Utterly Lost in Sin #1

There's a sense in which the Christian lives in two different worlds. We belong to Christ and we belong to his kingdom. But at the same time, we're still living it out in the midst of a world that is in rebellion against God, and there's going to be inevitable tension as a result of that. Sin taints everything and everyone.

We are born into its grip. But God, in his mercy and grace, saw our condition, and he sent his Son to save those that receive him. Hello, I'm Bill Wright, and on this edition of The Truth Pulpit, Pastor Don Green will look at the effects of sin and what we should do about it as he presents a message titled, Utterly Lost in Sin. And Don, the Bible makes clear we are to approach this subject with humility, doesn't it? My friend, it will help you live in the world and to get along with sinners.

If you remember that you were once like they were. Scripture, in the passage we're going to look at, gives us six marks of an unsaved man. And I would encourage you to listen to these humbly. If Christ has saved you out of sin, then there are corresponding attitudes that will help you be godly in the midst of an ungodly world. You really need what's just ahead today on The Truth Pulpit. Have your Bible open to Titus, chapter 3, as we join Pastor Don Green now in The Truth Pulpit. I'd invite you to turn to Titus, chapter 3. That's where we've come to in our exposition of God's Word.

It's so good to see so many of you out on a rainy morning. As we come to chapter 3, the Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gives us a brilliant understanding of why it is impossible for us to be any other way. He shows us why we should be that way, and that's what we're going to start to introduce here today in this message. Go to chapter 3, verse 1. We'll read the first two verses for context, although we're not going to comment on them any further. Paul says, speaking to Titus and telling him how he is to instruct the people of God, he says, remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. Why, Paul, why should we live that way? Verse 3, 4. 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.

We'll stop there for now. Paul here is emphasizing the effect of God's kindness in our lives and showing why it must impact the way that we interact with the unsaved world around us. He goes on and particularly talks about that kindness in verses 4 through 8. But before he gets to that, he emphasizes what we were like before we ourselves were Christians.

If someone were to ask the question in light of the past two pages, why should we be submissive to civil authority? Why should we be kind and gracious toward unsaved people? The answer is that we were once as lost as they are now. When Paul says we also once were foolish ourselves, it's an emphatic we.

He's saying we, we ourselves, we're just like them. And therefore, therefore, as we look on them, we see a picture of what we used to be. And if God has been gracious and kind to us and delivered us from that, then we ourselves should show a similar kind of grace that we have already received. Now, it's very common for those of us that have been around the Bible for any length of time, almost every one of you could quickly quote Romans 3.23, which says, For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

That's a summary statement of the condition of humanity and of what we used to be like. And the fact is, is that we still sin even as believers. And as believers, we still fall short of God's glory. That is a wonderful verse to have us anchored in our minds. Yet, what we're going to see here from Titus 3.3 is that that's a summary statement. It's one thing to say that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Watch this. We're about to pivot into something really important here.

It's another thing to explain in detail what that means and what that looks like. We're going to see six characteristics of unsaved humanity here from this verse. We're seeing six characteristics of what you and I used to be like as unbelievers. For those of you who are not in Christ, what God is about to do, for those of you that are not Christians, what He is about to do is He is about to take a spiritual scalpel and just slice you down the middle and open up what you are for everyone to see. It would be good for you, if you are not a Christian, to listen to this carefully and realize how accurately Scripture diagnoses the state of your soul so that you would learn to run to this wonderful Christ that we've been singing about all morning, so that you would flee from sin in order to come to true salvation. What does Paul have to say?

What were we like? What are unsaved men like today? Look at verse 3 with me.

I'll read it once more and then we'll go through and we'll kind of unpack it phrase by phrase. Paul says, 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. You have to appreciate the humility of the apostle Paul, that he includes himself in that statement. I mean, he's the apostle.

There is on earth no higher authority than him at the time that he wrote this. He was the apostle. He was the direct representative of Christ and yet he says, I and you used to be like this. And Paul was always eager, willing to describe that about himself. Over in 1 Timothy, you don't need to turn there, but he said, I formerly was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor.

I was hostile to the church of Christ. And so as Paul writes here in chapter 3 verse 3, he's giving a bit of autobiography about his own spiritual life. In Romans chapter 7, he talks about how he was deceived by coveting of every kind. Inside and outside, he was a wicked man, even though he conformed to the outward requirements of the Judaism of the first century.

He knew. He knew that he was sinful. He was mindful of it and it determined the way that he thought about the gospel. It determined the way that he preached. It determined the way in which he viewed sinners around him. So what we're about to see, speaking to you as Christians, is an explanation of your life before Christ and what it is you're delivered from. And this passage, perhaps like no other that I have ever taught on, and I haven't taught on all of the Bible by any means, but perhaps like no other verse of scripture that comes immediately to my mind, explains the world that we see today in the 21st century.

Let's take a look at it. There are six characteristics of the unsaved man that we're going to see here. Number one, the first characteristic for you to see is that sinners, referring to unsaved people, sinners are foolish. They're foolish people. That's what Paul says.

We also once were foolish. And so what does that mean? Well, scripture says in Psalm 14, Psalm 53, that the fool has said in his heart that there is no God. In this context, what Paul is saying is that sinners are blind to spiritual truth. They are hostile to God. They are hostile to his law. They do not understand spiritual truth, and they suppress the truth that they do see around them. Their minds are black. They do not understand.

They're incapable of understanding, and when a little bit of light comes in, they shut the shades and they close it out so that it cannot expose the things that are in them and around them. They are hostile to the very nature of a holy God. They're foolish. Turn over to Romans chapter 1, a passage that we've referred to in passing over many times. They're foolish. And by the way, just to keep the context in mind as you're turning there, we're saying this, as hard as it is for people to put this together in their minds, we're saying this in a spirit of gentleness and kindness.

We're not unkind by speaking the truth about what men apart from Christ are like, any more than a doctor who gives you an accurate physical diagnosis as being unkind so that he can tell you how you can get better. Romans chapter 1, verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They hold it down. Their conscience wants the floor to speak, and they deny the microphone to their conscience so that it cannot speak to their mind.

They suppress it. Verse 19, because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power, and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse.

Stop right there. Understand that the darkness in which sinners live, the darkness of their minds is a culpable darkness. In one sense, they are victims of sin, but they are also active participants in it. They are active participants in suppressing the truth.

They are active participants in pulling the shade so that the light won't get in. They're culpable. They are without excuse, and that was you and me too before Christ. Verse 21, for even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and here it is, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and forfeited animals and crawling creatures. Sinners are foolish.

They are hostile too. The word of God, both written in the scriptures, they're hostile to the word of God as he is revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ. That was what you and I were like, foolish, blind, darkened, and for those of you that are here and that you're not in Christ, one of the ways that your foolishness manifests itself, let's just be really clear and direct and specific here, one of the ways that your foolishness manifests itself is your hostility to the scriptures, your unwillingness to receive it, your unwillingness to read it.

You have no interest in it. Well, that is foolish. If the God of creation has spoken in his word, why would we as a creature close our minds to it and reject it and be hostile to it and want nothing to do with it? Why would we take it, as it were, and fling it across the room to get it as far away from our minds as we possibly could?

Why would we do that? A good and gracious God has spoken and you want no part of it? Please, let's just be honest. Let's be scriptural in our assessment about it. That is foolish. That is culpable foolishness. You're guilty when you're like that. And that, beloved, Paul is making the point that you and I were both like that before we were saved. That's exactly what we were like.

I remember literally doing what I just described, taking a Bible and flinging it across the room because I wanted nothing to do with it. They're foolish. They're blind. Here's the question then. Here's the question then. How will a blind man ever see truth?

Point number two this morning. Sinners are disobedient. They are disobedient. Look at verse three.

We'll just kind of take this word by word and try not to miss anything. Paul says, we also, once we're foolish ourselves, disobedient. Sinners are predisposed. They are hardwired toward rebellion. We don't need any lesson in that other than being parents and realizing that as soon as infants grow up to a capacity where they're able to actually express themselves, they are manifesting rebellion at one stage or another. None of you as parents taught your children to disobey, except perhaps through your own personal example. But you didn't set them down and instruct them, here is how to be disobedient. It just came naturally out of their heart. It's because that's the way they are from birth. And then as life goes on and as they mature, that disobedience and rebellion simply becomes more sophisticated in its expression.

That's all. Sinners are disposed toward rebellion. They want independence. It's why people hate civil authority. It's why teachers have trouble controlling their classrooms. It's why parents have trouble with their children being hostile toward them and smart-mouthed toward them. It's because there's so much rebellion and disobedience embedded in the human heart.

That's why. They want independence. They do not want Christ to reign over them. Now, let's think carefully here. Let's be perceptive in the way that we think about this. This sinful disobedience, this rebellion of sin manifests itself in different ways. It's not that every sinner is just outwardly hostile and shaking his fist at everybody that's around him. Do you remember the story of the prodigal son?

Of course you do, from Luke chapter 15. You had the flagrant rebel in that story who demanded his inheritance and went out and spent it in lascivious living and was openly hostile to his father, demanding his inheritance and in essence saying, I would rather that you were dead. That's pretty outward manifestation of rebellion. Well, look, the other son in that story who doesn't get quite as much as tension because it's not as dramatic, he was equally sinful. But rather than being outwardly rebellious, his was a simmering resentment. He wasn't content to live under the father's authority. He didn't rejoice when his prodigal brother came back.

It all came out and he said, look, why am I not treated right? Two extremes with everything in between in the course of humanity, one outwardly rebellious, one inwardly resentful. Both of them had in their spiritual DNA rebellion hardwired into it. There wasn't a real love for their father. And for those of you who, those young people of you in your teens, preteen years, let's not pretend, let's not pretend that mere outward compliance is a mark of a pure heart. If in your heart there is internal resentment against the Word of God, the authority of your parents, the things that your teachers ask you to do, if there's inward resentment in that, that's a spirit of disobedience. And you can't paint over that.

You can't fix moldy walls by just putting a new coat of paint on it. Many children who grew up in Christian homes will testify to that after the fact. How many of us have heard testimonies of genuine Christian adults saying, I looked like a good kid on the outside, but on the inside it was completely different. Well, that's rebellion.

That's the Spirit of God slicing it open and laying it up open for us to see. Good behavior is not necessarily a mark of the lack of a spirit of disobedience. The resentment, the hostility toward parents, the smart mouth, all of those things are simply an expression of what Paul says sin is like. We ask the question, how will a blind man see the truth? In light of this disobedience, how will a rebel ever submit to Christ? How will someone that is through and through a rebel and resentful toward authority, how will a rebel ever come to submit himself to Christ?

We're starting to talk about things that are impossible. Point number three, sinners are foolish, sinners are disobedient. Point number three, sinners are deceived. They're deceived. Look at verse three with me.

It just kind of adds, it kind of builds on one another, doesn't it? For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived. I won't ask for a show of hands here because I don't like to do that in public.

I think it's a cheap stunt. But I do ask the question for you to respond to personally in your own heart, in your own self-understanding. So good to see so many of you here today. How many of you thought that you were Christians before you were actually converted? How many of you would say, said, I'm a Christian and came to find out later that that was not true, that you were not really born again? Well, part of the reason that you could say that is because you were locked into spiritual deception. You were self-deceived and you had plenty of people, both secular and spiritual, reaffirming you in your deception, your self-deception. You claimed to be a Christian and yet you had no regard for the Word of God. You claimed to be a Christian, but you prayed only when you wanted something, not out of a sincere response of gratitude and giving glory to God. You just wanted God to give you what you wanted. It was all entirely self-centered. You know why I can speak with such specificity about that, right?

I'm being autobiographical here. But what was true of me was true of you too. Sinners are the dupes of false teachers. And not only are they self-deceived, they want teachers, as Paul says, they accumulate teachers according to their own desires, teachers that will scratch their itching ears. No shortage of men who want to cash in on your deception. And so where the dupes of false teachers, sinners live in the realm of spiritual deception, here's the essence of deception.

They think that the truth is one thing, when actually in reality it is something completely different. You thought that you were a Christian, but you were not. You thought maybe you didn't think about it in terms of being a Christian, but you thought, I'm on my way to heaven because I'm a pretty good person. I keep the rules. I'm not as bad as I could be.

I'm better than so and so. All of that, which permeates the way society thinks spiritually, if they think spiritually at all, is just a mark of the utter dark black deception that has descended upon our human race since the fall of Adam. Organized religion teaches them that they can obtain heaven through their own good conduct. Public education teaches them self-esteem.

People think that God is less holy than He really is, and they think that they're more righteous than they really are, and somewhere in the middle they meet up and meet the standard. That's all such a profound deception. Oh, do you understand that there is no way humanly possible to make people see that? If your mind is so given over to deception, how do you ever get the truth into it? Are they just supposed to turn on a light switch, twist their ear, and suddenly their brain starts to think right?

It doesn't work that way. How will a blind man see the truth? How will a rebel submit to Christ? How will a thoroughly deceived man recognize truth when he sees it? As we look around, it's easy to see the signs of foolishness, disobedience, and deception. Perhaps it's a little tougher to recall that we might once have exhibited those very same signs before encountering Christ.

We should be humble indeed. Well, Pastor Don Green will have the concluding portion of this message on our next program as he continues the series Titus, God's Glorious Plan of Grace. Join us then on The Truth Pulpit.

Right now, though, Don's back here in studio with some closing words. I know that many of you have found us for the first time on Christian radio, and that's wonderful, but I also realize that sometimes your schedules don't let you work around the broadcast schedule. We have made it possible for you to be able to still get The Truth Pulpit on a regular basis. We have a broadcast of each radio broadcast that you can find, and you can have it automatically delivered to your favorite listening device. If you go to our website, you can find a link to the podcast.

Sign up for it, and be sure to catch every episode. Here's Bill to help you find it. Just visit thetruthpulpit.com, where you can also learn more about this ministry. Once again, that's thetruthpulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright, inviting you back next time, when Don Green presents more from The Truth Pulpit.