WWUTT 762 Slaves to Passions and Pleasures?

Slaves to Passions and Pleasures Before Christ

Critics of Christianity like to say that it's nothing but groupthink and religious slavery. But the fact of the matter is, we were slaves before we became followers of Christ. And in Him, we have been set free when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand the Text, committed to sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. And don't forget our website, www .wtt .com.

Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.

Titus 3:3-7 as an Evangelism Summary

Thank you, Becky. We come back once again to Titus chapter 3, and I'll begin today by reading verses 3 -7. The Apostle Paul wrote to Titus, For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

But when the goodness and lovingkindness 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 richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

So, a couple of years ago, I was teaching a class of high school students through the books of Galatians and Ephesians, and when we got to Ephesians chapter 2, I told them there are three passages of scripture that they should have memorized, and if they memorize these sections of the Bible, it will help them in the way that they evangelize to unbelievers.

And those three sections of scripture were these, John chapter 3 verses 16 -21, Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 -10, and this section right here, Titus chapter 3 verses 3 -7. Now of course, the context here is addressing Christians, so if you repeat this to an unbeliever, you wouldn't quite say it the same way.

For example, verse 3 we read, For we ourselves were once foolish, well the we ourselves in this context is specifically believers. We were once this way, we once behaved like the rest of the world behaves, but in Christ, we've been changed, we're something different, we've been given a new nature, we've been regenerated by the Holy Spirit who's been poured into our hearts.

So the we ourselves were once this is only talking about believers. If you were addressing an unbeliever, you wouldn't tell them that you were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, because if they're not following Jesus Christ, they're still those things.

So you might say to them, for example, that they're still a slave to the various passions and pleasures of their flesh. Now there have been occasions in which I have been evangelizing an unbeliever, and they might say something to me to the effect of, well religion, you know, that's for the weak minded.

You know, it's sheep that follow along in religion. It's kind of funny that they would use that metaphor in particular because, right, yeah, all we like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord has laid upon Christ the iniquity of us all.

So yeah, they get that right in addressing us as sheep. But the point that they're making is that religion is for the mindless. They follow all the other people. They need somebody else to tell them what to do.

And I might respond to this person who is criticizing Christianity in such a way. I will say to them, well, the fact of the matter is you're actually still the slave. I've been set free in Christ, but you're still a slave to your passions and pleasures.

And I'm not just saying that to be critical. Your own philosophers agree. Those who are secular, naturalistic philosophers or scientists or ethicists, they agree that the whole idea of human free will is actually an illusion.

A fellow by the name of Stephen Cave, who was writing on Richard Dawkins website, Richard Dawkins is the famous atheist, bestselling author of The God Delusion. Stephen Cave said that if we could understand the physiology of the human brain, if we could understand all of its different intricacies, then we might be able to predict an individual's response to any given stimulus with 100 percent accuracy.

Why would Cave say that? Because we're nothing but sacks of chemicals reacting. And given our experiences and our upbringing and these kinds of things, all we're going to do is react to those things that we have been preconditioned to react to.

And it might be either nature or nurture. But nonetheless, all the pathways that have been developed in our brains have been arranged in such a way that we will only respond this way to any given stimulus.

And so looking at this unbeliever, as I'm evangelizing with him, I will say, whatever you're about to say next, after what it is that I'm telling you, you're actually pre programmed to say and you're not even aware of it.

So you're a slave to your own naturalistic programming and there's absolutely nothing that you can do about that. Now, the Bible talks about the naturally minded man and the spiritually minded man also in First Corinthians, chapter two, and the naturally minded man can't understand spiritual things because they are spiritually discerned.

So the naturally minded man thinks of spiritual things as being foolish, just as you think of my Christianity as being foolish. But before I became a Christian, I thought just like you did. And I was enslaved to those things that my body wanted, all of the different passions and pleasures that I desired.

I was enslaved to those things until Jesus Christ set me free. And it was by hearing the message of the gospel and understanding that I was a sinner who had rebelled against God. I had taken the very breath that God had given me in my body, which he had designed the mind that he gave to me to worship him.

And I use these things and I blasphemed him with them. I use my own body to fulfill my own passions rather than worship and glorify God. And what I deserve for this is to be destroyed. I've actually made myself worthless, as it says in Romans, chapter three.

But God showed his loving kindness to me in that while I was a sinner, he didn't destroy me. Jesus Christ died for me so that by faith in Jesus Christ, I would be forgiven of my sins. Jesus died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for me so that all who would believe in him would not perish in their sinfulness and their wickedness, but they would repent and follow Jesus and have eternal life.

And so now my will has been freed from the naturalistic man that I was following the passions and pleasures that were in my flesh. And instead, with my spirit, I desire to submit even my flesh to Christ and obey him with all that I am conforming myself to Christ.

So now I am no longer like I was like everyone else who is in this world. Instead, my will has been set free. It was once enslaved to sin, and now it has been set free in Christ, free to worship God and do so in a way that is pleasing unto the Lord.

So this is a way that I've taken Titus chapter three and used it to evangelize to somebody who is an unbeliever. And again, you will use it. You will word things differently since they don't fit the context of who is being addressed there in verse three.

We ourselves were once foolish. You know, as you're evangelizing to this individual, that they are foolish. That they are still led astray, that they're still passing days and malice and envy, that they hate others and they're hated by others.

And that's going to continue unless Jesus Christ intervenes and changes their heart and their nature and reconciles them to God and to the people of God. Before Christ, we're hating one another. And in Christ, we're loving one another.

Ephesians 2 and the Human Condition

And so another way that, you know, I use that passage to evangelize to somebody who is an unbeliever. And as you look at this, Titus three, three through seven, you might recognize the similarities between this and what we read in Ephesians chapter two.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

So even there to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul is saying that we were enslaved to passions and pleasures. We were following the prince of the power of the air, who is Satan, like everyone else who is not a follower of Jesus is following.

We were with the sons of disobedience. We were like them, children of wrath. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus unmerited favor.

But God has shown us this favor through his son, Jesus Christ, verses eight and nine. For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast, for we are his workmanship.

Verse 10 now created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And so being really familiar with this, Ephesians chapter two, verses one through 10, you can use this section also to evangelize to someone else.

John chapter three, verses 16 through 21, Ephesians chapter two, verses one through 10 and Titus chapter three, verses three through seven. So we come back again to Titus three, where Paul says we ourselves were once foolish.

We were fools. We were going our own way instead of God's way. We did not have the fear of the Lord. So remember the book of Proverbs, Proverbs one, seven, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge.

Those who are fools, they despise wisdom and knowledge and correction. And that's who we were. We had no wisdom or knowledge or understanding of God, who he is, his holiness. We had no understanding of our sin, but rather, according to Romans one, we suppress the truth in our unrighteousness.

And we were also resistant to correction. So somebody might preach us the gospel, but we say, hey, I'm fine, man. I don't need it. I'm all right. I'm living just fine on my own. So in this way, we were once foolish.

We were disobedient. We were not following the law of God. By the same token, we weren't even keeping our own standard like you have a certain standard that you have and judge other people by. Well, you don't follow that standard either.

The same measure of judgment that you use on another person is going to be used against you. Jesus said that in Matthew seven. We read that also in Romans chapter two. You're not even good enough to follow your own standard of morality.

And I think a pretty good example of this right now is the current social justice movement. So they claim to be fighting for racial equality. But the reality is that the social justice movement is incredibly prejudiced, saying these races over here are not as privileged.

And so we need to show them special privileges while these races over here are already privileged and we need to discriminate against them. So they're doing the very opposite of what it is that they are claiming that they're fighting for.

So in this way, this serving as an example of how we can't even follow our own standard of morality, we're disobedient to God. We even disobey our own standards. This is the person who has a conflicted conscience or a seared conscience, as Paul describes it elsewhere.

We are led astray. Before we came to Christ, we were led astray. And I already quoted somewhat that verse in Isaiah 53. All we like sheep are led astray. We have turned every one of us to his own way.

And the Lord has laid upon Christ the iniquity of us all paying for the sins that we committed against God because we insisted upon our own way. And as we had already read in Ephesians chapter two verses one through three before following Christ, we're following Satan.

We're following the prince of the power of the air. Second, Timothy chapter two, the apostle Paul tells Timothy to correct opponents with gentleness and God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.

And they may come to their senses and escape from a snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. So before coming to Christ, we're led astray. We're led by the schemes of Satan. We're slaves to various passions and pleasures.

And I already explained that one. And again, we had also seen that in Ephesians chapter two verses one through three. You are either a slave of Christ or you're a slave of the devil. And Paul kind of makes that illustration in Romans chapter six, that we might take the members of our body and make them slaves to righteousness instead of slaves to unrighteousness.

As a slave, we have no control over our nature, our desires. When we were walking in lostness like that, we wanted to pursue the passions of our flesh. And so we were enslaved to those things, the sinful nature that we had, all who are born by the seed of Adam.

And before Christ, we were passing our days in malice and envy. We hated other people. We hated what they had and we wanted what they had. And we thought it was unfair that they got to have certain things that I don't have.

And if I just had what that person had, my life would be so much better. So we despise and hate one another and envy and and want the opportunities and privileges that other people have thinking our lives would be better.

And it's not fair that this person gets those things and I don't have them. That's that's an unchristian characteristic and quality. It's not the way that we as believers should be living. We shouldn't be looking at people of privilege and then going, oh, if I could just get what they want, it's not fair.

Let's change the whole system so that they have to give me they have to give me what it is that they have and spread the wealth around a little bit. That is that is an unchristian expectation, for this is who we were before Christ changed our heart and our nature to desire something else other than the stuff of this world and the things that other people had.

And and finally, in this list, in verse three, we have we were hated by others and we were hating one another. People who are not in Christ Jesus are not unified. There is no unity in Satan. There's just constant division.

There might be some surface level appearances of unity, but they aren't real underneath it all. It's actually very, very shallow. And when it comes down to the final judgment, if a person doesn't repent of the satanic following that they are in.

And when I say satanic following, I mean anybody who is not following Jesus is following Satan. So they're in a satanic following. And if they don't repent of that, if they don't change direction and follow Christ, then when they are judged, they will be judged alone and they will be cast into outer darkness.

And there and they will not be in the company of other people who have been bound and cast into the outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. It's dark there. There is no fellowship there.

There's no company. You exist there alone, separated from God and from his people. So we are isolated from one another before we come to Christ. And it's only in Christ Jesus that we are restored to a fellowship, not just with God, but also with his people.

There is nothing but hate in our hearts for God, for his people and for and for others who have been made in the image of God before we were followers of Jesus Christ. You consider the blasphemy that happens in a gay pride parade, flying flags in rainbow colors, which they claim represents unity and diversity, using equals signs to talk about equality.

And they will they will fly hearts and use terms like love wins. And they will say that they are unified in love and that and that love casts out hate and all these other things. The reality of the situation is those parades, those pride parades are full of people who hate each other.

They don't love one another. They might have some worldly version of love or kindness that they're showing to each other. But it's really I only like you because you're allowing me to have the passion of the flesh that I want.

So it's very selfish. It is very self-centered. It is not at all considerate of one another, especially when you think of a parade like that is full of people who are encouraging one another in sin that God has promised he will judge.

It is very clear. It's made very clear in First Corinthians, chapter six, verses nine and ten, that those who practice homosexuality will not inherit the kingdom of God. So a person might call themselves a Christian and they might think they're doing a loving, wonderful thing by accepting a homosexual in their sin.

But they're actually encouraging them to do the thing that will destroy them. And God has a judgment for the person that encourages such sins as well. Romans, chapter one, verse thirty two, though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.

They not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them. And we were all like this before Christ. We might have looked like we loved each other. We might have looked like that. We had kindness towards somebody else, but it was a very selfish kind of kindness because we were only kind to somebody else to benefit ourselves.

Somebody might argue with that and say, no, no, no. I've seen plenty of people who are unbelievers give up everything for somebody else. How could you dare say that they were hating somebody else? Well, because that person believes that by that good and generous act that they have done, they've attained a righteousness for themselves by their own work and merit.

Therefore, it was still a selfish act. They believe they don't need God in order to be a good person. And Romans three very clearly tells us no one is good. No one is righteous. If anyone can call themselves righteous, it is because they are given a righteousness that comes not from themselves, but from God through his son, Jesus Christ.

And so it is only in Christ Jesus that we go from being the people who were hated and hating into people who are loved and loving. And we'll talk some more about that tomorrow as we go from this verse, talking about those talk about the people that we were before Christ.

And instead, we'll look tomorrow at verses four through seven and who we are in Christ. So come back again as we continue our study of Titus three. Let's pray our wonderful God and savior. We thank you for the transformation that has happened in our hearts, that you have rescued us out of darkness and into your marvelous light, that you have made us a people who are zealous for your good work, a people for your own possession, not separated from God, but united with God in Jesus Christ, adopted into your family as your sons and daughters.

And so, God, we pour out praise to you and we thank you for considering us in our darkest time of need and showing your mercy and your grace through Jesus, our savior. Give us wisdom that we might know how to answer outsiders and let our speech be seasoned with salt so we may speak to each person in a courteous and gentle way, holding forth the word of life, the gospel that has the power to save a person from their sins and transfer them into your glorious kingdom.

Thank you once again for this gift that you have given to us through your son. And it's in his name that we pray.

Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com, and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study, When We Understand the Text.