Show Notes
Titus 3:4-7
Pastor Stephen Lauer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Our gracious God in heaven, we thank you that you are full of love and compassion, for we are frail and but dust.
[00:00:10] Oh, how we need your mercy. We ask, O God, that you would show us more of that mercy and compassion for Jesus sake. Show us just how kind and loving you are and help us to see it, especially as you shine your glory and goodness upon us in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
[00:00:36] Our sermon text is going to be from Titus chapter three.
[00:00:41] We'll look at verse three and four.
[00:00:44] I'll read though, beginning in verse four and reading through verse eight.
[00:00:52] So Titus three beginning in verse four and reading through verse eight. I'm going to read a different translation than the one that's the ESV in our pew Bibles.
[00:01:02] I don't usually do that, but there is a particular word in verse four. It's really the only word that's different. If you're following along.
[00:01:12] It's the word, the love of God toward man.
[00:01:17] That idea of God's benevolence toward mankind is brought out in this translation. So I'm going to read from it's the new King James, Titus 3, beginning in verse 4. But when the kindness and the love of God, our Savior toward man appeared not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, being justified by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
[00:02:08] This is a faithful saying.
[00:02:11] And these things I want you to affirm constantly that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good work works.
[00:02:20] These things are good and profitable to men.
[00:02:24] Please be seated.
[00:02:37] Have you known someone in your life? Maybe when you were younger? Maybe now, even if you're older, you may have someone in your life today that's like this.
[00:02:46] Someone that you didn't just enjoy being around, but someone that you were drawn to, drawn to, maybe even drawn to this person so much that you wanted to become like this person I've had.
[00:03:05] Maybe we have people like that in our lives for different reasons. But I think a common reason that we're drawn to people and to the point that we want to begin to become like them is when people deal with us in a way that's gentle, when they show us kindness.
[00:03:26] Maybe it's the look on their face. They smile at us kindly in a moment when we've done something awkward and they make us feel okay about it.
[00:03:37] Maybe they have a gentle or kind word for us when we've messed up and we're feeling bad or discouraged. And they have just that right word to make us feel better and remind us that it's going to be okay and we can learn from these lessons.
[00:03:56] Maybe it's their actions. They show up at a moment of need. They just happen to know they were thinking of you. They anticipated that you might be in some kind of circumstance, and they showed up to bring you flowers or food or to help you with something, whatever it was, you know what I'm talking about. Maybe it's a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle. When you were young, they dealt with you kindly and gently, and you were drawn to them and you wanted to become like them. Maybe it was a teacher. I had some teachers that were like this. And even as an adult, God has blessed me with friends, usually older than me, but sometimes younger than me, who they're kind and gentle to the point that I realize I want to be more like that.
[00:04:43] Well, in our sermon text this evening, the Apostle Paul points us to the kindest and most gentle person of all, God.
[00:04:56] We're told here that the kindness of God appeared to sinners. I want to look with you at the kindness, this kindness of God that comes to us to save us. First just focusing on God's kindness.
[00:05:13] Secondly, we'll briefly touch on how that kindness appears to us.
[00:05:18] And then thirdly, I want to think about that kindness of salvation that we receive. So first, God's kindness.
[00:05:29] Paul tells us that this kindness of when the kindness and love of God, our Savior, toward man appeared.
[00:05:41] And then a little further, in verse eight, God saved us.
[00:05:47] Paul starts with the idea of a God who is kind and loving to mankind. And then he adds a little later, the mercy of God that he saved us according to his mercy. And these three words all go together, and they're all telling us something about who God is, that he is a kind, loving and merciful God.
[00:06:12] It isn't just that he shows it in his actions, but that's who he is. And if you think of a kind person, they show you kindness and gentleness because they are kind and gentle. And that's what we're talking about here. God shows his kindness and love towards mankind because he is kind and loving. And I think that's very important for us to pick up on here. It's something the Bible tells us about over and over and over again. We read from Psalm 103, but Psalm 103 is quoting something that God said first in Exodus 34, when God showed his glory to Moses. God said, the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and mercy.
[00:07:05] And then that what God revealed there gets repeated, as you read through the Old Testament, gets repeated in various psalms, it gets repeated by various prophets, quoted all over the place.
[00:07:17] God is kind and loving.
[00:07:20] And we can sometimes lose sight of this if we read the Bible and we get in our minds all of the things God tells us to do. God has these laundry lists of how we're to live the Christian life.
[00:07:33] And we forget maybe that the Bible isn't just a set of rules, but these are things that come to us from a God who is kind and loving. Or maybe we read the Bible like we read from Jonah 1:2 this morning, and we hear about God's judgment and storms and drowning and wrath. And we think that God is an angry God. Maybe he's fickle and not very nice.
[00:08:01] But no, the Bible tells us over and over again that God is kind and. And loving to men.
[00:08:09] What is his kindness?
[00:08:11] This is his good will, that he has a disposition, he's disposed to show goodness.
[00:08:21] He's generous, he's kind.
[00:08:26] This other word, and the reason I chose a different translation, is if we were to do a hyphenated word in English, it would be love towards mankind. God's love towards mankind.
[00:08:39] And it's the Greek word that we get our English word philanthropy from. And philanthropy is someone who shows love and benevolence generally to other people.
[00:08:51] God has in his heart, in who he is, a love towards man.
[00:08:57] Kind God has good will, desires good things for his creatures.
[00:09:07] Now this kindness and love towards man are rooted, I think, in God's very goodness. That is his being who God is. The Godness of God includes that he is good. We talk about God's attributes.
[00:09:22] One of those is that God is good. And if you've read the Bible, you've heard it over and over and over again. God is good. We teach our children little songs in Sunday school about how God is good. We teach them to pray. God is great. God is good. And we thank him for our food.
[00:09:39] The Bible and the Christian church emphasizes over and over again that God is good. Psalm 25, verse 8. God good and upright is the Lord. Or Psalm 119 68. You are good. He's speaking to God. You are good and you are do good.
[00:09:59] God is good. And this goodness also extends to a kindness and goodness to mankind.
[00:10:07] But Paul joins This kindness and goodness to God's attribute of mercy. Something else that's true about who God is as God is, that he is a God of mercy.
[00:10:24] Verse 5 says, it is according to his mercy that he saved us.
[00:10:29] We're thinking here then of God's compassion on his creatures who are miserable.
[00:10:37] It's his pity towards those who don't deserve to be loved.
[00:10:44] God's mercy is his benevolence, his tenderness, his compassion on sinners.
[00:10:52] In particular, his mercy towards sinners comes out in the idea that sinners deserve justice. But God, in His mercy, desires to forgive them, to give them something they don't. Not what they deserve judgment, but what they don't deserve, forgiveness.
[00:11:12] Many, many verses in the Bible, Connecticut. These ideas of God's goodness, His kindness and his mercy we read from Psalm 103. But here's the original verse. Exodus 34, 6 and 7. The Lord the Lord, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abounding in goodness and truth.
[00:11:34] Psalm 100, 105. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endures to all generations.
[00:11:49] God is good and merciful.
[00:11:56] In particular, this comes out in his kindness and his love to man. Now, there's a very broad sense in which the Bible talks about God showing kindness and goodwill to man. He created us in his image. He gave us good gifts. We have air to breathe. It rains every now and then here in the desert, but it does rain. God shows goodness to all mankind. But particularly here at verse four, it's something even more narrow.
[00:12:27] God's kindness and love toward mankind is focused on sinful men.
[00:12:36] This is the kindness and love of God that wants to save rebels.
[00:12:44] Think of Ephesians 2:4.
[00:12:49] Paul was talking about how we were rebellious against God. We were in darkness and misery. And then it says, but God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, he saved us.
[00:13:05] That's what Paul is talking about here. It's God's kindness and love towards sinful mankind.
[00:13:14] That's who God is. He has a disposition of love and kindness, particularly towards miserable, rotten sinners who don't deserve it.
[00:13:26] Now, there's an objection that arises to this.
[00:13:30] How could a good, kind and loving God, if that's who God is, how could he say that he's those things and then also punish sinners?
[00:13:44] Well, the reason that we have a problem with our sin is because God is good.
[00:13:54] If God weren't good, sin wouldn't be a problem.
[00:13:58] If God weren't Good, he wouldn't punish sin.
[00:14:03] We can illustrate it maybe this way. Think of a good government. We all want to have a good government that's wise and just.
[00:14:11] If you have a good government that has good police and good judges, those good police and good judges will. Will punish murder or theft. They'll arrest the men, they'll stop it, and they will punish those criminals. And they do it because they're good policemen and good judges.
[00:14:39] Where criminals aren't punished, the government is not good, but corrupt.
[00:14:46] So you see the problem. The reason we have a problem with our sin is because God is not corrupt but good.
[00:14:54] Our sin is offense against his goodness, and so his goodness demands that it be punished.
[00:15:03] We wrong and offend him in his goodness particularly, and so his goodness requires that sin be punished.
[00:15:14] But God, who is good, is also kind and merciful.
[00:15:20] And so in his kindness, though his goodness and his holiness demands injustice that our sin be punished, he is also, in addition to being good, kind and merciful.
[00:15:31] And so in his kindness he makes a way for the salvation of sinners.
[00:15:40] God says about sinners, about the wicked in Ezekiel 18:23, Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, says the Lord God, and not that he should turn from his ways and live? He says, I want the wicked to repent and turn and be saved. And I've offered the wicked a way of salvation.
[00:16:04] That's his kindness and his mercy toward sinners. Or again, at the end of that same chapter, Ezekiel 18:32, he says, I have no pleasure in the death of the one who dies, says the Lord God. Therefore turn and live.
[00:16:23] There you see, God is just in punishing sin, but he's also merciful and compassionate. And the heart of God is that sinners would turn to him and be saved.
[00:16:36] And this points us to, I think, the root truth that Paul is driving us to in this verse. As we work through that objection, we see that it is the kindness and love of God towards man that is the source and fountain of salvation.
[00:16:54] This is why he saves sinners, and that is good news for sinners. It's good news that God is kind, because as sinners you have nothing lovable, nothing worth saving in you. Look back at verse three.
[00:17:12] Before we were saved, he says, we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hateful, hated by others, hateful and hating one another.
[00:17:33] That's who we were.
[00:17:35] And yet God, in His kindness and love towards sinners, said, I want to save them.
[00:17:44] This is the kindness and love of God, even towards sinful men.
[00:17:50] And it is the source of our salvation. It's what motivates him to save, that he. He is loving and kind in himself.
[00:18:00] This is what Paul points to in Titus 1:2.
[00:18:05] He speaks of the hope of the eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, before God made the world, before we fell into our sin.
[00:18:19] God saw us. He knew that we would sin.
[00:18:22] And he says, I'm going to save sinners.
[00:18:26] It was the merciful, loving heart of God from eternity that drove him to send His Son to save sinners.
[00:18:36] And God is very insistent that this is the reason, this is the only reason that he saves sinners.
[00:18:44] It's not something we've done. Verse 5.
[00:18:48] He does not save us because of any works of righteousness. That we have done. Nothing good in us is the motivation for God saving sinners.
[00:18:58] All we had is the stuff we read in verse three, the miserable, hateful, rotten stuff. We didn't have anything good.
[00:19:06] Sometimes there's something good. You want to save it, you want to redeem it.
[00:19:09] There was nothing like that in us. Paul says in Romans 3, there's none who does good.
[00:19:15] No, not one. None who seeks God.
[00:19:20] What motivates God to save sinners is his love and his kindness. Deuteronomy 7, verse 7. The Lord did not set his love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples.
[00:19:37] He didn't set his love on you because of anything good about you, but because the Lord loves you.
[00:19:50] That's what Paul's saying in this verse.
[00:19:53] The love and the kindness of God towards man, that's what drove God to save sinners.
[00:20:01] And this is good news. That's why we call it the Gospel. God is full of love and kindness and compassion toward us.
[00:20:10] That's who he is. Now that kindness appears, we read in our text. But when the kindness and love of God, our Savior toward man appeared not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us.
[00:20:28] God, who is kind, reveals his kindness to sinners.
[00:20:33] How do you know that a person is kind?
[00:20:36] Maybe he smiles at you. You see it in his looks and his demeanor. Maybe you hear it in his words. You experience his kindness in actions.
[00:20:46] That's what Paul is saying. God acted and appeared to us, revealed Himself to us, so that we would know his kindness.
[00:20:56] God is kind, and he acted on that kindness.
[00:21:01] And if there were one verse that just about every Christian knows. And if you don't know it, you should know it and memorize it and meditate on it and think about it every day.
[00:21:11] This kindness came objectively. It came outside of us to be revealed to us when God sent His Son. And that verse is John 3:16.
[00:21:21] For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
[00:21:31] God loved fallen sinners, he loved the world, and so he sent His Son to save sinners.
[00:21:40] That's what happened outside of you.
[00:21:42] But Paul here in verse 4 and 5 is talking about this kindness appearing to us in our individual salvation.
[00:21:53] So not just that God revealed His kindness through His Son and His work on the cross, but that this has appeared to us.
[00:22:06] Remember, he's talking about us as sinners. Verse 3.
[00:22:11] We used to be all this miserable, rotten stuff. We were hateful and so on.
[00:22:16] But when the goodness and kindness of God appeared, He saved us.
[00:22:24] Our salvation. Here referring to the fact that we were brought out of sin and darkness and into God's kingdom.
[00:22:32] We were saved.
[00:22:35] That happened when God appeared in his kindness to each of us.
[00:22:41] And how does that happen? That happens when you hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and you believe in it and you're saved. That's the kind of salvation that Paul is talking about here. And if you look at the next verse or two, you'll see it confirms that he saved us not by works that we have done, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration.
[00:23:13] This is what God does in us by the power of His Spirit to change our hearts and give us a new heart and a new life.
[00:23:20] And then he points further to our justification. When we believed in the Lord Jesus, he regenerated us, gave us the gift of faith, then we believed in Christ and we were justified. Our sins were forgiven and God accepted us as righteous.
[00:23:38] So God's appearing to us in kindness and in love for sinners. That appearing happens when you hear the gospel and you believed in Jesus and you were united to him and were saved.
[00:23:53] The result of God's kindness appearing to you is that you who are lost, hateful, miserable, were changed. You were washed, regenerated.
[00:24:05] Your old nature was broken down and changed. You were given a new nature by the power of the Spirit and you were justified and God gave you the hope of eternal life.
[00:24:18] So this is referring to God's kindness, the God who is kind and loving from all eternity and today for sinners, his appearing, his revealing, his kindness to you individually, not just generally to the world, but to you as a sinner as he comes to save you from your sins.
[00:24:40] You might say, this is where you encounter the kind smile of God. You didn't know it before you knew Jesus. Now that you've come to know Jesus, you know that God your Father smiles on you and loves you and forgives you and cares for you and takes care of you and so on.
[00:24:59] And you know that because you know His Son, Jesus Christ.
[00:25:04] Paul talks about this encounter with God's glory and his love and his goodness shining in the face of Christ and the gospel. In 2nd Corinthians 4, verse 6, Paul says this about the preaching of the Gospel, that as the gospel is preached and our hearts are opened by the power of the Spirit, here's what he says happens. It is God who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
[00:25:35] As we come to know Jesus in the preaching of the Gospel, God's glory and his compassion and his love and his kindness shines in Jesus directly in our hearts. In other words, he appears to each of us savingly.
[00:25:51] So you hear the words of John 1:29 Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
[00:26:05] And as the Spirit works on your heart, you see that God the Father gave his Son as the substitute lamb so that he would die in your place. And you see God's compassion and love for you.
[00:26:23] You hear Jesus described in John 13:1.
[00:26:27] Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come that he should depart from the world to the Father.
[00:26:39] Having loved his own who were in the world. That's you sinners having having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
[00:26:53] You see the love of Jesus for you contemplating the cross. He loved his own.
[00:27:00] You were on his heart as he went to the cross to the very bitter end.
[00:27:07] That's the kindness of God for sinners.
[00:27:10] She shining in your heart.
[00:27:13] And you hear the kind words of your shepherd. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.
[00:27:23] Here is pity for the miserable, compassion for the fallen and the kindness of the triune God for evil men.
[00:27:35] You won't find this kind of kindness and gentleness and compassion anywhere else.
[00:27:42] You can go looking for it. You won't find only comes.
[00:27:47] It only appears to you in God's Son, in his face as he smiles on you.
[00:27:59] I want to think with you just a little bit about how kind. God's salvation is going to take the things we've said and kind of rework them.
[00:28:12] The kindness of God towards sinners is truly kind because you have wickedness.
[00:28:21] What you were was awful, hateful. Verse 3 says despicable.
[00:28:29] Yet God did not set his love on you or choose you because you were good.
[00:28:36] He set his love on you and he chose you because he loved you.
[00:28:44] You see here as you contrast your wickedness with his salvation, all you find is his love.
[00:28:54] You see the kindness of God in salvation because not only were you wicked, but you have nothing to commend yourself to God.
[00:29:02] We bring nothing but our sin. That's all we bring.
[00:29:06] I've got nothing. You know, you go to pick teams at recess and pick me. I'm good at this. I can play this position, right? Hire me. You go to an interview. You have something to offer this company.
[00:29:18] We've got nothing.
[00:29:20] No reason that God should save us. No reason in us.
[00:29:26] All we have is God's mercy and kindness.
[00:29:34] You see the kindness of God in our salvation because you have no power to save yourselves. Not of any works of righteousness that we have done.
[00:29:46] Not just because we don't have any works of righteousness, but we don't have any works of righteousness to save us, but because we can't do them right.
[00:29:54] That's what's going on here. It isn't just that all we have is bad.
[00:29:59] We don't have any good. We also have no power to do good.
[00:30:05] We need to be righteous in order to stand before God and pass his judgment. Seat.
[00:30:11] We need to be righteous in order to receive eternal life.
[00:30:15] And we don't have it. And we can't have it.
[00:30:18] We need God's kindness and mercy and compassion.
[00:30:23] And we could probably keep going on, and you should keep going on and pondering just how deep God's kindness in your salvation is in context.
[00:30:36] There's another aspect of God's kindness and salvation that Paul wants to press home to our hearts.
[00:30:43] This beautiful statement of God's salvation and his love comes between God. It comes between what we looked at last week, the reminders that Christians are to be kind, to be gentle to outsiders.
[00:30:59] We saw that in verse 2. To speak evil of no one, to be ready for every good work, to show perfect courtesy toward all people.
[00:31:08] And then Paul comes back to that idea in verse 8. This saying is trustworthy.
[00:31:16] About God's kindness and mercy and love towards man. This saying is trustworthy. I want you to insist on these things so that they who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.
[00:31:32] The kindness and mercy of God is placed in between two commands for us to be kind and good to people who are wicked and miserable, just like we used to be.
[00:31:44] As we contemplate the kindness of God to us and our salvation as we meditate on it, as we think about how good and gentle God has been with us, it should make us want to treat others that way.
[00:32:01] We were treated by God in a way that we didn't deserve. We got what we didn't deserve, his gentleness and kindness.
[00:32:09] This ought to drive us to be that way towards others, that we would learn to be like Him.
[00:32:18] And of course, it really leaves us with no wiggle room, does it?
[00:32:22] If God's treated us this way, how can we treat others with anything but kindness and mercy and compassion?
[00:32:32] The thing I want to end on contemplating God's kindness and love towards us is that as you meditate on who God is and how he's treated you in Jesus, His Son.
[00:32:49] This ought to touch our hearts.
[00:32:52] When someone is gentle and kind to us, when we don't deserve it, it moves us, doesn't it? Moves us to love that person, to want to be near that person, to want to become like that person.
[00:33:08] The more we meditate on God and how he's treated us and His Son. This ought to draw us nearer to him, to adore him, yes, to worship him, but in a way that proceeds from a heart full of love.
[00:33:24] How loved am I, How God has treated us, with mercy and compassion.
[00:33:31] Do we not love him in return?
[00:33:35] We deserve the opposite of everything he's given us.
[00:33:39] But here is God's heart towards us. Tenderness, gentleness, patience. We screw up again and again and again and again. He comes and he says, I love you and I forgive you. Don't run from me. Come back to me.
[00:33:54] Be near me.
[00:33:55] I'll care for you.
[00:33:57] He picks us up. He takes our broken hearts and he binds them up. He takes our guilt and he washes it away. And he says, don't worry about that. I love you. Come near to me. That's how he deals with us in His Son.
[00:34:11] Does that not lead you to love and adore and even to want to become more like Him? Let's pray.
[00:34:20] Our merciful God and Savior.
[00:34:25] We are undeserving, miserable wretches.
[00:34:29] But we thank you that you are greater than all of that.
[00:34:34] We thank you that not only are you greater than it, but you are so big you're able to wash it away to forget our sins. Not that you can actually forget anything, but you promised to never bring them up again, never throw them in our face, but to treat us as though we had never sinned, to trample our sins down, to cast them into the deepest part of the sea, and instead to love us and treat us as your sons and daughters.
[00:35:08] O Lord our God, how we thank you for this mercy and kindness. And we ask that you would show us more of it.
[00:35:17] Help us to see how wonderful you are. And as we begin to get glimpses of it, little glimmers of your love shining through in our heart through Christ, help us to pursue more, give us a taste that we might, having tasted your goodness and seeing your goodness, that we might want more, that we might be hungry for more of you.
[00:35:39] And we ask that you would fill us.
[00:35:42] You promised that if we would but open our mouths wide, you would fill them.
[00:35:47] So fill us, O Lord, with Jesus, the bread of life, as we come to your table now, we ask that you would prepare our hearts, that we would be ready to receive him, commune with him, and that you would indeed meet with us in Christ our Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen.
