Sermon: A Trust Worthy Statement

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of God our Savior in every respect. So apparently doctrine is important to the

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Lord. I don't know about you, but I've I've had people tell me Christianity isn't about doctrine.

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It's not about theology. I'm sure, I'm not sure how you can divorce those two things, right?

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Those truths concerning God, concerning Jesus, salvation, sin, creation, and a plethora of more things.

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I don't know how you you can separate the two. And in one sense, just saying

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Christianity isn't about doctrine or theology is developing your own doctrine.

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It's inescapable. If you make truth claims in any regard about God, the

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Bible, or anything stemming from those two, you are indeed doing doctrine.

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And it is the rich theology and high Christology of chapter 3 verses 4 through 7 that undergirds the gospel of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. You know, over the years my taste in hymns and spiritual songs has changed.

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I thirst for songs with this rich doctrine and theology. And I know a lot of people at Apologia are partial to Hillsong and Bethel.

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Don't worry, you'll get there. We're all being sanctified. They're like, yeah, right. Yeah, right.

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Theologians believe, actually concerning our passage, that this would be an early

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Christian hymn or creed. In verse 8, when Paul says, this is a trustworthy statement concerning the previous four verses, that is the typical formula to demonstrate a hymn or creedal statement common to the primitive

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Christian faith. And honestly, these verses are so packed with theological truths that one could literally do a whole sermon series on them.

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But I'm not Jeff Durbin, and so we're gonna go over these today. All right, got

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Pastor James to laugh. That's all that matters. It's my hope for us this evening that we develop a right understanding of the gospel and salvation by doing a general overview of the soteriological statements made in this passage, so that we can do several things.

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And I'm kind of giving you the application at the beginning, and I'll restate at the end. But we're gonna learn this passage today so we could do these.

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Number one, to know that we are saved. And how we are saved? To know that we are saved.

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Number two, to be able to give the gospel to an unbelieving world around us. Number three, to walk in the good works that God has prepared for us.

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And number four, and is what I would consider the heart of this message, is to be able to preach the gospel to ourselves daily.

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Okay? So before we dive deeply into our main passage, we need to take a look at what necessitates saving us in the first place, right?

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And that is, of course, our sin. Too many have a high view of themselves and a low view of God.

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I don't know about you, but I meet a whole lot more people who think they are good rather than bad.

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And I'm not sure why. I've got some ideas why. But I think the majority of people think that they're virtuous in some way.

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Now to someone who knows themselves to be bad but doesn't know how to remedy their situation, they seem almost as if ripe for the gospel.

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But someone who thinks they are good, like I did prior to Christ rescuing me,

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I thought I was very good despite all my failures. We see very little need for a

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Savior as their sin in their eyes holds no consequences, right?

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And really, we all know it's just a suppression of the truth and unrighteousness, as Romans 1 says.

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We see evidence of God's benevolence and kindness everywhere, but ultimately we creatures attempt to harden ourselves, blind ourselves, lest we see the holiness of God, lest we see

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His holy attributes and His divine law. For if we chose to see those things, humanity would be undone.

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Humanity would be undone. When the Holy Spirit showed me His holiness and righteousness,

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I remember I knew I was dead where I stood. I knew I was dead where I stood apart from a

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Savior. And so what are the depths of our sin and wicked open rebellion to a holy and eternal

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God that would require the blameless and impeccable Son of God to take our place upon the cross, bringing on to Himself the just wrath that we deserve, that the

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Son of God would take our place? Concerning sin,

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J .C. Ryle states this, quote, he that wishes to attain right views about Christian holiness must begin by examining the vast and solemn subject of sin.

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He must dig down very low if he would build high. A mistake here is most mischievous.

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Wrong views about holiness are generally traceable to wrong views about human corruption. The plain truth is that a right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving

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Christianity. Without it, such doctrines as justification, conversion, sanctification are mere words and names which convey no meaning to the mind, end quote.

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So to look at this, Paul reminds the Cretans who they once were in verse 3, right before our beginning of our passage.

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It says in verse 3 of chapter 3 of Titus, for we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

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Honestly, the same could be said about all of us prior to Christ, right? Enslaved is the key word that came out, that popped out to me in John 834.

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It says, Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.

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A slave. That means we had a previous master, obeying the whims of our carnal nature, committing all kinds of evil.

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Now you might say, hey, I don't remember being all that bad. Well, the nature of our depravity doesn't mean we are all as bad as we could be.

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Some harden their hearts, some are left to a reprobate mind, I understand that. But it's a, it's about positionally, who are we before God, before a holy and righteous

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God? We are in sin, we are enslaved to sin. Romans 5 explains the gravity of the fall of man in verse 12, when it says, therefore just as through one man sin entered in the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.

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Adam was our federal head in the garden, so through him all mankind was affected.

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That covenant was between Adam and his posterity. Adam was our federal head, and because he fell, we also fall.

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Not only were we enslaved, but before regeneration, before being born again, we all know this

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Ephesians 2 .10 says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sin. What can a dead man do to remedy his standing before a holy

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God? Christ needs to call you forth from the grave like he did to Lazarus, and apart from the miraculous work of Jesus, Lazarus would have stayed in that tomb dead and rotting.

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We need the same miracle, brothers and sisters, we need the same miracle. Psalm 14,

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Psalm 53, and Romans 3 all demonstrate the reality of our fallen nature.

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It says, God has looked down upon the sons of men to see if there is any who understand, and he comes to the conclusion that no one does good.

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No one seeks after God. All have turned aside. All have become corrupt. Is there anyone who does good, he says, and as a matter of fact, he states, there is not even one.

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You might think, well, I was seeking God for a long time, and I don't disagree with that usually.

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That may be true, but any seeking we have done was because of his drawing us unto himself.

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John 644 highlights this, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

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Paul is often writing in his letters about who Christians once were, right?

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We remind ourselves of who we once were, not to boast of our sins, not to revel in the memory of them, but to see how wretched we were and honestly glorify

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Christ for his work on our behalf, to remember who we were and what now

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Christ has done. To see the dichotomy between who we once were so that we would do the very opposite now as followers of Christ.

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And as the Equality Act has rolled out and we consider the implications of it in regards to speaking biblical truth unmolested and unregulated,

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I made a recent post about real anti -hate speech. This is real anti -hate speech in 1

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Corinthians 6, 9 through 11, the list containing who the Corinthians once were.

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It says, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

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And here it is, as we always say, such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. That is loving. That's a loving thing to express to someone.

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That is not hateful. That is God's Word. But the thing to highlight there is, again, the such were some of you, such were some of you, for we also once were, and He made you alive.

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For when you were slaves of sin, God did this. Those are the sayings that we see in the

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Bible about who we were. We can look back to look ahead. We can look back to look ahead to Christ.

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And if looking back heaps condemnation and scorn on yourself, then you need to preach the gospel to yourself.

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You need to be reminded of the gospel truth. Shut down the opposing inner monologue.

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Don't believe contrary thoughts. Believe on the promises of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we'll get into that now.

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Why did He save us? I think for us to understand why He saved us, we need to look at verse 4 again.

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It says, but when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared.

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God's kindness. God's kindness, goodness, and kindness are indeed attributes of God.

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Luke 6 35 says, but love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the

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Most High. And here it is, for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

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He Himself, God, is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Are we kind to ungrateful and evil men?

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Are we kind to them? Lamentations 3 22 and 23, the

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Lord's loving kindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.

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They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. His kindnesses never cease.

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They are new every morning. Did you fail yesterday? Well, good news. His loving kindnesses are new for you today.

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Amen. And the fact is, in Romans 2 4 it says, or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience?

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Not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance. God's kindness leads us to repentance.

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And one thing to note here, His kindness is not a license to sin or something to take advantage of, but His kindness should lead us to repentance.

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So when people say God is love or things like that, that's all true. God is love, and He's merciful, and He's kind, and those are part of His attributes, and we know other part of His attributes are justice and holiness and things like that.

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But the fact is, this is an attribute of God that He has even modeled for us.

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It is one that we can and should imitate, kindness. God's kindness touches all of creation.

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It reigns on the just and the unjust. The kindness of God is one of the many reasons that restrains

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His hand from destroying a people that would curse His name and reject His precepts, all the while, in this day, being blessed with marriage, children, and food, and altogether good things.

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It is His kindness that restrains His hand from destroying everyone right now, when

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His love for mankind appeared. I'm sure you're already going in this direction, when His love for mankind appeared.

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What appeared? In what way was it made manifest? And you would be right.

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God's greatest act of love has been in the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5, 8, but God demonstrates

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His own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It's unfathomable, brothers and sisters,

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His own love toward us. Jesus is the ultimate manifestation of God's love.

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When Jesus saw Mary weeping and the Jews weeping with her, He was deeply moved, it says, and it says that Jesus wept, even though He knew

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He was about to raise Lazarus. The God of all the universe, who sovereignly upholds all things by the word of His power,

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King Jesus loves so deeply that He weeps with us. What a

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God that is close to us. He is not far off. He is transcendent and yet imminent.

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He is above all things and yet He is so very close. He is our God, whom we can have relationship with.

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God is good. God is kind. God is love. He is inherently all these things.

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He is forbearing. He is patient toward men. The word love here in the

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Greek is philanthropia. It means to pity, have compassion, or deliver one from pain or distress because of strong affection.

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And it's not a pity for the wrong reasons, but a pity out of a strong love for us.

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It is a compassion that displays unordinary love or undeserved love.

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It's a love that like the story of the prodigal son has God running toward us while we're still a long way off, kissing us, placing a robe on us, making a feast for us, putting a ring on our finger.

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It's a love that pours His holy wrath out on the son of His love.

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Like when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah, except now it's

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God the Father on the mountain and He takes the knife and He doesn't fail to thrust it into His only son

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Jesus Christ just for you and for me. God's kindness and love is unmatchable, brothers and sisters.

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Moving on. Verse 5 it says, He saved us. He saved us.

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The word save connotes saving from great peril, from utter destruction, saving from where the fire is never quenched and the worm dies not, saving us from where there is not one drop of water to cool our tongues, from agony.

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Saving here is not just from the threat of hell or deliverance from divine wrath.

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It's not simply a saving us from sin and the consequences thereof, but also a saving to, saving us into heaven, into His blessing, saving us into His family, making us heirs of eternal life as it said.

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First Peter 1 4 says, You have obtained an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved for you in heaven.

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It's waiting for you, brothers and sisters, and He does not lie. It's waiting for you. Verse 9 and 10,

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But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

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For you once were not a people, but now you're a people. You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

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We are being saved not just from something, but into this very reality that Peter describes here in his epistle.

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And he saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, it says in verse 5, continuing on.

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As I said previously, how can a dead man save himself? He needs a resurrection.

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It does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

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It's on God. Some of you can't even hear on God without hearing, it's on God. Some of you might know that.

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It's from a song, so. Ephesians 1 3 through 6, glorious text.

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Ephesians 1 3 through 6, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

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In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which

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He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. He has blessed us. He chose us.

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He would make us holy and blameless. He predestined us to adoption. He bestows grace upon us.

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Why? Once again, His kindness, it says, to the praise of the glory of His glory and grace.

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He did it. He did it. The only part I see us take taking that passage is that of a recipient.

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We are receiving such glorious things, an inheritance, the grace, the kindness.

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Our so -called righteous deeds could never merit salvation. Think of the kind of righteousness you would need to please an infinitely holy

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God. It is a righteousness no fallen creature will ever or has ever possessed.

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God accepts no other level of righteousness but His very own. Hence, the

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God -man Jesus Christ, our perfect representative, acted on our behalf.

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Scripture makes it clear God is out for His own glory and pleasure. If any righteous deeds in our life, which before Christ saved us, were of course tainted by sin, could be a basis of salvation, then there'd be room to boast.

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But we all know this this verse so very well. For by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves.

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It is a gift of God, not a result of works. So what? So that no man may boast.

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God gets to boast. And if we boast, we boast in the Lord our God. Again, verse 5 says, but according to His mercy, according to His mercy, it wasn't our deeds.

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It was according to His mercy. His mercy is not giving us what we deserve.

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Grace is giving us what we don't deserve. Let me say that again.

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His mercy is not giving us what we deserve. We don't deserve.

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Grace is giving us what we don't deserve. He gives us salvation. Showing mercy says you have done all these crimes and you're worthy of all these sins, or you're worthy of all this punishment, but mercy will be given.

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You will not get this punishment. Mercy cannot be enacted by us.

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It is imparted upon a guilty party by a righteous judge. Now we can plead for mercy.

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Indeed, many do, but mercy is given by the mercy giver. So that like the tax collector in Luke 18, we cry out,

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God be merciful to me, the sinner. Or like the blind man begging, we say,

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Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. And so God grants mercy on the disobedient because of the obedience of His Son.

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It says, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the

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Holy Spirit. In the Greek, loutro, washing, bathing, cleaning, regeneration, palanganasios, regeneration, bathing you, cleaning you off in regeneration, in rebirth.

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This always reminds me of John 3 when Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the night, and Jesus says to him, truly, truly,

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I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

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You must be born again, washed in the process of being born again.

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Later on in the Gospel of John, Jesus came to Peter to wash his feet, to wash all the

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Apostles' feet, and Peter said, you shall never wash my feet. And listen to this carefully,

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Jesus answers and says, if I do not wash you, you have no part with me.

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If I do not wash you, you have no part with me. Now, of course, this is a different context than regeneration hermeneutically, but I think a principle can be found here as Jesus fulfills

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Scripture, and he reveals one of them isn't clean, of course, indicating Judas.

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Ultimately, by Jesus and through Jesus are we made clean. And we have some favorite verses here at Apologia highlighting this, especially in Ezekiel 36.

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It says, then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

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I talked with Pastor James at the beginning of this, and sprinkle with clean water was actually being immersed and being baptized that way.

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No, I'm just kidding. It wasn't a sprinkling. No, I'm just playing, just messing.

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Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and will give you a heart of flesh.

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This is the washing of regeneration. And how did

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God perform these things? He renewed us by the

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Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior.

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He makes the Word come alive to us. I remember before the

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Lord rescued me as a young man, sometimes my parents would hand me a children's

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Bible or even as a teenager a young person's Bible, always like age -selected, whatever.

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And it was such an arduous or tedious task for me to try to read the

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Bible. It was swimming upstream. I felt like I was going nowhere. I didn't, I couldn't comprehend what was being said.

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But when the Lord rescued me, I remember I picked up the Bible for the first time and I couldn't set it down.

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It was alive to me. It was alive, and that's the Holy Spirit's work in our life, our lives.

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The Holy Spirit indwells us now. He has been sent to guide us in all things, remind us of Jesus' teaching, convict us, lead us, comfort us.

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And by the power of the Holy Spirit are we even able to obey God. For the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the spirit is life and peace.

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Because the mindset on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.

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And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you are not in the flesh, but in the

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Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. The Spirit does this work.

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We become new creatures in Christ. We are to walk in the newness of life, putting off sin, putting off all desires, and desiring to obey the

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Lord. And this is, once again, only possible by the empowerment of the

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Spirit in our lives, when He has been poured out upon us richly. And it's all through Jesus Christ, it says.

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He saved us through Jesus Christ, our Savior. Christ is the pinnacle.

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Christ is the supremacy. Christ is the consummation of God's revelation.

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Apart from Christ, none of this would be possible. Christ is ultimate.

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Christ is everything. Lastly, verse 7, so that being justified by His grace, we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

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Now, I won't go into a lengthy explanation of the doctrine of justification. We just went over the doctrines of grace and stuff like that.

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But, of course, it is how we are declared or treated as righteous before God.

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We believe by faith that Christ died on our behalf, He rose again, and He takes our sin and then imputes to us

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His righteousness. And in the typical and often used sense, justified can point to that forensic doctrine of justification.

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But in this context, it may more simply point to salvation.

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Calvin, MacArthur, and several other commentators think it is appropriate for this passage so that you could look at it then so that being saved by His grace, we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

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And that's used in similar ways in other New Testament passages. The eternal

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God's unmerited, not worked for, not due to you, favor and divine blessing.

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And it's not simply, it's not simply a pardon. The sin wasn't pardoned.

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The wages of sin is death, and somebody has to die. Somebody must pay with their life, and that was

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Christ. He took upon Himself the wrath that we deserve, making propitiation for the sins of His people.

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It was a vicarious atonement. He literally took your place on that cross. And of course your sin was pardoned, but your sin isn't just pardoned by God just in thin air.

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God has revealed through covenants and through the sacrificial system that Christ would be the high priest and sacrifice to shake

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His blood on the mercy seat. And that is how our sins are pardoned, by His sacrifice.

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We should have been there. We should be there eventually, receiving holy justice, but Jesus received our holy justice.

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It says according to the hope of eternal life. There are so many promises and types in Scripture pointing to the fulfillment, the substance, that is

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Jesus Christ. Immediately after Adam failed to abide by the covenant of works, in Genesis 3 .15,

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God gives the Protoevangelium, the first gospel, essentially telling us, do not despair,

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Adam and Eve. Do not despair, posterity of Adam, you and me. A promised one will come, who, although bruised on the heel, will crush the head of the serpent.

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Amen. The covenant of grace initiated in the New Covenant is resolutely

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Christ performing and fulfilling the covenant of works on our behalf. The last

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Adam restored to us the original promise of God in the garden, to be in our

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Lord's presence for all eternity. He restored us to that promise.

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We have been made heirs. We've been made heirs to that hope of eternal life. Galatians 4 .7 says, therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir through God.

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We were slaves to sin as we talked about. Now we're heirs, seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

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And how can we, how can we ever really comprehend this, brothers and sisters? How can we comprehend such love that we would get this inheritance?

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We would be right there with the Jews yelling, crucify him, crucify him, but he says, you're mine now.

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You're mine now. We will see him face to face.

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Jesus said to Martha, I'm the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

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Do you believe this? And he asks you that too, do you believe this? Amen.

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We will never die, those in Christ. We are heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

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We have yet to see it realized but we are heirs to it. You can be certain you will see your

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Redeemer and he will take his stand upon the earth, brethren. He says that he will lose none of whom the

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Father has given him but will raise us up on the last day. Whoever beholds the

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Son and believes in him will have eternal life and he himself, Jesus, will raise us up on the last day.

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You will see your Redeemer. You will see him face to face. You will embrace your

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Lord and Savior. That excites me. How does that help you live that truth?

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He's the resurrection, the life. He who believes in me, even though he may die, even though he dies, he will live.

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You will not die, you will live. How does that change how you live? How does that help you?

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Hopefully not being in so much fear and anxiety. He has decreed the end from the beginning.

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He is sovereignly in control, not in control like he sits there like a pilot and runs things on autopilot, but that all things are working according to his goodwill and counsel.

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He is actively involved in his creation. I know this may not comfort you.

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I don't know why it comforts me, but he has numbered all our days. I used to have a problem with fearing death.

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I'm sure a lot of you have, but the day that you die is the day that you're supposed to die, and you can't escape it.

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The day that you die is the day you're supposed to die. God sovereignly ordains that, and that comforts me.

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You're like, well what if it's today? Well, to live is Christ and to die is gain. We can have peace in his sovereignty, peace in that our suffering is not futile.

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That's what this does. That's what the gospel does. Any suffering we go through in this life, this gospel truth, means that our suffering is not futile.

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It's not in vain. Suffering conforms us to the image of Christ, and it sanctifies us.

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It's not something to, we need the health, wealth, and prosperity. Suffering can be very good for us.

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When we stop looking inwardly, and we look upward to Christ in our suffering, that's when things change for us, brothers and sisters.

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And it doesn't make sense, obviously, in an atheist worldview when there is no meaning to anything, right?

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Suffering, only the Christian worldview can make sense of suffering. Only in the

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Christian worldview does suffering have meaning. All the things that you guys have gone through.

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Maybe you've, you have a debilitating illness. Maybe you've had cancer.

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You know someone, a loved one with cancer or a grave illness. Maybe you've lost a child.

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Maybe you've lost a child. Maybe you've lost a spouse. You've lost your husband or your wife.

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You've lost your career. You've lost many things. You've tasted suffering. But because of this gospel, because of what

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Jesus has done, it has meaning. Your suffering is not futile. Christ is working that out.

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He's working all things together for our good and for His glory. Amen. Think about the amount of suffering that Jesus went through.

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You know, we always tend to think about the physical aspects of Jesus' suffering, but think about the amount of suffering

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He endured taking the Holy Wrath of God the Father upon Himself for millions, maybe billions of Christians.

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That's unimaginable. That's unfathomable. How can you measure that?

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You can't. Christ has suffered, and because He has suffered, we could suffer.

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We can suffer righteously. There's a way to suffer unrighteously, and there's a way to suffer righteously.

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If we let it conform us to the image of Christ, if we give Him the glory in it, if we stop self -despairing and turn to the

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Lord in it, obviously there's time to grieve, and there's time to be to be sad and to pray for deliverance, but suffering is something that Christ uses in our lives.

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So we remember that we are heirs to an inheritance undefiled, one that cannot fade away, reserved for us in heaven.

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He's prepared that place. So brothers and sisters, as we close, consider these things.

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What does the letter to Titus show here? It was His kindness, His mercy,

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His love, His saving, His washing, His regenerating, His renewing,

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His pouring, His justifying, His saving, His giving of eternal life.

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It was nothing that we have done. Paul tells Titus in verse 8, this is a trustworthy statement.

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You know all these things that were just said? All this, Titus, is truth. This is true.

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Speak confidently, confidently about these things, Titus. He tells us speak confidently about these things.

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I would even say that we are, of course, to speak confidently about these things to others and to ourselves.

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Pastor Alistair Begg said, quote, the gospel is not simply a door in which we walk in order to become a

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Christian, but the gospel is the sole basis of our day -by -day acceptance by God.

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When when God saved you, it wasn't just a door you walked in, the door to His heart, as people say.

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It's the day -by -day acceptance by God because of the blood of His Son.

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And that's how we live every day. If you just experienced that on Sunday, we should talk.

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It's more than that. It's everything. Christ and this gospel and this walk in the

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Lord, it's everything. It's our daily life. It's how we live. So if that's not for you, if you don't experience that day -by -day, the

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Word says to examine yourself to see that you're in the faith. We can talk about that. If we don't have a good understanding of this good news, we may look for assurance in something other than this gospel of Jesus Christ.

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What are you looking for assurance in, whether it be career, relationships, just the idols that you've made?

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What makes you feel certain about your destiny? It better be

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Christ. It better only be Christ and His work. So remember what my hope was for after this sermon.

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Number one, that we would know that we are saved. He saved us not according to what we've done, but by His kindness, love, mercy, and grace.

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And again, this is not to say that if you have doubts, if you have examined yourself against the gospel truths that have been spoken today and you recognize you don't believe them,

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I don't want this sermon to coddle you. I don't want it to comfort you. In fact, I hope it irritates you.

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I hope it pricks your conscience. I want you to run to Christ for salvation. Nevertheless, for those of us in Christ, I want us to read through this passage and know that Jesus has accomplished this, to know that we are saved.

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Number two, that we would be able to give the gospel to an unbelieving world around us.

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He says, speak confidently about these things. The Bible says, of whom much is given, much is required.

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What does your daily life look like with the gospel, with giving it out? You've received so much.

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How much do you give out? I know for me, sometimes I have to repent of this event -based gospel outreach.

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You know, just going to the events, just giving the gospel then and then kind of living my life in between the abortion mill,

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Mormon outreach, all these things that we do. Am I giving the gospel to my neighbors?

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Am I giving the gospel where I'm at, at the grocery store, at the gas station, when the Lord opens a door?

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Is the gospel on your lips, my friends? Is the gospel on your lips? Don't just let your evangelism be the events that we do at Apologia, where it looks like there's a veneer of so much evangelism, but you're not taking what you've been given.

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And maybe you just got to be faithful with that one guy at your work. You know, go out, have some lunch, look for an open door.

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You know, I don't do bait -and -switch. We've invited people over to our house and just said, hey, we'd love to have you over for dinner, and can

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I share the gospel with you? Believe it or not, a lot of times they say yes. So just think about that.

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You know, if you do a lot of our events and stuff, is your evangelism more than that? Is it daily for you or whenever God opens that door?

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I would encourage you to consider that. Something I have to repent from.

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Number three, that we would walk in the good works that God has prepared for us. And it's really all over the epistle.

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Chapter 2, verse 7, to show yourself to be an example of good deeds. Chapter 2, verse 14, for us to be zealous for good deeds.

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Chapter 3, verse 1, to be ready for every good deed. Chapter 3, verse 8, to be careful to engage in good deeds.

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Chapter 3, verses 14, our people must learn to engage in good deeds so that they will not be unfruitful.

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Apparently good deeds matter much to our Lord. All the while in verse 5, and we went over it, so don't, we don't need to get confused.

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Verse 5, the good deeds we saw don't save us. The good deeds don't save us.

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But now, now that you know it was all God, now that you see that that God has done this, he says to the

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Cretan church, now that you know God has done it, be careful to engage in good deeds.

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They are the fruit, not the root of salvation. And lastly, that we would preach the gospel to ourselves daily.

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Be saturated in the gospel truth as Paul called the Cretans to. Do you, do you have terrible things you have done in your past which your memory, your memory makes it flare up in your mind from time to time?

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I do. I do myself. And in our flesh we try to condemn ourselves.

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Satan is called the accuser of the brethren. He says, did you see what Wade did? Did you see what

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Wade did then, what he did today? Do you know that he will fail you again? And Jesus sits on his throne and he says, paid in full, paid in full, paid in full.

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So rebuke that inner monologue that creeps in with doubts and guilts. You know, isn't it funny often sometimes when a brother or sister needs some counsel and, and God has providentially given you that opportunity to speak with them.

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You know, you give them all this sage advice, this wise counsel from the Word, and then you go off and you remember something you did and you don't remember anything you just told them.

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So rebuke that inner monologue. Speak those things that you would speak to others. Speak them to yourself.

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Get in the Word of God. Change the mindset, okay? Martin Lloyd -Jones said, quote, if you look at your past and are depressed, it means that you are listening to the devil, end quote.

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Remember 2nd Corinthians 7 says that there is a godly sorrow, a godly guilt that leads to repentance.

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But there is a carnal guilt, an evil guilt that leads to more sin, potentially a perpetuating cycle of sin.

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So don't let this, this guilt, this evil guilt cause you to despair and just continuing in that sin.

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Discern the truth, rebuke the thoughts, and repent. Finally, be on guard as the world will tell us to follow our feelings, follow our hearts, to act on our impulses, to listen to the thoughts, once again, of our inner monologues.

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Don't. Don't do that. We are historically and likely demonstrably unreliable people.

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Make the Word of God your measuring rod for all things in this life. Make the Word of God your filter for all your thoughts.

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Check everything against the scriptures and every day remember this gospel of King Jesus.

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Remember this trustworthy statement. He saved us.

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Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord we worship you.

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God it is unfathomable, Lord, that you would save such wretches as we are,

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Lord. God, but your great love, your kindness, your mercy, Lord, you have that in mind for us.

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You saved us, Lord, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to your mercy,

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Lord. You've washed us. You've made us new. You've given us an inheritance, Lord. You've made us heirs according to the hope of eternal life, and God, that changes everything for us.

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We thank you, God. We thank you, Lord, that we can have this gospel truth,

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Lord, and it never becomes old. It never becomes stale, and I pray that it doesn't,

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Lord, that it always is ripe in our minds that this gospel would always cause us to marvel, and,

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Lord, I pray, God, that we would have assurance in what you've done, Lord, that we would go out and share this message, this life -giving message,

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Lord, that you've given us, Lord, and I pray, I pray desperately,

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God, that you would help us to preach this gospel to ourselves, to remember,

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Lord, what you've done, to speak this truth into our lives, and to not forget, because we are so prone to forget,

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Lord, but, God, we thank you for this truth, and thank you, God, for this time to worship you, and we pray this all in Christ's mighty name.