WWUTT 766 Excellent and Profitable for People?

When you became a Christian, you made a choice. As far as your existence in time and space is concerned, you chose to follow Jesus. But when you read the doctrine, you find out this was by the ordination of God 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 .tt .com.

Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.

Finishing Titus and Beginning Esther

Thank you, Becky. Well, this week, we will finish up our study of Titus on the New Testament portion of our Bible study, and then we're starting a new Old Testament book. New Old Testament book? Yeah.

The next book that we get to in our Old Testament study is the book of Esther, which we will begin on Thursday. So I hope you intend on joining us for all five days of Bible study that we do every week.

Today we're going to be in Titus chapter 3, and I'm going to start reading in verse 3 through verse 11. 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.

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.

Regeneration, Human Depravity, and the Standard of Righteousness

Now we went through verses 3 through 7 last week, but I felt it necessary to read that again because where we get to next is verse 8, where Paul says the saying is trustworthy and I want you to insist on these things.

And that would be awkward starting there when the saying that he's referring to is what we just read in verses 4 through 7, starting with, when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us.

So what Paul has written here is something of a creed regarding how we have been transformed or regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God. Previously, we had a nature that desired only to sin, to rebel against God.

We may not have been as bad as we could have been, but we were still in rebellion against the Lord. We had no desire for God. As it says in Romans 3, no one seeks for God. No one does anything good. No one does anything righteous.

So even though we might have some appearance of good works, it would be good only in the sense that other people think they're good. But when compared to God, they're actually, they're rubbish. They're filthy rags, according to Isaiah 64, 6.

Even our best deeds are as filthy rags before a holy God because mankind is not the standard of righteousness. God is the standard of righteousness. And when we read in Romans 3, 23 that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that means that none of us come even close, not even remotely close to the holiness and righteous perfection of God.

He is the standard of goodness, not mankind. So even mankind lifting up the best things that he could possibly do, they're as a soiled garment when compared to the unstained, pure righteousness of God.

And this is a righteousness that God gives to us through his son, Jesus Christ. So previously in our own nature, when we were walking our own way in this world, we were doing sinful things in rebellion against God.

Even the good things that we thought that we were doing, we were doing to attain a self-righteousness. I can be good without God. Watch me. You know, that's kind of our nature. That's the way that we are.

Every person who is trying to do good things apart from God is self-righteous. They believe that they can make their own righteousness. The world has all kinds of unseemly manner of evil that they have declared righteous.

You just look at a gay pride parade and they will say, yeah, all these things that are happening, this is just love. It's just equality that we are celebrating here. How could anybody be against that?

Well, God is against those who call evil good and good evil. Isaiah 520, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

They've taken these things that God has forbidden and he's called an abomination and instead they're trying to make it a good thing. Well, this is just love that we're talking about. It's just equality.

And no, it goes against the natural order that God has established and designed. And according to Romans chapter one, everyone inherently knows what's natural and unnatural, but they suppress the truth with unrighteousness.

And so they continue to do these things that are contrary to the nature of God, to his holiness and righteousness and what he has created in creation to be good that they turn around and make it into something evil.

And they know full well what it is that they are doing. But as it says in Romans one 21, although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened, claiming to be wise.

They became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. And by the way, don't think that worshiping pagan idols is a thing of the past or something that happens in primitive cultures.

Just this weekend, there's a festival in the Nevada desert. Well, well, in the desert in Nevada that that just finished up. It's called Burning Man, and it's a giant pagan festival full of sexual immorality, drug use and all other manner of ungodliness.

And the week culminates with the burning of a large wooden effigy or the burning of a man. And it's this is why the festival has been called Burning Man, and they dance around this burning idol. And don't think that that I'm just pointing at this this wooden statue that they're burning and saying, well, that's an idol.

They house it in a temple and they call it a temple. So they they know the religious significance of this thing that they are doing. And yet tens of thousands of people gather at this. We just did a what video about it a few days ago, right before the weekend.

And somebody contacted me and said, why did you think that this was necessary to make a video about it? It seems like an isolated thing. Well, it's only isolated in the sense that it's out in the middle of a desert.

It's 100 miles from any incorporated town. But this isn't an isolated thing. There are smaller festivals that have spun off of this, referred to as burner parties, and they are all over North America and different parts of the world.

People who want to attend something like Burning Man, but that one's too expensive. So they have these other smaller parties that they can go to still attended by thousands of people and overall hundreds of thousands of people attend these various pagan festivals, if not millions of people, when you include even those pagan festivals that aren't connected with Burning Man.

And so there's an appeal at the end of that video to repent of a culture that's like this. Don't attend these kinds of festivals where this kind of sordid activity is going on and thinking, well, as long as I'm not doing that activity, then I'm not actually a part of this.

No, you're tolerating that sin because these festivals are usually put together to be able to practice such decadence and we should have nothing to do with them. This is the nature of man to behave in this way.

It's been going on for thousands of years. We're doing the exact same pagan things that primitive pagan cultures were doing three or four thousand years ago. And even some of those primitive cultures here on the planet are still doing these kinds of things are still going on.

And a depraved heart that is set against God will ultimately be turned over to this kind of depravity. As we go on in Romans 1 24, therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. And this is every person, unless we are changed, unless our heart is regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God, we will continue further and further into this depravity until God eventually turns us over to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done or hardens the heart to the point that we can no longer repent after God has judicially imposed this sentence upon the human heart in such a way.

And unless anybody be stricken with fear as I say that and you and you start asking yourself, well, how do I know that my heart hasn't been hardened so that I can no longer repent? Do you have a repentant heart?

Then your heart's not hardened. But there are those who have become so hardened that it doesn't matter what you say to them. It's like the lights are off. They just totally don't get it at all. And I am I'm a mortal man.

I have no basis by which I can claim that a person is hardened to the part to the point past repentance. I can't make that ultimate claim. God is the one who has decided that I cannot. So I still must share the gospel to every single person who has breath in their lungs.

But but nonetheless, there are going to be those whose hearts God has hardened beyond an ability to repent, and he has turned them over to their own depravity. But those who receive the Holy Spirit, they are regenerated by a renewal of the Holy Spirit of God, whom God poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior.

So notice here, God is the one who acts on the human heart to either harden it further away from him or soften it to turn toward him and love him. That's the work of God, either way that you look at it.

When you go to Romans chapter nine, we understand that God is working in all things ultimately to glorify himself, whether that is through the showing of mercy toward a sinner or the pouring out of wrath upon a sinner.

In Romans nine, verse 19, we read, you will say to me, then why does he still find fault for who can resist his will? If it's God who ultimately hardens or ultimately softens, why can he accuse us of any fault?

And then verse 20. But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

Even us whom he has called not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. So ultimately, God is going to be glorified through you. He is either going to be glorified by showing you mercy or he is going to be glorified by pouring out his wrath.

But either way, God shows the full measure of his glory in both his mercy and his wrath, and he will be glorified. Everything that happens is ultimately for the glory of God. Yes, my friends, even sin, even the evil that happens in this world, God will be glorified through it.

Go to the book of Revelation. And even in Revelation chapter 15, you see the saints praising God in heaven because he has poured out his wrath on the unbeliever. Can you imagine that? That we are going to be celebrating God for all eternity because he poured out his wrath on ungodly people?

But that's what we see in the book of Revelation. Now that's not something we necessarily celebrate now. We mourn that we live in this fallen world and we're part of this fallen world. And we have even contributed to this fallen world.

That's what Titus 3 .3 is about. For we ourselves were once just like them. We were foolish. We were disobedient. We were led astray. We were slaves to our passions and pleasures, various passions and pleasures.

Whatever you could name that would be a sin, you will find somebody that does it. Passing our days in malice and envy, we were hated by others and we were hating one another, just divided from one another, which is exactly what hell is going to be like.

Nobody's going to be unified in hell. Everyone is suffering hell alone with the wrath of God pouring out upon the unbeliever forever. But it's by the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior, that we have been turned from that into a person instead who is devoted to good works.

Again, that's what we get to in verse eight. The saying is trustworthy. And I want you to insist on these things. Insist on the teaching that we just read in verses four through seven. There are five occasions in the pastoral letters, 1 and 2 Timothy and the book of Titus.

Five times Paul says the saying is trustworthy. And whenever he says that, he is offering something creed or confession like to either Timothy or Titus to teach their church. Timothy has things that he's supposed to teach the church in Ephesus.

Titus has things that he's supposed to be teaching to the churches there on the island of Crete. And one of those things, one of those messages, the gospel that he is declaring to these pagans now turned toward Christ is this in Titus three, four through seven, when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior appeared, he saved us not because of our work, but because of his work, not because of works done by us in righteousness, because we had no righteousness of our own, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, as we read in Romans three, 20, a righteousness from God has appeared through his son, Jesus Christ, and has been given to us through Christ so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

And then Paul saying that the saying is trustworthy. And I want you to insist on this. Teach this. You know, when you came to Christ, you probably didn't know that you only came to Christ because God did that work.

You think you made a choice. And as far as you're concerned, you did. As far as your existence in time and space is concerned, you were presented with an option, either repent of your sin and follow God or continue on the path that you're on.

And ultimately you will face judgment at the end. When the gospel was declared to you, that's what you were presented with. And you realized, according to the word of God, that you had sinned against him.

You had rebelled against him. You were living in unbelief. You were living in all unseemly manner of ungodliness. You may have even had a squeaky clean life by most standards, but your heart was still far from God.

It was still rebellious against God, even though you did good things in man's eyes. In God's eyes, you were unholy and depraved. And you came to an understanding of that because the Holy Spirit showed it to you.

The Holy Spirit poured into your heart by God, revealed to you, convicted your heart, showed you your sinfulness. That's in John chapter 16, where Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would come to convict the world of sin.

So when you experience conviction over your sin, it's because the Holy Spirit has shown you that. And having a new heart that has been purified by the Holy Spirit of God, washed, the idle factory that your heart once was has been purged and has now been made into this immaculate temple unto the Lord, where the Holy Spirit himself dwells.

God himself dwells inside of you. And you have the richness of Christ that has been poured into your heart. And you have been made an heir of his kingdom. Once a rebel against that kingdom, once rebellious against that kingdom, now you are an heir of that kingdom, according to the hope of eternal life.

And so Paul is saying, teach this so that people will know that though they made a decision to follow God, ultimately that decision came about because God ordained it. Not because you did something, but because God did it.

And as that message is preached to us, our worship of God is enhanced. It grows. It matures. When we realize this is all about God and it is all for his glory and I can claim none of it. There is no glory that I claim for myself.

This is all to the praise of his glorious grace. As it says in Ephesians chapter one, he has predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. And this is all to the praise of his glorious grace.

And this is a trustworthy teaching that Paul says, Titus three, four through seven, this is trustworthy. And I want you to insist on this 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. It is necessary for us to remember who we once were and who we've been transformed in Christ. And this is the work of God on us so that we might be devoted to his work.

Previously when we were walking in sin, we didn't desire God's work and we could not have done his work in a holy way until we were regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God. Remember again what we read in Titus chapter two, verses 11 through 14, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Prayer for Regeneration and a Life of Good Works

Let us pray. Our great God and savior, we thank you for this salvation that we have been given in Christ. Your goodness and loving kindness that has been shown to us through Jesus. We have been saved not because we've done anything great, but it's because you've shown mercy to us.

As we read in Romans nine, God has declared, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy. And for those who are followers of Christ, we have indeed received this mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit who has been poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ.

So continue to renew us as we read the instruction in Romans 12 to to be transformed by the renewing of the mind that every day we might come to you, read your word, lift up our voices in prayer so that our minds would be washed of the toxicity that this world attempts to fill us with or or the natural man that though he is not though he's not dominant in our lives anymore, still down there trying to get out.

And so keep the natural man suppressed by the power of your spirit so that we might do the things that are pleasing to God, not pleasing to our flesh. Being justified by your grace, we have become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

So teach us to walk as kingdom people in this world devoted to the work of God. In the name of Christ we pray, amen.

Closing Announcements

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