What Happened to Me? | Titus 3:3-8

Would you pray with me once more?

Heavenly Father, would you renew us this morning through the living and abiding Word of God to sanctify us in the truth.

Your word is truth.

And I pray, Lord, that you would speak through me this morning.

That you would empower all of us in your Holy Spirit to live what we just sang, to live this Christian life.

And Lord, may we be renewed as we look now to your word.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

From the Welsh Revival.

And it rightly points out that all of the blessings that we have, every single blessing we have in the Christian life comes from Christ.

Every single one.

John said, For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

All blessings flow from him.

If you would, I want you to open back to Titus, the passage that we just read.

I told someone this morning, um, this passage is so rich and so infinitely deep, I can hardly do it justice as a preacher.

In fact, I know I won't do it justice.

It's so wonderful and so rich.

It's going to take all of our thinking to get our minds around what Paul is trying to instruct us and teach us.

Here's essentially what he's saying.

He's saying, I want you to live good works.

I want you to do good works.

I want you to live righteously in the world.

And in order to do that, you need to know what happened to you.

What happened to me.

You need to know, if you're a Christian, what God has done in your life.

Sometimes becoming a Christian is called being born again.

Remember Chuck Coulson, born again?

Of course, he didn't originate that idea.

That idea came from who?

Jesus.

If anyone desires to enter the kingdom of God, he must be born again.

So this idea goes all the way back to the ministry of our Lord.

And if you think about when you were born, what do you remember?

Nothing.

What do you remember?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

What do you know about your birth?

What your parents told you, that you were born in such and such hospital, that you were yay long, this heavy, 65th percentile, maybe.

Maybe you have those little ink patterns of your feet that the nurses did.

And so everything that you learn about your birth, you learn after the fact.

And it's your mother, your grandparents telling you about the events that surrounded you coming into the world.

That's sort of how the Christian life is.

You become a Christian, and then for a lot of your Christian experience, you're reflecting and realizing what happened to you.

What did God do in that moment that you were saved?

Or another example, when I was in high school, I watched a great spy movie called The Born Identity.

Remember the Born Identity?

Jason born, he was basically a super spy trained assassin.

And the movie begins, and his body is floating in the Mediterranean, and some fishermen scoop him out of the water, and he wakes up in the bottom of this fishing boat, and he doesn't know where he is, who he is, or anything about his previous life.

I'm trying to figure out where I came from, who I am, and what happened to me.

That's the Christian experience.

You become a Christian, and now we're going back to reflect on what God has done in bringing you to salvation.

And Paul says really that we need to reflect on this for two reasons.

One, in reflecting on this, you'll be motivated to do good works.

That's in verse 1 and 2 and in verse 8, that this saying is a trustworthy saying.

Get your head around it so that you will do good works.

And the reason why we're motivated to do good works in understanding these verses, these truths, is because we're in awe of the mercy and the grace and the love of God for us in Christ.

So that's the point is to be in awe of the mercy, the grace, and the love of God for you in Christ.

And if you can get just a little bit of that, Paul's saying, that will motivate you to do good in this world.

So really there's six stages, and we're going to go through each of these very quickly, that Paul highlights in this Christian experience.

The first is verse three.

And we covered this two weeks ago, but it's the life of sin.

This is this is the beginning.

This is who you're born in Adam.

You're born a sinner.

No one is born righteous, no one is born good.

We are born sinners.

And this is Paul's point.

He says, for we, he includes himself, not the apostles, we all ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves.

Notice this, we're in bondage to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

It's very striking language.

And we looked through each of those descriptions several weeks ago, but it's a it's the language of a life of bondage to sin.

One of the church's greatest theologians.

In fact, you could say that all theology for the past 1700 years is really a footnote to this man.

His name was Aurelius Augustine.

Some of you might know him as Saint Augustine.

He was canonized by the by the Catholic Church.

But Aurelius Augustine was born.

His mother was a name Monica.

She was a Christian.

His father was a pagan.

And of course, he would later go on to become a Christian and this towering theologian.

But he wrote a book, and it's a Christian classic called The Confessions.

And in the Confessions, he talks about his life before Christ.

And he talks about four aspects of sin and four aspects of his pre-conversion life.

One of them is sexual bondage, sexual slavery.

He took a mistress when he was 17 years old, and he was a slave to his passions.

He couldn't get rid of them.

He couldn't do anything, he tried, but he couldn't do anything to quench them.

And secondly, he described his life as a philosophical search.

There was a cult leader, I don't want to go into all this, named Manny, who said, yes, yes, Jesus, yes, enlightenment from the East, yes to lots of ideas, but really he was a dualist, no hope in his religion, and Augustine was uh took part in that for a while and then became a platonist, but it was going from one idea to the next.

Third, he described his life as disobedience, as law-breaking.

And what's interesting about the confessions is he describes law breaking for the sole purpose of law breaking.

He describes this incident where he and these other teenage boys went into a farm and they all stole pears from the farmer.

And then after running out of the fields, they threw the pears away.

They didn't even steal the pears to eat them.

They stole the pears to steal the pears.

And in reflecting on that, Augustine's like, what was that?

What was that?

I'm a lawbreaker.

And then fourth, he described it as dissatisfaction with everything.

Dissatisfaction with everything.

As he achieved various things.

He achieved great things.

He became this rhetorician, and the city-state of Milan in Italy hired him to become the public rhetorician of the city.

And he arrived in that place that he had worked for for his entire life, and he was incredibly dissatisfied.

He begins the confessions.

He says, Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O God, for you have made us for yourself.

That's how he describes the unbelieving life, and it's because of this pervasive reality of sin.

My friend Granger Smith just came out with a book describing his unconverted life.

He called it poison in the well.

Poison in the well.

In other words, you dip water out of that well, poisons in it, what happens?

You can't drink it why it's polluted, it's contaminated.

And he says, that's what my life was like.

Everything that I did, even my righteous deeds, are like filthy rags because they're tainted by wrong desires.

There's poison in the well.

Paul says, that's who we all are.

And so what is needed, second stage, write this next to verse four.

The intervention of God.

What is needed in order to take us from this life of sin is the intervention of God.

Notice the conjunction, but this is building on what Paul has just said.

But in this life of sin, this poison well that was our existence, he says, the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared.

That word appeared is the where we get our word epiphany.

It's like an appearing act where all of a sudden something is there.

And you're going on in your life.

And all of a sudden, you come face to face with the goodness and the loving kindness of God.

That word loving kindness, we looked at that two weeks ago, philanthropia.

That's where we get our word philanthropic.

It's benevolent, loving acts that are given.

And he says, look, you're going on.

He's describing, he's not describing the crucifixion here.

He's describing that moment in your life, Christian, where you're going along in your life of sin, and then all of a sudden, in the midst of all of that, you come face to face with the goodness and the loving kindness of God.

And in that moment, you're thinking, where has this been all my life?

How did I not know?

And maybe some of you, somebody's been sharing the gospel with you over and over and over, and they're like, see, I've been telling you about this.

You say, but now I know.

And often, as we sang, God uses these frowning providences, these storm clouds in our lives in order to bring us to that point.

There was a guy in the Old Testament named Naaman.

He was a general in an army opposed to Israel, and God struck him with leprosy.

And he went south into Israel to a prophet named Elisha.

And through him he met God and was cleansed of his leprosy.

God does these works in our lives in order to bring us to this place where he can open our eyes to the reality of his goodness and his kindness.

I want to teach you a word about this.

So put on your thinking cap here, because this word I think is important to understand what happened to you.

It's monergistic.

Monergistic.

Mono means one.

Mono is one.

And just is talking about a hand, one hand.

Salvation is monologistic.

It's not synergistic.

It's not two-handed.

It's not you cooperating with God.

Notice what the emphasis that Paul puts on God in verse 4.

He says, it's the loving kindness of God, our Savior, appeared.

God reaches down and picks you up out of the mess that you're in.

If you're a parent, sometimes you look down and your kid is, you're talking thinking about a baby or a toddler, they're in a mess.

They're just in an absolute mess.

And what's needed is for you to go and you stoop down and you pick up that kid and you pull him out of the mess.

That's the picture of salvation.

It's we we looked at it two weeks ago.

It's Jonah in the depths of the sea, and God appointing a fish to swallow him and save him.

It's Lazarus in the depths of the earth, and Jesus saying, Lazarus, come forth.

It is this single-handed work of God in salvation.

I emphasize this because Paul emphasizes it.

Look at verse 5.

He saved us.

God saved us.

He's our Savior.

He saved us.

And Paul's emphasis is that we didn't have anything to do with it.

In fact, he says, look, look how much he emphasizes this negatively, he says, not because of works done by us in righteousness.

When Paul uses that language, works of righteousness, he's talking about works in relationship to the law, thinking about the Old Testament law, thinking about all the over 600 laws that were given in the Old Testament.

Paul's saying that, look, even if you tried to keep all those laws, you could not earn the divine favor of God.

You could not.

Ever.

So God acts towards you in salvation, not in accordance with anything that you have done.

And we're so used to comparing ourselves to others, aren't we?

You know, I'm better than Susie and Joey over there.

Surely the reason why God saved me is because I'm a righteous person.

I'm a good person.

And to that, Jesus said, the publicans and the prostitutes have a better chance of entering the kingdom of God than you do.

Because they know that they're sinners and they're not righteous.

Because no one will enter the kingdom of God by their own righteousness.

He says, look, look at the words positively.

It's according to his mercy.

It's according to his mercy.

And the reason why we don't understand mercy is because we do not understand the holiness of God.

We do not understand that our sin, when we sin, it is against a holy God.

God is just, God is righteous.

And yes, we sin against other people.

But do you remember when David sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba?

He said, Psalm 51, against you and you only have I sinned.

All sin is ultimately a transgression of the holiness of God, the righteousness of God.

And for that we all deserve, and I mean this is very strong language, damnation and judgment.

The wage of sin is death.

And if when we revolt at that, when we say, really?

Sin against God deserves damnation and judgment, what that betrays, that that revulsion, is that we do not understand the holiness of God.

We do not understand how purely righteous He is and how abhorrent sin is.

That all sin puts us under the wrath, the just wrath of God.

All sin.

God does not grade on a curve.

You have those teachers?

They're really hard.

Maybe the top student in the class gets a 90 on the test.

What does the teacher do?

They bump up everybody 10 points.

That student gets 100, everybody else is bumped up.

God does not grade on a curve.

James says, if you stumble in one point of the law, you're guilty of all of it.

Think of the law of God as a window.

If you're out playing baseball in the yard and little Tommy accidentally hits the ball through the window, what do you have to do with that window?

You have to replace the whole thing.

Why?

It's broken.

The window is broken.

James says that's what the law is like.

If you break the law at one point, you're guilty of breaking all of it.

Because now you've sinned against God.

So we all deserve divine wrath.

Have we forgotten that in this country?

We're told in the schools, secular humanism, you know, that we're all basically good people.

Follow your heart.

You're, you know, we're all basically decent people.

But what we once understood in this in this nation, in this country, is that we are all born under the flag of sin and deserving the judgment of God.

I went back and this week I was reading Jonathan Edwards.

Go read this message that Jonathan Edwards preached.

It's called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

You say, ooh, I don't like that.

Angry.

You would describe God as angry?

Well, does not God have a right to be angry about sin?

He does.

If anybody should be angry about sin, it's God.

Vengeance is mine, declares the Lord.

And Edwards says, we all are rightly under the wrath of God, but for one thing.

This is what mercy is.

Mercy is God withdrawing his wrath from you.

That's mercy.

Grace is you receiving his unmerited favor.

Mercy is God withholding the just wrath that you deserve.

That's a glorious reality.

And that's what Paul says happened to you if you're a Christian, is that God withheld his wrath and gave you mercy instead.

Salvation is pure mercy.

Peter said that salvation is according to his great mercy.

That's 1 Peter 1, 3.

God says in Romans 9, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy.

So it's God's prerogative to give mercy to whomever he chooses.

So that is the intervention of God.

And if you're a Christian, that's what happened.

You were a sinner, and then there was this intervention of God.

How does God do this?

This is stage three.

And he does it through the renewal of the Holy Spirit.

Look back at verse 5.

The middle of verse 5.

This is the instrument of how God saved you in mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.

This is uh really amazing language to describe the beginning of the Christian life.

Washing of regeneration, renewal of the Holy Spirit.

I think Holy Spirit of the Holy Spirit describes both the washing of regeneration and the renewal.

Both of these are the work of the Holy Spirit.

Let's look at both of these: washing and renewal.

The word washing, you could translate that word directly to be laver and think of a basin in which something is washed.

But it's not speaking literally.

Paul's not talking about a literal washing here.

Some have misinterpreted this to speak of baptism.

Because what happens when you're baptized?

You go under the water and you come out, it looks like you're washed.

But baptism, the ordinance of baptism, symbolizes what is being talked about here.

This is not talking about the ordinance of baptism.

This is talking about the reality of what baptism points to.

The reason I know that, notice he says, the washing of what?

Regeneration.

The washing of regeneration.

That word regeneration is the Greek word.

Palin Genesia.

Genesia is where we get our word Genesis.

What does Genesis mean?

The book of Genesis.

Genesis is the book of beginnings.

Palin means again.

Begin again.

Be born again.

Again, where do we hear that?

If anyone desires to see the kingdom of God, he must be born again.

John 3 3.

If anyone desires to enter the kingdom of God, he must be born again.

John 3 5.

He's talking about a new life, a new start.

He's talking about an end.

And this is not just metaphorical.

This is not just an idea.

He's talking about as an experience.

He's talking about who you are.

Earlier he said in go back and look at verse 3.

He says, we were foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others, hating one another.

That's who we were.

That's not just what we did, that's who we were.

And now he's saying, this is who you are now.

You've been washed.

You've been washed by regeneration.

It's an inner renewal of the heart where you become something that you were not.

I saw a great commercial for the United States Marines yesterday watching college football.

The commercial, the tagline is, and whoever did their marketing, I mean, this is just brilliant.

He said the tagline is you don't train to be a Marine.

You become a Marine.

And that's the idea.

You become something that you were not.

You become regenerated.

You're given a new life.

Here's a definition of this.

This is from theologian Lewis Burkhoff.

This is a definition of regeneration.

He says the governing disposition of the soul is made holy.

Let me read that again.

The governing disposition of the soul is made holy.

So think about the soul, it's the center of your person, what you love, what you feel, what you think about.

Those things are made holy through this washing.

How does this washing happen?

I want you to jot down these verses.

You can turn with me if you're you're quick with your Bible.

Ephesians 5, 26.

I'll begin in verse 25 for context.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her.

Listen, having cleansed her, or you could say washed her by the washing of water, and then notice the prepositional phrase, with the word.

With the word.

Who is the author of the word of God?

Second Peter 1 21, men wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

So should it surprise us that the Holy Spirit regenerates, cleanses the soul through the word of which he is the author?

Let me give you another verse.

This is 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 22.

1 Peter 1:22

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again.

There it is, there's the idea.

You've been regenerated, you've been given this new life, this new experience.

How?

Not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.

Remember Augustine?

Augustine is in Milan.

He reaches the height of his powers as the rhetorician of the city.

And he developed a cough.

Something in his lungs.

He couldn't perform the way that he wanted to.

He started attending the church in the city, and it was pastored by a fellow named Ambrose.

And he began to come under the Word of God and he began to come under conviction of his soul.

And he was miserable, just absolutely miserable.

He's realizing he's enslaved to his sin and all of these ideas that have flooded his mind in the past.

And he begins to think, maybe my mom was right all along.

You mothers, you know that's true, right?

He begins to think, maybe Monica, maybe she was right.

And one day he's with a friend, and they go to a garden, and he tells his friend, he says, You stay behind.

I need to go and deal with some things.

And so he goes to a remote part of the garden.

He's weeping, he's he's under conviction of sin.

And in that moment, he hears some children chanting, tola legay, tolay, tola legay, which means in Latin, take up and read.

And he he said, I don't even know.

I've never heard a kid's game where kids said that.

Who says that?

What kids would talk about taking up and reading something?

He says, Maybe this is providentially from the Lord, and so he goes back to where his friend is at, and there was a copy of Paul's letters there with his friend, and he plays Bible roulette.

I don't recommend that, by the way.

Bible roulette is where you take your Bible and you just open up to a passage and then you read it.

Okay.

He plays Bible roulette and he reads Romans 13, 13 and 14.

Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and in jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

And he read that verse, and the light bulb went on in his mind.

He was born again, he was regenerated through the word of God.

I heard evangelist Paul Washer talking about evangelizing this man, and he walked him through the Roman road, understanding the gospel, what Christ has done, the resurrection, the sacrificial death of Christ.

And he said, Do you believe?

He said, No, I don't, I don't I don't know how I can believe.

And so Paul said, What I did with that man is I sat there for hours and hours, and I read that man, the word of God, until God opened up his heart.

You see, friends, the word is used by the Spirit in order to bring about God's purposes, this purpose of regeneration.

And then renewing.

Renewing is the ongoing act in the Christian life of the Holy Spirit.

Paul uses this word, jot this down, Romans 12, 2.

Remember, Paul says, be transformed by the renewal of your minds.

It's a recleansing.

After going around in the week in the world and seeing images and being part of different conversations, do we need a recleansing of the word of God?

Yes.

And so the Holy Spirit, again, uses the word.

Jesus says, sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth.

And that's why the Bible is the center of everything that we do at the King's Chapel, is because it is only the word, it is only truth, it is only doctrine that recalibrates your soul, that recleanses your soul, that the Holy Spirit works in your life.

That's why memorizing scripture is so important.

That's why reading God's Word every day is so important.

That's why coming underneath the preach word of God is so important.

If I'm gone from the church and I'm not sitting underneath the word for several weeks on end, I begin to feel just toxic because we need to be cleansed by the word.

So that is that work of renewal of the Holy Spirit.

That was stage three.

Here's stage four, important, important stage.

And that is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Look at verse six.

It's not enough that he regenerates us and renews us in the Spirit.

Paul says, talking about the Holy Spirit, whom he, who's the he referring to there?

Who is that pronoun?

The Father, whom He poured out on us richly, through who?

Jesus Christ.

Right there in that verse, you have what is called the doctrine of the Trinity.

The doctrine that there is one God, yet three persons.

That's hard for our mind to understand.

Not three separate gods, one God.

It's not one plus one is three, it's one times one times one is one.

One God and three persons, all working for our salvation.

The Holy Spirit is poured out on us from the Father.

And then remember we saying that every spiritual blessing is given to us how?

Through Jesus Christ.

Notice that emphasis of Paul.

God.

Who is Jesus Christ?

God.

He is God of very gods.

Again, this is hard for our minds to understand.

Now, everything that we talked about, regeneration and renewal, I have a question for you.

Did the Old Testament saints experience regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit?

They did.

They did.

If you are a Christian, this side of Adam, it's because God intervened in your life, he regenerated your heart, and he renewed you in his word by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Verse 6 is something new to the new covenant.

Something completely new.

Notice this language describing the Spirit whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.

That language the prophet Joel used in Joel chapter 2.

Joel 2 · chapter mention

That is the language that Paul uses or Peter uses in Acts chapter 2 to describe the Holy Spirit being poured out.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

So here Paul is saying, look, not only are you regenerated by the Spirit, not only are you renewed by the Holy Spirit, but then the Holy Spirit doesn't go away.

The Holy Spirit is poured out on you.

You could say you are baptized into the Holy Spirit, and God the Holy Spirit comes and indwells the believer and makes his home in you.

And this is through Jesus Christ.

Remember, Jesus Christ, he said, it is better for you that I go to the Father.

Because if I go to the Father, I will send the paraclete, the helper, and he will come to you and he will be with you.

And Jesus told his disciples again and again, you go to Jerusalem and you wait for the Holy Spirit to come.

And on Pentecost, as Jesus has ascended to the right hand of the Father, he sends this gift to the church, the pouring out, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, so that every single believer in the new covenant has been baptized in the Spirit.

Praise be to God.

Jews or Greeks, slave or free, we are all made to drink of one spirit.

You say, well, what's the big deal with that?

Why is that important?

Question, where are we this morning?

Raleigh, North Carolina.

Wait, we're not in Jerusalem.

In the old covenant, if you wanted to assemble with the people of God and meet with God, where would you need to go?

To the temple.

Before that, the tabernacle.

If you wanted to meet with God, you would go for the seven feasts, you would be there.

The presence of God was experienced in the temple of God.

You would go there to experience his presence.

Now what does Jesus say?

Where two or three are gathered, there I am with them.

You see, the baptism of the Spirit means that wherever you go, Jesus Christ, the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit that was on Christ, he is with you, and he is in you.

So we can worship God here in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Moreover, John said, Greater is he that is in you, that is in the world, that is in the world.

The Holy Spirit who is in you enables you to face the trials, the difficulties, the challenges that you experience.

The Holy Spirit, this is the greatest form of assurance, I think.

You know, when we talk about assurance of salvation, the greatest form of assurance is the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit who lives inside you.

How do I know that I'm a Christian?

Well, of course, I know that I've believed.

I can look at the good works that are an evidence or fruit of my salvation, but experientially I know because the Holy Spirit dwells within me.

The Holy Spirit works within me.

That's Ephesians 1.13.

You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance.

The work of the Spirit in your life is the guarantee of what is to come.

It is that inner testimony that you belong to God.

Martin Lloyd Jones says about the man who has been baptized in the Spirit.

He says that the Holy Spirit was outpoured, and this man was carried not only from doubt to belief, but to certainty, to awareness of the presence of the glory of God.

And that's why do you ever you're going throughout your life and you don't always have these moments?

I know that I don't.

I don't always experience these moments, but do you ever just experience as you're meditating about heaven, the character of God, the wonder of the gospel, the warmth just come over you?

And you're just caught up in worship for God and you're just marveling at his grace.

That's that work of the Holy Spirit within you, testifying that you are his child.

And of course, we want to yield our lives to his power and his presence.

Paul says, do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.

That's Ephesians 5.18.

So that's the fourth stage, is the baptism of the Spirit.

It's a wonderful reality in the new covenant.

And then fifth, the justification by grace.

Look at verse 7.

He says, so that being justified by his grace.

So this is a purpose statement.

He says, God does all these things.

And of course, we know that this happens through faith, but faith isn't even mentioned here because Paul's emphasizing the work of God.

He says, God justifies us as a gift.

That's what grace is.

He justifies us as a gift.

Justification is a legal declaration about you.

It's what God thinks about you.

And it means if you're justified in a trial, it doesn't just mean that you were found not guilty.

It means that you're found blameless or innocent.

So this is Paul's great doctrine that Christianity is not something, salvation is not something that you earn.

It's something that's given as a gift.

And in this declaration that God makes, God pronounces you forgiven of all of your sin and righteous in Jesus Christ.

It's a double declaration.

This week I went and read the Westminster Larger Catechism, and I think this is the greatest definition of justification ever written in the English tongue, written in 1647.

Question: What is justification?

Justification is an act of God's free grace unto sinners.

So it's a gift to sinners, in which he pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth a person righteous in his sight, not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but only for, or you could say, because of the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ by God imputed to them and received by faith alone.

So all of this, when when you are born again, the immediate result is that you believe.

Immediately you believe.

Immediately when there's a there's a flame, you have the the smoke or you or the heat.

Immediately you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the moment that you believe, you are justified.

God declares you righteous.

And here's what that means.

Do you think if you're righteous and you're declared righteous, if you commit a future sin, are you no longer righteous?

No.

Once you're declared righteous in Christ, you are always righteous.

No sin can disqualify you.

And that's why my Roman Catholic friends are confused when I say, I know with 100% certainty that I'm going to heaven.

You say, how can you know that?

Nobody can know that.

And that's because they're thinking of salvation as the work of Christ plus the work of man.

But I'm thinking of salvation as, as Paul explains it, as God's declaration that I'm both righteous and forgiven.

Is that good news?

I mean, that's the best news in the world, isn't it?

I mean, for us sinners, that nothing that we can do can jeopardize?

I mean, if I mean, if you could, would you mess it up?

We would, wouldn't we?

Every day.

But God declares you righteous based on the death of his son and his perfect life.

How perfect is the life of Jesus Christ?

Infinitely perfect.

Perfect, perfect.

How great is his death?

He pays for all your sin.

Ever.

And so Paul says over and over again, I wrote down a lot of cross references.

You can look at these.

He says over and over again, you're saved not by your own works, by the work of Christ.

You're saved by his death as a gift of grace.

Let me let I'll just read one of them, Galatians 2.16.

Listen to this.

We know, he's talking about the Jewish people.

He says, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law.

Nobody can do that.

But through faith in Christ Jesus.

So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

No one.

So I often tell people not only do you have to repent of your sins to enter the kingdom of God, you also have to repent of your works righteousness in which you're trusting.

And you have to trust in the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone.

Let me give you one more quote.

This is from R.

C.

Sprohl.

He said, The issue of justification focuses on the question of merit and grace.

Justification by faith means that the works we do are not good enough to merit justification.

As Paul said, by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight.

Quoting Romans 3.20.

Justification is forensic.

That is, we are declared, counted, or reckoned to be righteous when God imputes the righteousness of Christ to our account.

The necessary condition of this is faith.

Are we clear on this?

This is the doctrine that we stand on.

Are we clear?

You're forgiven in Jesus Christ, and you're counted righteous in Christ.

It's not just that you're forgiven, it's that God looks at you as if he looks at Jesus Christ.

And how do you receive it?

By doing good works?

By faith.

We clear?

Listen, this is the narrow gate into the kingdom of God right here.

If you are not a Christian, this is it.

This is the whole enchilada.

If you have not come through the narrow gate of trusting in Jesus Christ to forgive your sins and receive his righteousness, you have not yet entered the kingdom of God.

Believe and you will be saved.

Six and finally, the new relationship with God.

This is amazing.

I mean, I mean, Paul just ends in glory.

Look at verse 7.

That we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Simply amazing.

What is an heir?

Who inherits your wealth?

I had one of my kids come up to me this week and they said, Daddy, you have five kids, so that means each of us is going to get 20%.

Who inherits?

The children inherit, right?

The sons inherit.

What is Paul saying here?

He's saying, in Christ, you're a son.

He's using that language of sonship because who inherited in the ancient world?

The oldest son.

In the ancient world, we didn't do this democratic thing where we, you know, divvy it out equally.

In the ancient world, the oldest son was the inheritor.

Who's God's true son?

Jesus Christ.

Yet, this is the theology of adoption, that legally you are brought into the family of God in Christ, and in Christ, you are given all of the blessings that are deserved by Christ.

They are given to you, so that you are now treated by God as a son.

So you were a rebel, you were bent on your own destruction outside the kingdom of God, and now God has brought you in, and now you are considered as a son in the kingdom.

And according to this inheritance, he says, Notice, we look forward to the hope of eternal life.

We look forward to this glorious hope in the future.

We don't preach the prosperity gospel that the promises are realized now.

We look forward to the hope that is to come.

Praise be to God.

And Paul closes all this out by saying, if you get this, if you get all this, look at verse 8.

This saying is trustworthy.

And I want you to insist on all these things, these six stages we just looked at, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

These things are excellent and profitable for people.

Amen.

Amen.

So let us go and do likewise.

Let us go and do good works.

Let's get this into our heads.

And we're looking forward to this glorious hope that's in the future.

Our hope is not in this life only, but in the life that is to come.

What we're going to do now is we are going to sing a hymn called Almost Home.

So, Phil, would you come?

And in this hymn, we're setting our gaze, just like Paul ends here, on the hope that is in the future.

We're setting our gaze on the eternal life that is to come.

We walk in this life by faith.

And we're looking forward to the blessings of our eternal inheritance.

So let us pray as they're preparing for us to sing.

Let us pray briefly.

Lord, help us get all of these amazing realities and truths into our head.

And Lord, may we do good works captivated and gripped by the hope that awaits us as your sons and daughters for all of eternity.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.