not our baptism, not anything about us.

That salvation was applied by, notice the preposition at the end of verse 5, it's by.

It was the instrument. How did the salvation come to us?

Not by our own baptism, not by anything we have done. So how did it come? Well, by the washing of regeneration.

So he saved us through, that's the instrument of regeneration, that is being generated anew, recreated.

It's the means, it's the way through which God saved us. And this word only occurs one other time in the

Bible, from the Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 19 verse 28. He says, truly

I say to you, in the new world, and that's it.

Literally, it's the regeneration. So when the world is regenerated, then.

So truly I say to you, in the regeneration, the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne.

The future glorified world with the kingdom of God fully restored is the regeneration and is coming in the future.

But here in Titus, Paul speaks of regeneration as something past. He saved us, saved, past tense, past, through the washing of regeneration.

His path here because the regeneration of our hearts now is an invasion of the future, an invasion of the kingdom of God into this present dog -eat -dog world.

We have now, if you are regenerate, you have a new heart, you have the presence of the future in you.

So into this age, God comes with his mercy and he regenerates people.

He begins in us what he will eventually do to the whole universe make new.

He regenerates. He saved us by renewal of the

Holy Spirit. It's another way, I think, of saying regeneration. The Holy Spirit regenerates.

Jesus said in John chapter 3, the Spirit blows where he wills, like the wind, and he makes us born again.

God the Father poured out the Holy Spirit on us. Here, it's not sparsely. He didn't sprinkle the

Holy Spirit on our hearts. Paul says he poured out the Holy Spirit on us generously, abundantly, while we were still in these hate, we were still these hateful sinners.

And then the Holy Spirit made us new. And all this through God the

Son, Jesus our Savior. And he does that so that, in verse 7, we can be made right with God.

Again, and in case we missed the point, by his grace. The regeneration, the being born again, is by the generosity of his kindness and love.

The justification that's being made right is by his grace. And so look at all these overflowing words about God's love, verses 4 to 7.

Goodness, loving kindness, mercy, grace, which he poured out on us richly.

Now, I don't think we need to split hairs on the different shades of meaning, the different nuances of these words.

That's not Paul's point. He's simply exalting, he's overflowing, he's celebrating the goodness of God toward us that saved us.

So he reaches for every word to describe it. The nouns. Goodness, loving kindness.

That's that philanthropia, that love of people. Mercy, grace.

And look at that verb. Pour it out. Not stingily, just give a drop. Pour it out, gushed out.

Then the adverb, richly. He is stretching language, as far as it will go, to express what

God has done. Now, we don't have it all yet. Certainly his kindness and love has, past tense, appeared.

He has, past tense, saved us. He has already justified us. He's put us in a right relationship with God so that God can accept us, justified, never sinned.

But there's still more. We're still in this dog -eat -dog world, but we are in it as different people.

Not dogs, but heirs, in verse 7, with a hope and eternal life that's to come.

The regeneration begun in our hearts while we wait for the regeneration of the creation that we will then inherit.

We are now between an inner and an outer regeneration.

The inner regeneration is the deposit assuring us of the coming outer regeneration.

Though that is still something we are waiting on. We can be sure of it because it's already begun in us, but we're still waiting.

And because we're waiting on the one who has already begun the new creation in our hearts, then we can be sure of the new creation outside us.

Then, in verse 8, is something that we can trust in. So we insist on this gospel, remind other believers, other heirs, of what they were.

In verse 8, insist on this, because other things he's about to mention, you don't worry about them too much.

But this, this gospel he's just talked about for verses like 5 to 8, verse 7

I guess, insist on this. Make this your major thing. Insist that God saves, not by what we do, not by our baptism.

It's not baptism that watches us of sin, it's being regenerate, it's being born again that watches us of that, so that then we can be baptized.

Insist then that we, the saved, act like we've had mercy and lovingkindness appear to us.

No mask, not a fake courtesy, a genuine love, just as the

Father poured out on believers through the Holy Spirit. Because then, we can be diligent in good works, like he began in verse 1.

He's back to it again. Not the kind we mistakenly think that we'll earn something from God, but genuine fruitfulness coming out of a changed heart.

That way, we are profitable. And something is profitable when you get more from it than you put into it.

Reminding us of where we came from, insisting that God saved us by regeneration, not by religion.

Insisting that we live like we belong to that coming, regenerate world.

That returns a profit to us and to others, so we get more out of us than at least we put into ourselves.

Third, the rebuke. You rebuke people who say that they are regenerate, who are in the church, have a mask of religion on, but then they live like dogs in a dog -eat -dog world.

He says, avoid foolish controversies, quarrels. Foolish controversies implies that there are some genuine controversies.

Paul got into one with Peter at one point. There's controversies worth having, but there's also some that are just foolish.

Quarrels, refusing to submit because we love our way, avoid the love of fighting. A church member who lives like a dog, like goodness and loving kindness, hasn't appeared to him, who will not listen, cannot be reminded about submission, kindness, courtesy, but thinks that he or she has the right to stir up division.

Such a person, as it says in verse 9, is not profitable. He or she may be great at having a mask on, at works of righteousness that impress people, the religious talk that sounds so pious, but to God they are, as he says in verse 11, warped and sinful.

You know, somebody who believes, he says they believe, that the goodness and loving kindness of God has appeared in Christ, believes the gospel, but would rather obsess about some other thing, whatever, about the rapture or about politics or whatever, that's warped.

That's being bent out of shape. That's weird. Why do you have this message, the goodness and loving kindness of God has appeared, he regenerates us, he saves us, the coming new world has started in our hearts, you have that, and you want to talk about whatever silly little issue?

They made their own controversies in verse 9. They're propelled by an urge to find something to disagree about. Are you for Christian nationalism or not?

Just this past week they announced a conference on cessationism, so they can argue that spiritual gifts have ceased, just what we need.

Now, even if they're right, then they're wrong to argue about it.

Is that really what we need at this moment? You look at this country, that's what we need.

You express concern for racial injustice, you're woke, we'll argue about that. If you don't join to denounce every problem as racist, well, then you are the racist.

There's always something to argue and accuse others about. They'll argue about genealogies, believe it or not.

Still today, there must be a lot of that back then, there's still some of this going on today. Melchizedek is shim, here's a whole lecture of someone proving that point.

Why would you waste a half hour or whatever it takes on that? I can't. They love arguments.

Gog and Magog are definitely X. This other guy says they're

Y, he's a heretic, and quarrels about the law. Here's why you can't eat a cheeseburger, because the law says so.

But Jesus declared, Mark 7, verse 19, all foods clean. Ah, but that's not in the original text.

Well, actually it is. All the law is still binding. Really, Jesus fulfilled the law.

Some people would take a position just so they can have something to quarrel about. They're not so impressed that the goodness and loving kindness of God, our

Savior, appeared. They're more interested in whatever, those things. That obsession to argue about some minor issue exposes them and condemns them.

They are, he says, self -condemned, in verse 11. This arguing, this obsession, condemns them already, and so then you recognize that and you avoid them and rebuke them.

Here in verse 10, we're told something that many modern Christians have forgotten. We cannot put up indefinitely with people in the church who will continue to act like that, act like a dog.

We cannot be their enablers, you know, like those bad parents who show up and take the side of their juvenile delinquent kids all the time, enabling them.

And then we wonder why they're so bad because, well, we've been protecting them from all kinds of discipline. Can't be that way. Many people in the churches now think that we should ignore sin.

They won't discipline it. They won't rebuke it, enable it with silence, at the very least.

But here we see that we must rebuke it. If after a process of correction, they still will not be profitable, they still won't remember the body, they won't put away their pet controversies, there's still going to be dogs always barking about something, then we put them in the doghouse.

Finally, remind again. We need to be reminded again and again because we have a tendency to forget again and again, especially from the pressure of the world shaping us all the time.

As Paul concludes his letter to Titus, he reminds him to remind us of what we have already been reminded of before in this letter, even in the early part of this chapter.

But we need that reminding again. We're reminded that we need a church. Verse 12,

Paul is sending Artemis or Tychicus, he hadn't quite made up his mind yet, to Crete to continue to do what Titus is doing there.

Remember from chapter 1, Paul sent Titus to Crete, set in order the church, encourage right behavior and faith, and rebuke false teaching.

The church needs order and leaders, and we need the church. Modern American church hoppers needed to be reminded of that.

When Artemis or Tychicus arrived, Paul wants Titus to come to him. So meet me in Nicopolis for the winter, he tells him, and so he needs,

Paul needs a church too. He needs people with him. Greet those who love us in the faith, in that last verse.

He's not a lone wolf or dog. Help Zenos the lawyer and Apollos.

They're not loners either. They're going out, so support them. Again, for the second time in the chapter in verse 14, we're reminded to be devoted to true good works.

Reminded again. It means to give focused attention to doing good works. Don't just do good works kind of, not just passively.

When you're asked, sitting back and someone asks you to do something good, well, you'll help them out.

No, it's more than that. Discipline yourself to be active in finding good works and doing them.

Set aside time for it. Make the decision to commit yourself to some regular doing of good works, like helping with Jim Jr.,

breaking up fights. That doesn't happen very often. Giving. Practice them diligently. Here, we, the church, remind you, the

Christian, to be active, to be a committed doer of good works. Don't worry about the trappings of what our culture expects.

Mask of artificiality. Just be there, especially for cases, he says, of urgent need.

He says it the second to last verse. So don't be unfruitful. In verse 14, it's like a fruit tree that doesn't bear any fruit.

It's not any good anymore after a while. You want to cut it down. Be profitable. Be active. Then we, we have to be reminded of this again because of our cultural sins.

That's why he's reminding them so much. Remember the cultural sins? For them, it was being lazy and self -indulgent, gluttonous and dishonest.

Same as us, sounds like. You have to be reminded again and again to overcome cultural sins because the culture is reminding you again and again to lapse into them.

And yet, remember in the past, before, often the church ignored cultural sins.

So we're shaped by them. We need to do the opposite. It's a cultural sin.

We continually push against it. Tell the truth about it.

So we were lawless individuals. We're hateful and self -centered, always grasping for a profit for ourselves, fighting, grabbing, biting, dogs in a dog world.

But then God's goodness and loving kindness appeared visibly. He richly poured out

His Holy Spirit because of His mercy, by His grace, to give us hope. He has already begun

His coming, fruit your new world in our hearts by regeneration. And all this because of His mercy.

And when we remember that, we can be profitable to one another.

So be reminded, be reminded of what you would be like without Christ. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved, not just someone, a wretch like me.

Be reminded of an event so momentous it divides history in half. B .C., as A .D., the time went out of the heavens, not the reward of a religion we thought we earned, but the undeserved mercy of our

God and Savior appeared. So be reminded of your regeneration, if you've had it, when you were washed, not by water, but by the

Holy Spirit. Be reminded then that you are different from a hostile world, that you are profitable, devoted to good works, at peace, living as if in a future regenerate world now.

Has that coming new world already split your life in half?

Has it brought regeneration, a new creation to you, to your heart?

Has it made you fruitful? Has it given you love for those in the faith?

Well, if so, grace be with you.

If not yet, see the goodness and love that appeared in Jesus.