By Mercy, Not by Works #1

If you are a Christian, when Scripture says it's not because you and I wanted God, it's because He wanted us. He sought us in our sin.

When we were walking away, as it were, He whistled and brought us back. As the psalmist David asked when considering all God has made, what is man that thou dost take thought of him? Why would Jesus go to the cross for sinful human beings who, by nature, want nothing to do with him?

Well, the answer is simple, kindness and mercy. Pastor Don Green will celebrate that with us today on The Truth Pulpit as he continues our series, Titus, God's Glorious Plan of Grace. Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and Don, the meaning of the gospel, good news, is exactly that, isn't it? Well, my friend, when someone opens a Bible and preaches Jesus Christ to you, they are giving you the best news that there is anywhere in the universe. Jesus Christ comes to you and offers Himself to you in order to save you from your sins.

He paid the debt for sin in full at the cross, and now He offers you free forgiveness if you will come to Him in humble, repentant faith. It's the best of news, and we're going to study that more closely today on The Truth Pulpit. Well, friend, turn in your Bible to Titus chapter 3 as we join Pastor Don Green now in The Truth Pulpit.

We're continuing through our study of Titus, and I'd invite you to turn to Titus chapter 3. And in anticipation of the message that I knew I was going to be bringing to you this morning out of God's Word, I have to tell you that it was almost strange last night. I woke up, and the things that are about to come were fresh on my mind, of course, and it occurred to me that there is a sense in which, let's put it this way, Scripture says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And if we were to discuss what makes God fearful, you know, we would talk about His holiness, perhaps, His wrath for certain, the reality of eternal judgment on those who reject Christ. All of those things are really fearful things, but this is not what we're talking about today, and yet I find myself magnifying the fear of God this morning as I step into this pulpit with the most unusual thought that even the goodness and kindness of God is a fearful thing. Fearful in this sense. It's fearful because, as we're going to see, it is so alien to anything that we know in any other context.

It is so foreign and contrary to what we deserve as individuals. It is so fearful because it is so great. It is so magnificent.

It spans from eternity past to eternity future. It is magnificent and great in the unfolding nature of the way that God is good to His people. And even primarily in the way that we experience His goodness in earthly life, in our earthly circumstances, that is utterly incidental to the glories of the goodness, and it's just so vast. It's so magnificent. It's so wonderful in the deepest sense of the word. But it is so awesome that it's fearful.

Fearful because it is so great. That's what we're going to see here this morning. Titus 3. Last week we saw the blackness of sin that we used to know as believers and that marks all men who do not know Christ who have not been born again.

Titus 3. Look at it just so that we can set the context here. Paul says, and actually the context goes up even further to verses 1 and 2 where he tells us to honor civil authority, to be gentle and gracious and peaceable with unsaved men. And he goes and he explains why he calls us to that. He says, verse 3, he says, for we also once were foolish ourselves.

It's emphatic. He says, remember that you were just like that. You used to be like what I'm about to describe. He says, we were once foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hating and hating, hateful I should say, and hating one another. That was the backdrop of what we looked at last time. Unworthy creatures.

Unworthy men and women. That was us. That was us. And yet what has happened to us that are Christians? What has happened to us in that realm of darkness that we participated in, that we loved, that we embraced, that we were dead in, that we were enslaved to, that we had no way out, and not only did we not have a way out, we didn't even want out. What happened? What happened to us? In verses 4 through 7, Paul gives one long Greek sentence that explains what happens to us and which undergirds his call to us to live a transformed, peaceful life in the world around us. Here's what happened to us. Here is a magnificent display of the goodness and the kindness of God to us in that foolish, disobedient, hateful condition.

What happened? What did God do for us? Verse 4, but in contrast to that foolish state, in contrast to the rejection that we deserve from a holy God, in contrast to that, verse 4, but when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us. Not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, being justified by His grace, we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. We're going to spend next week talking about this passage as well as today, maybe the week after that.

We'll see. There's so much here. But, beloved, here's where I want you to start at. I want you to see the theme, the atmosphere, the environment in which Paul is speaking to us now, because he's no longer speaking about the realm of dead darkness that marked us. He has moved our thinking. He has transferred into the realm of the gracious character of God, and that's what permeates the atmosphere of what we're talking about here today. Just look at the nouns in verse 4, the kindness of God, His love for mankind, His mercy in verse 5, His washing, the renewing by the Holy Spirit, richly poured out upon us through Christ Jesus, justified by His grace according to the hope of eternal life. We're going to unpack all of that in the next week or two, but I just want you to see the environment that we're in now as we come to this passage of Scripture. We have left the darkness of man, and we have entered into the light of the goodness of God. And you and I, who are Christians here today, are the beneficiaries of that grace, that magnified, magnificent, exponentially beyond all that we could ask or think, goodness and grace and love and mercy of God. That is the realm of our existence as believers. Now, we need to enter into the text with that little bit of introduction, chapter 3, verse 4.

Look at it with me again. But, notice the contrast. There is a strong, magnificent contrast between what he has said in verse 3 and what he is now going on to discuss. That word but there, that strong contrast, is a hinge in the passage, a hinge on which where grace had been shut out because of the darkness of sin, now here with this word but, the hinge of the door is now turning and we're entering into a realm of unexpected grace, of unexpected glorious kindness.

This is a contrast. He says but, verse 4, but while we were like that, while the whole world was lost in the darkness of sin, but then, something changed, when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared. Scripture calls Jesus Christ our Savior. It refers to God the Father as our Savior as well. He's every bit as much disposed toward a gracious, saving attitude as Jesus Christ is.

There is no distinction between the two of them. God the Father is our Savior. He is the one who planned it all, sent Christ to execute it, the Holy Spirit applied it, the whole triune God is involved in this great kindness and mercy to us.

But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared. This verse refers to the fact that God is good. Good in the context of salvation.

He's good. He's generous. He's generous to men and women, boys and girls who are in the distress of sin. Those who are in chains of darkness, God comes and is gracious to them. Picture, if you will, a man in chains locked in a dungeon 50 feet under the earth. Dark, nothing around, no keys, and he's just there in that miserable condition with no one there to come upon him.

And he hears the sound of feet coming down the steps. And the door opens and light comes in and it's the Lord Jesus Christ saying, I have come to rescue you out of your helpless condition. That's a picture, a poor picture of what this passage is describing. Nowhere to go, no way to free ourselves, and the kindness of God our Savior and His love for men in distress appears on the scene. To those lost in sin, He displays undeserved love. For those of us who were not seeking Him, but rather were seeking our own sinful lives, He sought us. So, beloved, please understand, please understand that if you are a Christian here today, when Scripture says it's not because you and I wanted God, it's because He wanted us. He sought us in our sin.

When we were walking away, as it were, He whistled and brought us back. That's goodness, that's kindness, that is unspeakable, great, fearsome love that we're looking at to those of us lost in sin with no claim on Him whatsoever. We stand in the realm of amazing grace. We stand in the realm of one who has bestowed blessing upon us that we did not deserve. We stand in the realm of one who has shown kindness to us that we did not deserve. And what Paul starts to unfold as we move on into verse 5, we see two aspects of this kindness that we want to bring out for you this morning. First of all, I want to talk to you about the manifestation of His kindness, the manifestation of the kindness of God toward us who are believers in Christ, the manifestation of His kindness. Stated differently, to use a different word, we might ask this question, Where has this kindness of God appeared? Where has it been made known?

Because let's start from a really important starting point. God is perfect and immutable in His character. Part of the intrinsic nature, one of the inherent attributes of God is that He is good. His goodness is eternal. He is eternally good. He is eternally kind. And He has always been that way. And He is kindly disposed toward humanity. He is shown in the fact that He sends the sun and the rain on the just and the unjust alike. He's a good God and He has always been that way. He never changed. To change would be to suggest that there was something imperfect to begin with.

No, no, no, no. This God of whom we speak has always been perfectly good and perfectly kind. Always. But God is invisible to us. We can't see Him. He's like this, but we can't see it unless He makes it appear. Unless He somehow manifests it. Unless He somehow makes it known to us, we would never guess that it was like that. We would have no grounds upon which to say it.

We could only speculate. God has not left us to speculation. He has manifested His kindness. Look at verse 4 with me again.

Chapter 3, verse 4. But when... There's a temporal aspect to what's going on here.

There's an expression of time involved here. When the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared. He pulled back the veil and sent it out and made it manifest. He made it known. He displayed something that eyes could see and that hands could touch. He displayed it in time and didn't simply leave it in the realm of unseen, eternal attributes. He made it known.

Now, I am thrilled to be able to unpack this for you. There are certain privileges that we have as Christians to be able to think through these things and to understand them and to see them clearly. And this is something that we need to see and take our time with. The manifestation of His kindness. Where has the kindness and love of God appeared? When did He do this? Is He done displaying His kindness?

Well, listen, beloved. You can think about this in a scripturally speaking and even within the passage here in Titus. What you're going to see and what we're about to discuss is that there is a historical sequence in the manifestation of God's kindness toward us.

He didn't just do it once and then stop. He has displayed His kindness again and again and is going to do it even more still future to us today. And the perfections of this are unspeakable. Human lips are not worthy to speak of what God has done. They're not worthy to speak of the kind of kindness, the quality of goodness that we are about to see laid out on the plain surface of Scripture. There is no reason for any sinner to turn away from this kind of kindness. Where has God shown His kindness? I'm going to give you three different places, all pertaining to the reality of your salvation as a believer in Christ. Where has the kindness and love of God appeared?

What has Paul been talking about? First of all, God manifested His kindness at the cross of Jesus Christ. At the cross of Jesus Christ, He manifested His kindness. Go back to Titus chapter 2 verse 11. Titus chapter 2 verse 11.

And watch as we go through this. Look for the time at which these different things were displayed, when they appeared, when God made them manifest. Verse 11. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. Instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, we've looked at those verses. Verse 13. Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. Remember, he's talking about when the grace of God appeared.

When did it appear? Verse 14. Here is the grace and goodness of God on full display. Our Lord Jesus Christ, verse 14, gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. When Jesus Christ went to the cross to carry the weight of our sin on His shoulders, that was an act, a manifestation of unspeakable goodness and kindness.

You remember, don't you? That He said that I could call a myriad of angels and put an end to this. It wasn't because He was powerless at the face of Roman executioners or of the Jews who blasphemously handed Him over. He wasn't powerless. He wasn't crucified because He was too weak to stop it. He was crucified because He was so good that He went to that cross and offered up His life as the price of our salvation, those of us who were unworthy, hateful, foolish, and disobedient, with no claim on that matchless Son of God, no claim on Him whatsoever. He looked at His people as it were in kindness and said, I will lay my life down for you to redeem you out of your miserable condition and secure for you an eternity of blessedness that I cannot see and tongue cannot describe. Beloved, whatever else we say about the Lord Jesus Christ, let it be forever settled in our minds that He is kind.

He is good. Part of the way that we need to understand this is by way of contrast with our own lives. You and I are both alike in the sense that when people cross us, we react against it. We're like that. It's part of our fallen nature. We don't like it when people don't do what we want them to do. We don't like it when they're unkind to us, seemingly without reason. We react against that. We worry about it. We get angry about it. It makes us bitter, sometimes for years.

Well, understand that. Understand that our offenses against Christ did not change His kind and good disposition toward us. What a manifestation of grace. What a manifestation of goodness. Christ on the cross, working out, knowing full well, He's working out an eternal plan of God. He's working out salvation for His people through all times. Do you want to have a sense of how great and fearsome and wonderful the goodness of God is toward you? Oh, beloved, realize that 2,000 years before you were born, our Lord Jesus Christ in kindness went to the cross and laid down His life for you.

And understand alongside that, you and I have just got to come to grips with this. He did this before we asked. He was ahead of the curve. He did it before anyone could have possibly asked. Not that we would have, but 2,000 years ago, generations upon generations before you and I were born, Christ was being good to us when He went to the cross. And that invisible attribute of the goodness of God was displayed publicly at a Roman crucifixion site in the land of Israel.

With no external compulsion other than His desire to honor His Father's will in salvation, Jesus Christ voluntarily laid down His life for you and me. That's good! That's kind!

That's so undeserved! That's such compassion and pity upon people who were miserably lost. Oh, don't you see it? This is no theoretical concept.

This is literal flesh and blood kindness manifested by God at the historical time and space event of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It's displayed. It's manifest.

It's appeared. It's historical fact. It's established for all time. Let every Christian have embedded on his tongue, my Christ is good, my Christ is kind, my Christ is loving, my Christ is gracious. He's merciful. And He's been merciful to me.

He displayed it at the cross. It's been made known. There's no arguing this point. But you know what?

And here's where I just get lost in discussing this. That work of Christ was perfect. That display of goodness was perfect.

There was no defect in it whatsoever. And yet, as we're going to continue looking at Scripture here in just a moment, and yet we see that God has taken other aspects of perfect kindness and stacked them on top of the perfect kindness of the cross. There's just this exponential manifestation of perfect goodness, and one level gives rise to another realm of perfect goodness that strains the limits of human language to express.

The cross is one manifestation of God's goodness and kindness toward us. And there are others. Pastor Don Green will cover those on our next broadcast as he concludes the message by mercy, not by works. So plan now to join us here on The Truth Pulpit.

But right now, Don's back here in studio with some closing words. Well, friend, if you have enjoyed this broadcast today, let me encourage you to do something that would be an encouragement to the partners who help make it happen. Drop a note, if you would, to the radio station that you've heard this broadcast on. They would love to hear that they have ministered to you because they love to share God's Word with you. And also it will help them know that they're reaching people with God's Word through the ministry of The Truth Pulpit. So drop them a note and give them thanks, and be sure to tell them that you heard The Truth Pulpit on this station.

Thanks, Don. And friend, if you'd like information on obtaining free CDs of the messages you hear on our broadcast, just visit us online. Our web address is thetruthpulpit.com. That's thetruthpulpit.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you next time for more from The Truth Pulpit.