He Saved Us (Part 1 of 2)

In the early Church, there were believers who had become prideful in about their salvation.

They started to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility towards all men. Now, what he does is, having given that as a call, if you like, to Christian citizenship—which we said was marked by loyalty and courtesy and humility and so on—having given that call to Christian citizenship, he recognizes as a wise pastor and as an apostle that it's possible for Christians to look with contempt upon their culture rather than to look with compassion on their culture. And the one thing he realizes that will be an antidote to that kind of response is for the Christian believer to be reminded of our pre-converted condition. And so it is that he describes, then, in verse 3, what we once were before Christ. We often say here at Parkside that the Christian life is a two-volume book. We have prior to coming to Christ and after we've come to Christ. And there are many things written into volume number one that are sad and unhappy features, and while the evil one would want us to delve back into sin that is forgiven, which we mustn't do, nevertheless, we cannot forget, and we dare not forget, that apart from God's amazing grace, we would be just like these people. We would be in the same predicament as themselves. Whitfield, on one memorable occasion, in seeing somebody going to the gallows, turned to the person next to him and said there, "'But for the grace of God go I.'"

And that, of course, is exactly the case. And so it is that verse 3, when we recollect this, it will help us to view others with compassion rather than with contempt. Now, the list is an unsavory list.

I don't want us to delay on it, but we should just notice it as we go through. At one time, we too were foolish—in other words, we were darkened in our understanding, and we were separated from the life of God. It is the fool who said in his heart, "'There is no God.' Behind a façade of wisdom we became fools who exchanged the glory of an immortal God for things that creep and crawl." We too were disobedient—disobedient marks the pre-Christian life, who is anyone to tell me anything—disobedient to both divine authority, to human authority, in rebellion against God's law, in rebellion against the insistence of our conscience, which makes it clear to us that we are moral beings made in the image of God. Thirdly, deceived—in other words, easy prey for all kinds of specious arguments and notions.

Enslaved—enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures, various desires, various pleasant feelings, trapped by a desire for stuff, and so on. This is what we are outside of Christ. We lived, he says, in malice and in envy—not a nice picture—malicious thoughts, an evil disposition of mind, a selfish disposition of heart, being hated and hating one another. The people hated us, and we hated other people. Because mutual hatred is eventually the effulgence of egotism and self-centeredness, being turned in completely upon ourselves, which is what Luther really described as the nature of sin, that we are curved in upon ourselves.

When a person is curved in upon themselves, then they will become hateful, and they will hate other people as well. And so says Paul, I want you to remind your people, Titus, to make sure that they are the kind of people that are marked by courtesy and by humility and so on. And just in case anybody's forgotten, let's remember that were it not for the grace of God, we would be in the exact same position as themselves. That's one of the things that always grieves me when I watch representatives not always grieves me but sometimes grieves me when I watch representatives of genuine Christianity being given an opportunity to go head-to-head with someone who is an outright pagan. And the disparity between the two individuals is fairly clear. But too often, it would appear that the tone from the Christian is not a tone of compassion but is a tone of contempt.

And I remember, for example, as I think along these lines, how encouraged I was when on one evening, as I watched Larry King live, where there was an interview involving a gentleman who was an actor and a homosexual, and the person that was in the studio with him was John MacArthur. And in the interchange, somebody said something or someone called in and said that, you know, this gentleman was going to go straight to hell or whatever it was. It wasn't a particularly nice interchange. And I can't remember just how it went, but I think the fellow said, So I guess that's it," or whatever it is, he said, with a shrug. And I remember John put his hand on his shoulder, and he said, Oh no, that's not it. He said, You don't want to go there.

I know you don't want to go there, do you? It was just a breakthrough moment. And as a result of that, afterwards, in the meal that followed and in the dialogue that ensued, the connection that was made was a connection that was made as a result of compassion, not as a result of contempt. And unless we remember what we are in it by nature, unless we understand what we are either potentially or in actuality outside of Christ, then we will be in danger of this. And that's why I think Newton's work has been so tremendous, and again, Newton and Wilberforce were contemporaries, and Newton's classic statement, which probably was the reason why the movie did so poorly in the box office, because the producers tried to get these two lines taken out of the movie, and the producers refused to take them out. And I think in terms of its display, suffer badly on account of it, and that was where Newton at one point in the movie gives his great statement, where he says, I know two things.

I know that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior. And that was always true of Newton, because he didn't forget what he was apart from Christ's redeeming love. And when you have self-satisfaction, when you have smugness, when you have contemptuousness that exudes from the Christian community within the culture of a day, then you can be pretty certain that these Christians have forgotten verse 3 of Titus chapter 3. So, what he's saying is, since we were once like these other people, let us not treat with contempt those who are still there, but let us, as we said last night, be energetic in goodness so that we might see unbelieving people becoming the committed followers of Jesus Christ.

Okay? So in verses 1 and 2, he says, this is what we are to be. In verse 3, he says, and this is what we were. And then in verse 4 through to verse 7, he says, and this is what God by his grace has us now and what we are becoming. In other words, having outlined, if you like, the duty of the Christian citizen, he then explains the dynamic of the Christian gospel—the duty of the Christian citizen, which is founded upon the dynamic of the Christian gospel.

So that gospel living emerges from gospel truth. And the obvious response of somebody in listening to this letter being read would simply be, well, given what we are by nature in verse 3, how are we to live in light of the instruction of verses 1 and 2? How are we possibly to live in the light of verses 1 and 2 apart from the intervention of God—apart from the intervention of God on behalf of the sinner, doing for us what we could never do for ourselves? And that is exactly where he goes. But, he says, verse 4, when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us.

He saved us. Some of you who are involved with Child Evangelism Fellowship—I think it's Child Evangelism Fellowship—will be familiar with The Book Without Words. Have you used The Book Without Words? And it's a great little book, and it just has pages that are different colors. And I haven't seen it in some time, and I know there are more than three, but it essentially starts off with a black page, allowing the person to say—and this is the circumstance of our lives darkened by sin—a red page, allowing the person to explain that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all sin, and a white page that enables the person to say, And God in his goodness has dealt with all these blots in our lives. And the very simplicity of that is at the heart of what Paul is saying here.

When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared. Actually, there is a sense in which verse 4 and following of chapter 3 is a reiteration of verse 11 and following of chapter 2. And this is a recurring theme not only in Titus, but it really is the recurring theme in the letters of Paul.

If you go to Paul's letters, you will see that he loves getting to the but-now's, or but-then's. And so, for example, you have it in Romans 3, which we'll look at in a moment or two, where he says, But now a righteousness from God has been revealed. You have it in Ephesians chapter 2, where he is describing the circumstances of our pre-converted state, and then he says, But God being rich in mercy. And then here in Titus chapter 3 and verse 4, But when the kindness and goodness and love of God appeared. Now, let's just not miss this, because this little phrase, He saved us, is an important phrase.

Indeed, it is a vital phrase. What is being described here is what God has purposed to do from all of eternity, that into the darkness the light has shined as God's love and kindness has appeared in the person of Jesus, so that the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 9 reaches its fulfillment in the incarnation. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. On those walking in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. And what Paul is reminding Titus of is the fact that the gospel centers in the birth, the life, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension and the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. That this is the good news that he is called to proclaim, that this is the good news which provides the underlying impetus for the lifestyle that is to mark the believer in the Cretan culture. It is because of this gospel.

It is because God has come in this way. And that is important for us to recognize, even though we may be familiar with it. Because the storyline of the Bible is the reverse of what is commonly suggested.

And what I mean by that is this. What is commonly suggested is that if you sort of take humanity as a whole, you will find that men and women are on a search for God. That it may not be apparent just when you see them driving to the office in the morning or into the lab or whatever it might be, but by and large, men and women are desperately seeking God, and for some reason, God has decided to make it really difficult for people to find him. And so they're building turrets, and they're climbing up into mountains, and they're going out everywhere, and there they are looking for God.

When you read the Bible, you discover that it says, No, that's actually not the case. People are hiding from God, and God is looking for them. Now, the sheep are not out looking for the shepherd.

That's a funny metaphor, isn't it? I don't know. My grandfather was a shepherd on my father's side in the highlands of Scotland, and, you know, it's not customary for the sheep to be talking to one another and saying, Where's Old Shepherd Begg? I haven't seen him in a while. I think we should go—why don't we all get together and go and have a look for him? I think he's probably smoking his pipe somewhere over behind the shed.

We'll go and try and find him. No, but it is the unstinting task of the shepherd to go out with or without those collie dogs and round up those wandering sheep. So the picture of humanity is, again, in the words of the prophet, all we, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. And here's the glorious news. The LORD has laid on the shepherd the iniquity of us all.

What? That the shepherd dies for the sheep? The shepherd not only seeks them but dies in their place?

Yes. Now, let me just point this out to you and get you started on your own little Bible study in Romans. This is extra credit for your homework. If you turn to Romans chapter 1 for just a moment, let me show you how Paul works this whole notion out. If you like, this is an extrapolation from the opening phrase here, when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us not because of righteous things we have done. Okay? So verse 19 of Romans 1, what may be known about God is plain to men and women, because God has made it plain. Okay?

That's what it says. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and his divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. So in other words, God's disclosure of himself in creation is sufficient to convince but not to convert.

Okay? It is sufficient to render men and women accountable to God. It is not sufficient to convert them to God. If it were, then we would have to acquiesce to our friends who said, Well, I just met God up in Mount Kilimanjaro. When I went for a walk, I was over in Zambia, and I decided to go for a long walk, and I can find God up there in a way that I don't need a Jesus and I don't need a Bible. No, the Bible says, No, I'm sorry, you can't.

You may encounter the creative handiwork of God, but you will never know God in a saving way as a result of that. What God has disclosed of himself in this way is sufficient for people to be held accountable and to render them without excuse. He then goes on, doesn't he? To argue all the way through that.

We're not going to go through it. But he then points out that the people who are in a religious frame of mind, they don't have any excuse either. That's chapter 2. Chapter 2 and verse 3, When you, a mere man, pass judgment on these other people and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? And then here, classically, Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you towards repentance? God's kindness leads you towards repentance. You see the link in Titus 3?

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared. This is Paul. This is essentially the epitome of Paul's theology. Paul never really deviates from this very much. And so he goes all the way through, and into chapter 3 he says, Well, what advantage is there if you're a Jewish person? What advantage is there if you've gone through all of the external formality of Judaism? Here he says, The fact of the matter is that no one—verse 20 of chapter 3—will be declared righteous in God's sight by observing the law, but rather through the law we become conscious of sin.

Okay? And in verse 19 he says, So that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world held accountable to God. So the inexcusable nature of man's predicament in rebellion against God, curved in upon himself and herself, is in need of a remedy that must come from the outside. So it's no surprise that then, in verse 21, you have the glorious But Now.

But Now. When Martyn Lloyd-Jones, whose books are in our bookstore—I commend every one of them to you, not least of all Ian Murray's latest one on The Messenger of Grace—but when Martyn Lloyd-Jones did his expositions of Romans at Westminster Chapel in the twentieth century, he began with the twenty-first verse of Romans chapter 3. But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, and it is this that the law and prophets testify to, and this righteousness, you will see, comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. To all who believe.

Now, when you think about it, it's a remarkable story, isn't it? That the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, and he saved us not because of righteous things we had done. In other words, says Paul, Jesus came uncalled for and unsought, and in the vastness of his mercy, he saved us. A righteousness from God to all who believe. Who believe. So that the real question of men and women is, do they believe? If you think about that, in relationship to the man going about his routine practice, as described before us in Acts chapter 16, presumably said to his wife, We've got a couple of new prisoners have come in.

I'll take care of them, and then I'll be up for a bowl of spaghetti, and I think it's probably going to be a pretty straightforward evening. He could never have known what he was about to encounter. Nor could his wife or his children or the radical transformation that was about to take place in the home of the Philippian jailer. For now he'd encountered a couple such as he had never seen in his jail. Who are these people that instead of uttering oaths and curses in the middle of the night, instead of them being marked by hatred and hating one another and disavowing people and being malicious and vicious and mean and unkind, who are these strange characters who sing in the midnight hour?

Who are these people who cry out to the living God, having been fastened in the stocks? He must have said to himself, I thought I'd seen everything in my jail, but I never thought I would see this. And as their songs prevailed, and as the earthquake came, and as the chains were shaken loose, and as all of a sudden he realized that he was presiding over a prison that had no opportunity to retain the prisoners any longer, he took out a sword, deciding he'd be better to end his life before the Roman authorities did it for him. And then the intervention of kindness and the intervention of grace. And then the most remarkable thing, out of the mouth of the jail.

What must I do to be saved? What? Where did that come from? It came from kindness. It came from love. It came from patience. It came from singing. It came from praying. It came from the initiative taking grace of God. And he said, well, you could just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. Because you see, God saves all who believe. You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alistair Begg with a message titled, He Saved Us.

We'll hear the rest tomorrow. In the letter to the Hebrews, we are encouraged to learn from the steadfast faith of our Christian forefathers. The writer of Hebrews refers to these saints as a great cloud of witnesses. And that's the inspiration for a book that we are recommending to you today, a book called Cloud of Witnesses, a treasury of prayers and petitions through the ages. This is a carefully curated collection of a hundred prayers written by believers throughout church history. For example, there are prayers in this book from early Christians like Augustine of Hippo, Clement of Rome. And for your benefit, the editors have helpfully included a short biography of each writer.

In the back of the book, they include the prayers in their original language. And as for your copy of the book Cloud of Witnesses today, when you donate to support the Bible teaching ministry of Truth for Life, you can give a one-time gift at truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can arrange to set up an automatic monthly donation at truthforlife.org slash truthpartner. Thanks for joining us. If you have ever felt like you're just not good enough to get into heaven, I've got some good news for you. Tomorrow we'll find out why heaven is for bad people. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.