SPEAKER_00: I invite you to open your Bibles back to the text that we just read, the book of Titus, chapter three.
SPEAKER_00: And last week we looked at these instructions that Paul is telling Titus to give to the Christians there on the island of Crete, there in the church.
SPEAKER_00: And he's giving instructions, remember in verse one and two, about how they are to live in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And it's essentially Jesus' instructions on being salt and light.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1 has to deal with how they are to live in the culture.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at verse 1, Paul says, remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work.
SPEAKER_00: That they're not to withdraw from the culture, but they're to be ready for every good work within the culture, to serve in different positions, visible positions in civic government and so on and so forth, doing good.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 2, he says, this is how you're to relate to other people.
SPEAKER_00: He says, speak evil of no one, avoid quarreling, be gentle, and show perfect courtesy toward all men.
SPEAKER_00: You might have noticed the ESV translates it all people.
SPEAKER_00: That's a very uh 21st century translation.
SPEAKER_00: The word is all men.
SPEAKER_00: It means all of mankind is the idea.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul's saying in in verse 2, you are to show perfect courtesy in grace.
SPEAKER_00: The word is meekness.
SPEAKER_00: You're to show meekness to all people.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody.
SPEAKER_00: And you might ask, well, what about the unbelievers who are mean to me?
SPEAKER_00: What about those people?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have to show perfect courtesy to those types of people?
SPEAKER_00: I remember growing up in my Boy Scout troop.
SPEAKER_00: There was this one fella, and he just made it his aim to get under my skin.
SPEAKER_00: And our parents made us walk to school together to the junior high.
SPEAKER_00: And every day when we meet at the stop sign, it was like he had a barb waiting for me.
SPEAKER_00: What about those types of people?
SPEAKER_00: Are we to show perfect courtesy to those people?
SPEAKER_00: What about those people in the media?
SPEAKER_00: Like you turn on the view, and they're making fun of the beliefs that we hold.
SPEAKER_00: They're mocking Christian truth.
SPEAKER_00: What about the radical Muslim who is hell-bent on destroying the faith that we love and cherish?
SPEAKER_00: Are we to show perfect courtesy to those people?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think what the honest Bible student takes a step back and says, yes, this is what Paul's saying.
SPEAKER_00: So what could possibly be the motivation for that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, my goodness, what how is how are we to be motivated to do this, to be salt and light, to live that type of way with our enemies, people that that disparage Christianity?
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's going to give two answers to that question.
SPEAKER_00: And the first answer is in verse three.
SPEAKER_00: He says, remember that's who you once were.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first answer.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, you used to be just like them.
SPEAKER_00: And then the second answer, beginning in verse four, he says, remember that you, Christian, have encountered the kindness and the love of God, his mercy.
SPEAKER_00: And so those two truths that we need to remember are to be the impetus for our actions in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Those motivate us to do good to all people.
SPEAKER_00: I was reading this week the book of Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Jonah?
SPEAKER_00: God, he's a he's a Jewish prophet, and God tells him to go to the sworn enemies of Israel, the Assyrians.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Assyrians were nasty people.
SPEAKER_00: They would literally fillet people alive.
SPEAKER_00: They would torture and kill, and they were they were a wicked people.
SPEAKER_00: And Jonah said, I'm not going.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to go.
SPEAKER_00: And he went, instead of going east to Nineveh, he went west to Tarsus to get on a ship to sail across the Mediterranean.
SPEAKER_00: He gets on the ship, takes off, God sends a storm.
SPEAKER_00: Jonah goes hides in the belly of the ship, and they begin casting cargo over.
SPEAKER_00: And eventually they they come to the realization someone's God must be upset at us.
SPEAKER_00: And they talk to Jonah and they said, Hey, didn't you tell us that you were fleeing from the presence of a God?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Yes, the God who made heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_00: I'm fleeing from his presence.
SPEAKER_00: He told me to go to Assyria, and I'm fleeing in the opposite direction.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Jonah says, the only way you're going to get the storm to stop is if you throw me overboard.
SPEAKER_00: So they begrudgingly, reluctantly, they pick him up.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, can you imagine this?
SPEAKER_00: Being thrown into the stormy Mediterranean, and he's pushed down beneath the surface.
SPEAKER_00: And put yourself in Jonah's shoes.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think he's thinking as as he's sinking deeper and deeper and deeper into that ocean?
SPEAKER_00: He's thinking, I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he tells us this if you read Jonah chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm on the gate of Hades.
SPEAKER_00: I am about to I'm I am about to die.
SPEAKER_00: And and question, is that what he deserved?
SPEAKER_00: A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_00: He was fleeing from the presence of God, disobeying God.
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, what does God do?
SPEAKER_00: He sends a fish.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're quick to say a well.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was a well.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says a fish.
SPEAKER_00: A fish swallows him.
SPEAKER_00: And in the belly of that fish, he reflects and he says, famous words, salvation is of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I've experienced his salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jonah, coming to grips with his depravity, he experiences this loving kindness of God that God rescues him in the depths.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think he goes to Nineveh then with a changed heart?
SPEAKER_00: Saying, okay, I've learned the lesson.
SPEAKER_00: What's the lesson?
SPEAKER_00: I too am a rebel, and I too was saved by grace.
SPEAKER_00: That's the lesson, right?
SPEAKER_00: He goes and he preaches in Nineveh.
SPEAKER_00: And then, do you remember?
SPEAKER_00: It takes him days to preach across the whole city.
SPEAKER_00: And he preaches this message of turn or burn.
SPEAKER_00: Repent or the city is done.
SPEAKER_00: That's his message.
SPEAKER_00: Repent or die.
SPEAKER_00: And then he grabs like a lawn chair or something, and he goes and sits outside the city and he says, Okay, Lord, give it to him.
SPEAKER_00: I'm waiting to see Sodom and Gomorrah part two.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't happen because God showed mercy and grace to the city that they repented.
SPEAKER_00: What's the lesson?
SPEAKER_00: What's the lesson Jonah should have learned?
SPEAKER_00: You are like them.
SPEAKER_00: You're a rebel, and you were shown grace.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, you are to do good to all men, not just the Jew, but also the Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: Jonah didn't learn the lesson.
SPEAKER_00: I think in the end he did, because he wrote the book.
SPEAKER_00: But we need to learn that lesson.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not be like Jonah, who we've been converted, and now we're looking at the world and saying, you get yours.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Let's remember who we were and what God has given us.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: That's the whole message.
SPEAKER_00: But let's look at it.
SPEAKER_00: So, first, motivation.
SPEAKER_00: Remember who you once were.
SPEAKER_00: Is anyone born into the new covenant?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: You must be born again.
SPEAKER_00: I heard somebody say recently, I was born into a Christian family.
SPEAKER_00: I've always been a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: That's incorrect.
SPEAKER_00: You're not born a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Because of Adam's fall, every single person is born into sin.
SPEAKER_00: Every single person is born a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: That's Romans 5.12.
SPEAKER_00: For in Adam we all sinned.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 3.23, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, No one seeks after God, no not one.
SPEAKER_00: There's not one baby that's born as a God seeker.
SPEAKER_00: Notice how inclusive this statement is in verse three.
SPEAKER_00: For we ourselves were once foolish, etc.
SPEAKER_00: For we ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Who does the we ourselves include?
SPEAKER_00: It includes Paul, it includes Titus, it includes all the Christians in Crete that have so far believed.
SPEAKER_00: So what he's saying is, is verse three, yes, does verse three describe the unbelieving world today in which we live?
SPEAKER_00: It does.
SPEAKER_00: But it describes who we once were.
SPEAKER_00: So when we look at this, let's not just be pointing our fingers and say, yep, yep, yep, I seen in the world, yep, yep, yep, I seen in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is who we once were.
SPEAKER_00: This is us that he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the there's six descriptions that he gives of the unbelieving former life.
SPEAKER_00: The first two relate to God, the second group of two relate to ourselves, and the final two relate to our relationship with our fellow man.
SPEAKER_00: So he's going to give these.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, this contrast that Paul does here, this is he does this everywhere, where he says, This is who remember who you once were.
SPEAKER_00: So before we look at the first one, let me give you a couple cross-references.
SPEAKER_00: Jot these down.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 6, 17.
SPEAKER_00: But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, how does he describe us before we're believers?
SPEAKER_00: Slaves of sin.
SPEAKER_00: But now we're obedient.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 1 21.
SPEAKER_00: And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul's constantly trying to get into our heads, into his readers' heads, that they have been saved from a life of sin.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look at these descriptions.
SPEAKER_00: Again, the first two relate to God, our former relationship to God.
SPEAKER_00: He says, We were once foolish.
SPEAKER_00: You could say senseless.
SPEAKER_00: It means unable to understand or discern spiritual things, that you cannot comprehend religious truth.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that you don't understand everything.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that you don't understand certain sciences or or or engineering.
SPEAKER_00: It means that you fail to understand religious truth.
SPEAKER_00: The fear of the Lord, Solomon said, is the beginning of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: So that is the gateway into understanding godly biblical truth.
SPEAKER_00: The unbeliever does not understand spiritual realities.
SPEAKER_00: They cannot.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand that?
SPEAKER_00: They cannot, they will not.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, Ephesians 4.18, they, the unbelievers, are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.
SPEAKER_00: The reason why the unbeliever, have you ever been in an argument and you're trying to persuade maybe an atheist about the existence of God and you walk them through the arguments and they're saying, I get that, I get that, I get that.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so do you believe, do you believe that God exists?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: I do not, I cannot.
SPEAKER_00: What you're running up against there is not logic, it's hardness of heart.
SPEAKER_00: The reason why the unbeliever refuses to understand spiritual things is because they don't want to, because they're in rebellion against God.
SPEAKER_00: That's very important.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, 1 Corinthians 2 14, the natural person, the person who is not indwelt by the Spirit, does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
SPEAKER_00: So you can study religious truth, you can go to seminary, you can even teach theology in certain institutions, but not even begin to understand spiritual dynamics that are taught in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: For example, there's a politician in my home state of Texas, he's running for synod, and he's even been attending seminary at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, went liberal, by the way, a long time ago.
SPEAKER_00: And he he's claiming to be a representative of Christ in the public square, this individual.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying things like, it's okay to accept the whole LBGTQ lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying all roads eventually get you to the same spot.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be necessarily a Christian to or claim to follow Christ to get to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: If you get there through Buddhism or one of these other religions, you'll get there.
SPEAKER_00: He even said, uh, God's not necessarily Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Well, of course, God isn't in and of himself Christian, but certainly Christianity is the way to God.
SPEAKER_00: I am the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus said.
SPEAKER_00: No one comes to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_00: Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, talking about the lit, the litany of sins that this politician embraces, Paul says, do not be deceived.
SPEAKER_00: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: So what I'm saying is that until you are born again, I don't care how many degrees you have or what you claim to teach about Christianity, you do not understand spiritual things.
SPEAKER_00: And that's who we once were.
SPEAKER_00: We did not understand spiritual things.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, he says towards God, we are disobedient.
SPEAKER_00: Disobedient.
SPEAKER_00: It's a word he uses, and it means unwilling to be persuaded.
SPEAKER_00: Unwilling to be persuaded.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever been maybe in a Chick-fil-A, like on a Thursday or Friday night, and you see a family, and there's that kid that's running away from their parents, and you see the mom and dad, they're saying, come back, come back to us, come over here.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, this whole gentle parenting thing's going on.
SPEAKER_00: He's not listening.
SPEAKER_00: And the more the parent coaxes, the more that child runs, refuses to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a picture?
SPEAKER_00: That's who we are before Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We are unpersuadable, hell-bent on doing what we want to do.
SPEAKER_00: We are lawbreakers.
SPEAKER_00: We do not want to obey God.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, in the 20th century, two worldviews emerged out of 19th century philosophy.
SPEAKER_00: Two worldviews emerged.
SPEAKER_00: Both were atheistic.
SPEAKER_00: Secular humanism and Marxism.
SPEAKER_00: And let me say this: both of these worldviews are worldviews of disobedience to God.
SPEAKER_00: That's really what they are in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_00: Secular humanism says all that exists is the here and now.
SPEAKER_00: Secular means age.
SPEAKER_00: All that exists is what you can see and feel and touch in this age.
SPEAKER_00: Marxism says all that exists is materialism.
SPEAKER_00: Again, atheistic.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, we judge people based on the haves and the have-nots, and we need to distribute the material equally.
SPEAKER_00: Both were radically atheistic.
SPEAKER_00: Both radically rejecting the idea of God.
SPEAKER_00: So not only are we born disobedient, but in the 20th century, what you had, like Dewey and all these people, uh, why was there a crusade to take down the Ten Commandments from the classroom in the courtrooms?
SPEAKER_00: Because the the worldview said, like Nietzsche, God is dead.
SPEAKER_00: We no longer acknowledge the reality of an infinite God who is the lawgiver.
SPEAKER_00: It is a worldview of disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you were in that worldview, right?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you bought the lie of secular humanism?
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, just eat, drink, be merry, you know, party.
SPEAKER_00: We have to be honest with ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is the air that we've lived and breathed.
SPEAKER_00: So that's man, the first two related to God.
SPEAKER_00: The second two are man as he is related to himself.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, led astray.
SPEAKER_00: Very interesting word, planao.
SPEAKER_00: It's where we get our word planet.
SPEAKER_00: And it means a wanderer, someone who wanders away from a course.
SPEAKER_00: And if you think about the ancient astronomers, when they would look up in the night sky, you would have stars, and stars would be in fixed positions every night.
SPEAKER_00: You look out, the stars in relatively the same place every night.
SPEAKER_00: But what do the planets do?
SPEAKER_00: They wander.
SPEAKER_00: It looks like they're moving to different places amongst the stars.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul is saying is that is the unbelieving life.
SPEAKER_00: You wander from worldview to worldview.
SPEAKER_00: You are searching.
SPEAKER_00: You are deceived.
SPEAKER_00: You are, the NIV translates it, deluded, you're led astray.
SPEAKER_00: Led astray by who?
SPEAKER_00: Who are you led astray by as an unbeliever?
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, that is the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: John says about Satan in Revelation 12, 9, that he is the deceiver of the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: The deceiver of the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: So unto yourself, you're led astray.
SPEAKER_00: You're going from pleasure to pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: You're going from idea to idea.
SPEAKER_00: How many times have you heard the unbeliever describe their life as I'm on a search?
SPEAKER_00: I'm on a search.
SPEAKER_00: And what Satan does, by the way, he's so sly, isn't he?
SPEAKER_00: The way that he lures us as unbelievers in our unbelieving life is not by promising terrible things, but good things, pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's interesting in uh in Pilgrim's Progress, uh Bunyan describes a character called the Flatterer, who is an agent of Satan, and he comes to Christian looking like a shining angel, and he leads him away off of the path.
SPEAKER_00: He leads him astray.
SPEAKER_00: Remember in Lewis's The Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe, the Wicked Witch.
SPEAKER_00: What does she lead Edmund astray with?
SPEAKER_00: Turkish delight.
SPEAKER_00: Here, have some Turkish delight and betray your family.
SPEAKER_00: Satan is always promising these.
SPEAKER_00: These things to us in order to lead us astray.
SPEAKER_00: I came across this quote.
SPEAKER_00: This is commentator William Hendrickson and uh Simon Kistemacher.
SPEAKER_00: They wrote a commentary on this book.
SPEAKER_00: They said, quote, made to wander from the truth, living in a world of unreality, imagining that license is liberty, though considering ourselves to be free, we had become slaves.
SPEAKER_00: We had become slaves.
SPEAKER_00: And that leads directly to what Paul says next.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Not only are we led astray, we are slaves to various passions and pleasures.
SPEAKER_00: Now that is strong language, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Like slaves?
SPEAKER_00: Passions, let's look at these words, passions and pleasures.
SPEAKER_00: These are are oftentimes Paul uses them, these words negatively.
SPEAKER_00: So for example, passions, 2 Timothy 2.22, he says, flee youthful passions.
SPEAKER_00: Flee youthful passions.
SPEAKER_00: He says in 2 Timothy 4.3, he says, in the last days, people will have itching ears and accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.
SPEAKER_00: It describes the the pulsating desires of your sinful flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And you think about a youth, what are what are youth tend uh tending to do?
SPEAKER_00: To give in to those youthful passions.
SPEAKER_00: Pleasures are often used to describe worldly pleasures that Satan offers us that are the fruit of self-centered desires.
SPEAKER_00: James describes them that way in James 4.1.
SPEAKER_00: But notice that word slaves.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's an important word.
SPEAKER_00: Slaves.
SPEAKER_00: Slaves to various passions and pleasures.
SPEAKER_00: That word means that you're in bondage, that you're chained, that you cannot get away, right?
SPEAKER_00: That that you are that you are coerced, if you will, by your own pleasures to do something.
SPEAKER_00: And what we've said in American culture is tragically, follow your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And that what we learn in nearly every Disney film that little kids are being taught.
SPEAKER_00: Follow your pleasures and passions.
SPEAKER_00: They will never lead you astray.
SPEAKER_00: Wrong.
SPEAKER_00: They are the definition of being led astray.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe if you were uh in college, in secular university, did you ever hear this?
SPEAKER_00: If it feels good, do it.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that one?
SPEAKER_00: Slavery to various passions and pleasures.
SPEAKER_00: And then the final group of two, how we relate to our fellow man, he says, passing our days.
SPEAKER_00: That means leading a life.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you wake up from one day to the next, to the next day, and he says, we're leading this life day to day in malice and envy.
SPEAKER_00: Malice is hate, moral perversity, evil towards our fellow man, people that do terrible things to our fellow man.
SPEAKER_00: He says, this is who we are, and envy.
SPEAKER_00: Envy is coveting what someone else has, desiring what they have.
SPEAKER_00: You look and your life is so empty.
SPEAKER_00: You've been following your passions, your pleasures, and you're empty because you don't have God.
SPEAKER_00: And you look at others and you say, you know, they seem to be happy.
SPEAKER_00: I want what they have.
SPEAKER_00: And that envy begins to tear you apart.
SPEAKER_00: So many crimes, so many evils are committed out of envy.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Joseph's brothers?
SPEAKER_00: Joseph had the technicolor coat.
SPEAKER_00: They were jealous, they were envious of the favor that their father had bestowed upon him.
SPEAKER_00: And what did they do?
SPEAKER_00: They threw him into a pit.
SPEAKER_00: They took the coat, they ripped it up and pretended to, they staged it like he'd been torn apart by an animal.
SPEAKER_00: The religious leaders in Israel, they were envious of the attention that Jesus received.
SPEAKER_00: So what did they do?
SPEAKER_00: They crucified the Lord of glory.
SPEAKER_00: Envy tears your life apart.
SPEAKER_00: All sorts of evils it leads to.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, sixth.
SPEAKER_00: And this this is this is an amazing phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Hated by others and hating one another.
SPEAKER_00: The word hated means something that is odious or detestable.
SPEAKER_00: Like something that you that you don't even want to touch.
SPEAKER_00: You think about something in your house that's odious, detestable.
SPEAKER_00: You're putting on the rubber gloves because you don't want to to you don't want to directly touch this thing.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's saying, that's who you were to other people in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You were odious to them.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, and then you were hating other people.
SPEAKER_00: You ever meet somebody and everybody else in their life is their problem?
SPEAKER_00: And they and they complain about their educators, they complain about their parents, they complain about their siblings, they complain about their friends.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody else in their life is the problem.
SPEAKER_00: And you're listening to this, and you say, What's the common denominator in all of these things?
SPEAKER_00: You.
SPEAKER_00: You're the common denominator.
SPEAKER_00: We get the educators, the parents, the people in here, we ask them what they think about you, they're gonna say something similar.
SPEAKER_00: So this is the unbelieving life.
SPEAKER_00: So you so you you look at it and it's whole.
SPEAKER_00: Think about what Paul is saying.
SPEAKER_00: This is who we once were, right?
SPEAKER_00: We're foolish, we don't understand the things of God, we're lawbreakers, we're we're unpersuadable, we're disobedient to God's commands, we're led astray in the world, we're slaves to our passions and our desires, we're filled with envy and hate towards other people, and other people hate us, and we hate other people.
SPEAKER_00: That, my friends, is the doctrine of total depravity.
SPEAKER_00: That is total depravity.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that each of us was as bad as we could be.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that each of us committed the atrocities that that that maybe Hitler or or a Pol Pot committed, but it means that our mind, our affections, our will, in totality are at war against God.
SPEAKER_00: Just like what Paul is saying, the rest of mankind.
SPEAKER_00: So the the response is have compassion on people, right?
SPEAKER_00: Not to say, look how good we are because we're here at the King's Chapel on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the that's not the response.
SPEAKER_00: The response is you were like them.
SPEAKER_00: So have compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Be good to all men.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be merciful people, kind people, people who do good in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul says, remember this.
SPEAKER_00: There's a second thing he wants us to remember, a second motivation, and this is where it really gets amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Really amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Notice whenever Paul uses this little Greek word day, it means but.
SPEAKER_00: It's an interjection.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a glorious interjection.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says essentially, remember the kindness and the love of God towards you in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget this.
SPEAKER_00: Don't move past this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, but it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: But when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior, appeared, He saved us.
SPEAKER_00: What amazing truths.
SPEAKER_00: Thinking about this, we're talking about God of God's, the eternal, infinite God.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul says about this God is he says, He's kind.
SPEAKER_00: He's good.
SPEAKER_00: This word good means extravagant benevolence.
SPEAKER_00: Extravagant kindness.
SPEAKER_00: Paul uses it in Romans 2.4.
SPEAKER_00: He says, God's kindness, his goodness is meant to lead you to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: He uses it in Ephesians 2.7.
SPEAKER_00: He says that he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness or goodness toward us in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So it's just this wonderful benevolence.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that amazing to think about?
SPEAKER_00: That your God is a God who is so generous and kind, benevolent towards sinners.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, and loving kindness.
SPEAKER_00: That is a phrase, it's hard to translate this phrase.
SPEAKER_00: It's philanthropia is the Greek word.
SPEAKER_00: And philos means love.
SPEAKER_00: We get our word philanthropy from that.
SPEAKER_00: Philanthropia, it's only used one other place in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Luke uses it when Paul is shipwrecked on Malta.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, the Maltans came over and they built a fire for those who had been shipwrecked.
SPEAKER_00: And Luke says they demonstrated philanthropia.
SPEAKER_00: Paul uses that same word here, but here he's talking about God's benevolence towards us.
SPEAKER_00: So if you put these two words together, he's talking about a generosity, a kindness, an unmerited benevolence that is given to us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what I think he's describing here is the moment in your life when for the first time you came face to face with the kindness and the love of God in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We might call it conversion.
SPEAKER_00: We might call it being born again.
SPEAKER_00: We might call it some, you know, Billy Graham, make a decision, but we're talking about, we're talking about that moment when you are genuinely converted.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why I argue that, there is a sense, okay, stay with me here.
SPEAKER_00: If you think about the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of the Trinity, the Father elects us before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: I was reading this week, this is 2 Timothy 1.9.
SPEAKER_00: God saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose of grace, listen, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a sense where you were saved, Christian, in the mind of God before everything was created.
SPEAKER_00: So there's that one sense in which we are saved.
SPEAKER_00: There's another sense where Jesus purchased our salvation at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And definitively, you know, God's outside of time.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that you are saved.
SPEAKER_00: If you look back at verse 11 of chapter 2, for the grace of God has appeared.
SPEAKER_00: That's talking about Jesus bringing salvation for all people.
SPEAKER_00: The grace of God has appeared in time and space.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about Calvary.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about that moment in 30 AD when Jesus died on the cross for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: In that sense, when was I saved?
SPEAKER_00: I was saved when Jesus died for me.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a third sense where God, the Holy Spirit, at a certain point and place in time applies that work of Christ to your life at a certain point in time.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you, you know the date, you know exactly where you were, you know who you were with, and you remember this reality of understanding that God demonstrates his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_00: In your heart, Wesley said when he came to understand this reality, he said, My heart was strangely warmed.
SPEAKER_00: It's maybe you've known intellectually about the love of God, but in that moment of conversion, it's not academic that you come face to face and you're overwhelmed with God's love and kindness for you in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's an amazing feeling.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at this, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So he's talking about that moment that you were renewed, that you were born again in the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And I've talked to so many of you, and it and you said in that moment it was like a light bulb went on in my mind, and I saw it.
SPEAKER_00: I saw the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: I exalted in his love and his kindness for me.
SPEAKER_00: It became a reality in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And really, this is the heart cry of the Christian we are people who have come face to face with the love of God, the kindness of God in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens.
SPEAKER_00: Your faithfulness to the clouds.
SPEAKER_00: That's Psalm 36.5.
SPEAKER_00: Lamentations 3.22.
SPEAKER_00: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
SPEAKER_00: His mercies never come to an end.
SPEAKER_00: They are new every morning.
SPEAKER_00: Great is your faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 34.8.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian, that's your heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's not theoretical, that's real.
SPEAKER_00: The love of God extends to the heavens.
SPEAKER_00: Your faithfulness to the sky.
SPEAKER_00: I know it.
SPEAKER_00: And I've experienced it.
SPEAKER_00: I've been reading this biography of Charles Spurgeon.
SPEAKER_00: And I read the most amazing story about his grandfather.
SPEAKER_00: Most amazing story.
SPEAKER_00: His grandfather was an independent preacher.
SPEAKER_00: This is at the beginning of the 1800s, and he's a young man at this point.
SPEAKER_00: And his grandfather's name was James Spurgeon.
SPEAKER_00: And at this point in time, they didn't have, you know, most people didn't have horses to ride.
SPEAKER_00: They would walk everywhere they went.
SPEAKER_00: And he would make this walk between two villages that was eight miles in distance.
SPEAKER_00: And he would, and he would walk this quite often.
SPEAKER_00: And on this path between these two villages, there was an oak grove.
SPEAKER_00: And there was one specific oak tree that was in that grove.
SPEAKER_00: And he began to stop and sit underneath that oak tree.
SPEAKER_00: And one day he's making this journey and he's been listening to sermons in the church, and he stops and he sits down, and he's under, as he's walking, he's under conviction of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And when he sits down and he begins to meditate on the gospel, the truth that Jesus Christ came to save sinners, that Jesus died on the cross for his sin.
SPEAKER_00: And he rose again from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: As he's meditating on that truth, he's born again.
SPEAKER_00: And he gets up and he walks from that tree, a new man, praising the goodness and the love and the kindness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Now you say what's so amazing about that story.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people have similar stories.
SPEAKER_00: Just let me let me entertain you a bit.
SPEAKER_00: He kept going back to that tree.
SPEAKER_00: And he kept praying because that was the that was like you know, like Jacob's Bethel, like his house of God.
SPEAKER_00: That tree became to him like a house of God where he would go and he would bring his Bible and meet with God, and he kept going back to that same tree on these on these journeys back and forth.
SPEAKER_00: And one night he had a dream.
SPEAKER_00: And in that dream, the devil came to him.
SPEAKER_00: And the devil said, If you go to that tree again, I'm gonna kill you.
SPEAKER_00: And the devil provided another in his mind another way to go between the two villages.
SPEAKER_00: And so that morning he woke up with a dilemma.
SPEAKER_00: Would he go the other path, or would he go on the path to that tree?
SPEAKER_00: And he was terribly afraid.
SPEAKER_00: And he thought to himself, if I go the other path and I give in to the devil, where will that end?
SPEAKER_00: He will keep asking me to give more and more and more.
SPEAKER_00: So he went back to that tree, the tree of his conversion.
SPEAKER_00: As he approached, he was terribly afraid.
SPEAKER_00: But he sat under underneath that tree, and God wonderfully visited him again, and nothing happened to him.
SPEAKER_00: When he got up from that tree, he looked up out into the field, and he saw something shining, sparkling in the field.
SPEAKER_00: And he walked over, and it was a piece of gold.
SPEAKER_00: It was a gold ornament.
SPEAKER_00: He picked it up, he went to the village, he asked, Does anybody own this?
SPEAKER_00: Nobody claimed it.
SPEAKER_00: And he had that fashioned into his future fiance's wedding band.
SPEAKER_00: So God rewarded that faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: My point is, is that this place for him was that place where God opened his eyes to the kindness and love of God.
SPEAKER_00: Have you had that experience?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe you've known a lot about Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Youth, maybe you've grown up in a Christian home.
SPEAKER_00: But do you know the kindness and love of God for you in Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Martin Lloyd Jones, one of my heroes, went out to pastor a church in Wales in a blue-collar town in Wales.
SPEAKER_00: He he married a young woman, also a doctor named Bethan.
SPEAKER_00: And they go out and he begins pastoring this church.
SPEAKER_00: Hundreds begin to come.
SPEAKER_00: Essentially, the Lord brings a revival.
SPEAKER_00: And uh one day his wife Bethan is on a bus, and uh another fellow in the church sees her on the bus, and he comes up to up to Bethan and he says, Your husband, he preaches such amazing sermons.
SPEAKER_00: It's so wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: That this grace that he talks about, this undeserved grace, this this favor that's it's unbelievable what your husband talks about.
SPEAKER_00: She said, Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_00: And then he said to her, But do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know the kindness that your husband preaches about?
SPEAKER_00: And that really disturbed her.
SPEAKER_00: She grew up in a Christian home.
SPEAKER_00: She thought that she'd always been a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: She went home and she came under conviction and she realized that she had never actually been born again.
SPEAKER_00: She trusted Christ in faith.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's you.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know the kindness and the love of God for you in Christ?
SPEAKER_00: So that's what Paul's saying.
SPEAKER_00: Very simple.
SPEAKER_00: Remember who you once were.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what you've been given.
SPEAKER_00: And then what's the response of us towards all that?
SPEAKER_00: What should it be?
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: Thankfulness.
SPEAKER_00: That's the application.
SPEAKER_00: The application isn't just go and do a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00: I know some of you want that to be the application.
SPEAKER_00: Give me something to do.
SPEAKER_00: I know the doers here.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, what Paul's saying is first, sit there and think about this.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what God has done for you.
SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to be in awe of this grace, in awe of this kindness.
SPEAKER_00: And once we get there, yeah, we'll do good to all men.
SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll do great things.
SPEAKER_00: We will do that.
SPEAKER_00: But first, it has to begin in the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know the kindness and the love of God for you?
SPEAKER_00: And do you rejoice in it?
SPEAKER_00: And are you thankful for it?
SPEAKER_00: Praise be to God.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for your kindness, your love towards us.
SPEAKER_00: We praise you for these realities, that the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior, appeared in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We pray, Lord, for those who do not know Christ, maybe it's just an intellectual endeavor, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you would reveal yourself to them even now in a mighty way, that they would repent of their sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Savior, the only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who lived and died for us, that there would be faith and repentance in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Pray these things for Christ's sake.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.