He Saved Us

Morning, Church.

Reading from the Book of Titus, chapter three.

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

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

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, 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.

This is God's word.

You may be seated.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

Always look forward, excuse me, to gathering with you all and it's getting to worship with you.

So before we get into our text this morning, let's pray together.

Father in heaven, we thank you for your loving kindness towards us.

We thank you that because of what Christ has accomplished on our behalf, we might find rest in you.

Lord, that when our passions stir and we get directed by things of this world, Lord, when we get captivated by the lusts of the flesh, by the sinful desires of this life, Lord, when we get taken in by those things, that you are the one who sets us free.

Father, that you hear our repentance, and as you hear our repentance, you call us clean and justified in your presence because of what Christ has accomplished on the cross.

Lord, I pray that you would help us remember this morning just how free we are because of what you have done.

That you would help us remember where we have come from and what brought about your rescue, and that we might see in greater depth your love towards us.

Holy Father, lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So as we've moved through Titus, and here we're coming up on the end of Titus.

This is our second to last sermon, moving through Paul's letter to Titus.

We've seen that Paul has established this church in Crete.

And on the island of Crete, uh, it's a pretty wicked island.

It has uh a really uh backwards culture, but these churches have been established there.

And what Paul has done is he's left Titus in Crete to bring order to these churches.

So he instructs Titus, first of all, to establish elders in the churches, and he described, he describes the type of character that these elders are going to need in order to defend sound doctrine and the true teaching of the gospel in the church in Crete.

And then he describes the opposition that they will be up against on the island of Crete.

He says that the reputation of the this island it goes before it.

They're uh lazy gluttons, they're evil beasts.

That's one way to describe a group of people.

And then he says, you know, this description that they're evil beasts, this is true.

That's what it's like here.

And through this sort of uh uh lack of character in the island of Crete, this false doctrine has come into the church.

And it is a doctrine which denies the freedom of salvation which Christ has purchased.

So Paul is eager to defend that.

And then Paul describes what the church is meant to look like, and he lays out the structure of the church.

He gives instruction to each of the different categories of people that might be members of the church in Crete.

He gives particular instruction for the older men, for the younger men, for the older women, for the younger women, and for the bondservants that would be a part of the church in Crete.

Then he describes why is it that we would need to embrace these roles that God has called us to and how do we live those out with the gospel?

Then we get to today's chapter, and this is my favorite.

This is my favorite section of the book of Titus.

And this is the one in which we discover what it is that will make all of it hold together and work.

What is it that the church in Crete must remember, must hold together, that that Titus, when he's left there by Paul, he must insist upon this.

When I bought my first house, my dad came over and he got me a bag of tools.

And it was a bunch, you know, tools.

And uh, but there were some tools that were outside of the bag that were in their own thing.

And that was duct tape, WD40, and a set of vice grips.

And he explained to me that the all the tools in the bag are great, but for most of the problems that you're gonna face, you can handle it with duct tape, WD40, and a set of ice grips.

And that's been really true for most of the problems in my life.

What Paul lays out today for the church is the duct tape, the WD-40, and the set of ice grips.

Without what we see today, the church, no matter no matter how well it is ordered, no matter how well it's structured and designed, no matter how well it's communicated and marketed, no matter how perfectly you understand your life and your role and how it fits into it, if you forget this, it will not work.

It will not hold together.

It'll be lifeless.

So, what is it that we're remembering?

He saved us.

He saved us.

We have to remember that.

If we don't remember that, the whole thing is lost.

So Paul begins and he describes to the church how it is that they are to act.

Act not just uh not just the structures that they are to act in, but how they're to inhabit those structures in their body, the character and culture that they're supposed to have.

And so he tells Titus in uh verse one of chapter three, he says, Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work.

So this is the character that's is gonna be necessary for the Cretans to be able to participate in the church, as Paul has described it.

Submission to authority, obedient, and readiness.

So the authorities, remember, Paul has spent this letter establishing the authority structures of the church.

He is the first thing that he has commanded Titus to do is to appoint elders.

And he's saying, make these authority structures real.

Tell the church, hey, these are real elders, you should submit to them.

But it's not just the elders, right?

He doesn't say that.

He says, submit to rulers and authorities.

And so that means that the church in Crete are to be a people that are submitting to all of the authorities that have been placed in their life.

Now, Paul understands that all authority is from God.

Now, we're this is these lists that Paul gives this morning, and we'll see this more as he continues and telling uh the church how to act, these are those lists where everybody starts immediately rushing to the exits.

And when you hear a list like this, it's like, okay, uh I get what you're saying, Paul, but can we talk exclusively about the exceptions?

Thank you for this rule.

I think the reason you said that is so that we can just talk about the exceptions.

To which Paul is like, that's not why I said it.

I didn't say this to talk about the exceptions, I said this so we could talk about the thing, the thing that I said.

That's why I said the thing that I said.

That's the way I imagine Paul speaking.

Now we understand, like, submission to all rulers and authorities.

Paul, you yourself described Crete in this horrible manner.

Like, do you know what the authorities of Crete are?

They are, wow, look at that.

Water.

You could hear the frog.

Thank you.

That's the um, we'll get on, but that's a demonstration of uh perfect courtesy to all people.

Thanks, man.

Remind them to be submissive.

Now we understand the disproportionate amount of harm that can come from wicked authorities.

Like a wicked person who uh is just like a wicked employee, there that's gonna be a bad experience for some customers.

A wicked person who runs the company is going to be a bad experience for everyone involved.

There's just a disproportionate amount of harm, and we get this, that the authorities in the world have.

So, how is the Christian to relate to that?

How can we be called to submission, obedience, readiness for good works in an environment like that?

Well, the scriptures give us this understanding that all authority is from God.

All authority is from God.

And so our submission to true authority is always a submission to God.

So when Paul is calling us to submit obediently to the authorities that have been placed in the world, what he is saying is you are not rebels.

Your goal is not to tear down the authority structures in the world.

But your job is to operate in them so that they would become the goodness of the authority that they were meant to be as they were delegated by God.

David when he is working under Saul.

So David is a young boy, and he is anointed by God, and he's told, You will be the king of Israel.

He's anointed, Samuel comes in and chooses him, you will be the king of Israel.

And then he's taken up into the uh court of King Saul, who is the current king of Israel, and he grows in his influence within the court of Saul, and Saul starts to hate him and resent David.

And so Saul becomes a wicked king that God takes his blessing off of and says, I will remove the kingdom from you.

But Saul still has the God-appointed authority as king.

So David is in this impossible situation where David is the promised king, but he's not king yet.

And he's called to honor the authority of the kingdom.

Now, what David could have done is said, look, I know I'm gonna be king, and Saul is a wicked king.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna get this group together, and then we're gonna go overthrow King Saul.

And then Saul will be dead, the wicked authority will be gone, and I will be the good authority.

That's not what David does.

David flees Saul to protect his own life, and Saul is warring against David, trying to kill him, unable to kill David, and then on multiple occasions, David is given the opportunity to kill Saul, and he doesn't.

We think, why he's right there.

You know, he's the wicked one.

Look at the disproportionate amount of harm that he's doing.

Just kill him.

The revolution happens, and then you are the one who's in charge.

But David doesn't.

Because he knows that the throne which will be given to him is the throne that Saul now holds.

So if he gets that throne by overthrowing Saul, his king, then what happens when the people don't like him?

He'll just be overthrown again.

This is why Saul is like a father to David.

And you can't get your father's authority by killing your father.

In fact, when civilizations or kingdoms or monarchies start to establish themselves that way, then here's what happens.

You get your father's throne by killing your father, and then you know how you you know who you have to kill next?

Your children.

You have to kill your children next.

Because they're now your biggest threat.

And so, in seeking to unwind this negative authority by just rebelling against it, you have destroyed the authority itself.

Now, our culture thinks in these terms.

We think authority itself is bad.

Authority is good, it can be used evilly and wickedly.

But we must uphold the authority itself, lest we become a spiral of chaos.

And he's calling the Cretans to participate in that.

So this is the submission to these authorities, the readiness for good works, obedience.

It's counterintuitive, especially for the Cretans under Roman occupation.

But Paul sees the long game.

This is really just the fifth commandment, by the way.

Honor your mother and father.

Honor your mother and father is not, it's the the fifth commandment is not so narrow as to just be about this one relationship, and then you think, okay, my parents have died and I don't have children.

It's a fifth commandment taken care of.

One, I don't have to worry about violating.

No, the fifth commandment is about all authority structures.

And it's about it's demonstrated in this, in the most intimate one, the one that you most clearly didn't choose.

You didn't choose your parents.

And yet they are in real authority over you.

And so they are to be honored.

Honored as your parents.

Paul continues, and he says in Titus 3.2, speak evil of no one, avoid quarreling, be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy to all people.

Look, this is the this is the WD 40 of the church.

That we are to speak evil of no one.

In the church, your reputation is protected.

That the way that you are thought of will be guarded.

To avoid quarreling.

We are not caught up in the petty quarreling that tears us apart.

Freud's term, which I revisit often, the narcissism of minor differences, or the things that are the smaller the difference, the more you fight about it.

We are not hoodwinked by those things in the church.

We are not caught up in petty quarrels.

We have a sense of proportion with one another.

So that we're able to let things go, understand one another's stories, see what you're working through, see the sins that I've done to be a part of this.

We have this ability with one another.

Then the church is able to work.

What this is, is it's it's we have pure hearts.

Pure hearts before the Lord.

Pure hearts with one another.

Our intentions for one another are good.

We we hope for one another.

This allows us to be gentle.

Because we aren't having to just force or compel or destroy our way.

And to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

This is all courtesy to all people, is what Paul says.

So you must be thinking, Paul doesn't know about Crete.

Paul doesn't know what Crete's like.

But we didn't know what Crete was like.

Paul's the one who told us what Crete is like, what it's like to live in the place that this church is taking place in.

They are all liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

That is true.

That's really what the people of Crete are like.

And so isn't Paul just setting up his church to be this like naive, easily taken advantage of, doormat of a group of people who don't even know how to defend their own and then become no hope of defending others.

Isn't just like you will like it's it'd be like you're you're setting your son off into the island of Crete and saying to them, yeah, they're all great folks in Crete.

So just trust the first person that shows up to you.

Like the first person that you meet in the port is probably has your best interests at heart.

And then you come back six months later, and your son, after getting his first job in Crete, is like, why'd you tell me that?

Every uh these people are liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

Every I uh when I asked for help, they didn't show up because they're lazy gluttons.

And when we had when I had a deal with the first person who I made a deal with, they were liars.

And it didn't, it didn't work.

We did it on a handshake.

We should have it, we probably should have written it down.

Paul knows what the Cretans are like, and he's already described to the church what the world is that they're like.

He is not he is not calling for this way of being to promote some naivety.

If you read a children's book currently, there's like all the good uh not many good kids' books.

Here's every kid's book currently, as uh as far as I can tell.

Uh there's a bunch of people coming together, and then a monster shows up, and then there's one, the hero in the book says, that monster's not really a monster.

This is an actual book.

I'll just say the book.

So there's this actual book that my daughter is obsessed with right now, and so I've read it 10,000 times.

So I've gotten to analyze it at a very deep level.

And the this mouse has a house.

And uh uh there are these these creatures that are showing up to the mouse's house.

So one of the creatures that shows up is uh is a uh cat, and the mouse is like, Don't eat me, come stay in my house from the for weathering the storm.

That's I'm gonna be honest, it's not a good call.

And then all of these other woodland creatures make it into the mouse's house, and then finally a bear shows up, and the animals are like, Don't let the bear in.

Don't let the bear in the house, the bear will eat us.

And the mouse is like, This is my house, and the bear seems uh it's a first impression, but I'm pretty good at this sort of thing.

We're gonna let the bear in, and then it turns out that the bear was fine, and that it was fine.

This is not a good lesson to teach our.

Are children.

That like it, like all of those, if you if all of those monsters out there that wish to do you harm and that are clearly against you aren't.

They're fine.

Just let everyone in all the time, no matter what.

No.

This is a this is not a good lesson.

But we can think that like that's what Paul is teaching us here.

Of like what he's the lesson of that book is uh when someone seems like a monster, they're not.

And so you should treat everyone kindly.

Paul's not saying the Cretans only appear to be liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

That's why you should treat them kindly.

Because really, deep down in their heart, they are kind.

So you should treat them that way.

That's not what that's not why Paul is saying you should treat them kindly.

Paul is not saying you should treat them generously because he's not saying you should be gentle with them because they're gentle.

Deep down, they may not look gentle, but deep down they are gentle.

No.

Deep down they're liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

He's not saying that you should treat them with all courtesy because really they want to be courteous.

No, they don't.

That's why they're not being courteous.

So then why is Paul instructing the church to say, you're in a world of liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

Be courteous to them.

This is what we have to remember.

Paul continues on in Titus 3.3.

Why?

This is the why he gives for this, those seven attributes that he calls the church to have.

In Titus 3.3.

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

How can you be courteous to them?

Have you forgotten?

Do you know what you were like outside of Christ?

You were just the same.

You didn't stand a chance, just like these people don't stand a chance.

You know, I I'd spend so much of my week sitting in coffee shops and eavesdropping on conversations and then chiming in.

People like it.

People like it.

And people's uh people's like there's a lot of wild opinions out there.

And not just wild, evil, malicious, selfish, just justifications of being enslaved to your own passions, treating others horribly because they're getting in the way of who you need to express yourself to be.

Justification over and over again of enslavement to their own passions.

And then I I think, of course.

Like what else could they think?

Like if you were to just take in our culture and just think, like, how should I live?

I'd think, yeah, I think I would live like that.

If I think of myself before becoming a Christian, it's it's just like that, of course.

Do you have you forgotten?

You yourself were once foolish.

You were disobedient.

You sought, you you thought that the answer was this is the way that you analyze the world.

My life is so hard because there is someone in authority over me and they're a bad person.

If I could just, and you probably don't even do it directly, you know?

Don't even talk to the person.

It's like, if I could just destroy this person's reputation with my other coworkers, then when they finally can't take it anymore, we will be in charge.

And you think that would solve your problems.

But then you would be in charge.

And this is not good.

You're led astray.

You're led astray and you want to be led astray.

Like you're led astray and you you seek out ideologies and means of cultivating resentment.

And you practice it together.

How to cultivate resentment with one another.

Slaves to various passions and pleasures.

You know, we um uh your whole life becomes centered around you being satisfied.

And then if there's something that gives just a little glimmer of that happening in an easy and immediate way, then you you just take to it.

And then when it doesn't work, you just gaslight yourself.

Say, well, it'll probably work again.

What if I do that same thing twice as loud and twice as fast?

The advice I give to Zach with music.

Passing our days in malice and envy.

This is the fuel of life.

Our days in malice and envy.

You know, we we look around at one another and all we're thinking, we're we're just doing these envious judgmental comparisons.

Malice, seeking to tear one another down, hated by others and hating one another.

In fact, it becomes almost the only way we know for how to cultivate relationships, is make me feel close to this person by hating that person.

And then they'll hate us.

And then we'll know we're in it together.

And that's the pattern of the world.

That's you.

That's you, that's the Cretans.

So Paul's not saying show all courtesy to all people.

Because deep down the bear is actually nice.

No, don't let you just let in a bunch of small woodland creatures into your house.

Don't also invite the bear in.

You're now, you know, a friend to all is a friend to none.

It's Taylor Swift.

So here's the wonder of the gospel.

Do you remember who you were outside of Christ?

Do you remember?

Now here's what happened when you were foolish, led astray, disobedient, slaves to various passions.

Titus 3, 4 through 5.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us.

Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.

You were in that state, that enslaved to your passions, dead in sin state, and then the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared.

He saved us.

You're thinking, yes, yes, but I'm the one who was saved.

And I was saved because I saw the the ways that I was working it, the ways that I was living, it was not working for me.

And then I figured out the parts of my life that I needed to clean up, and I slowly cleaned those up, and then God saved me from that.

No, that's not the story.

The story is not that you cleaned yourself up and then you became worthy of being saved.

The story is the goodness and the loving kindness of God appeared in your life.

And then he saved you.

Not because of your works, not because of works done by us in righteousness.

There was nothing in you that drew God's love towards you.

You did not draw it out of him.

He gave it to you.

When you didn't deserve it, when you were in open rebellion against him, when you hated him, when you desired to be led astray, when you found these problems in your life, and you would literally try anything but repentance.

Anything but admitting I'm doing wrong.

And I need to repent and trust in the grace of God.

When you were there trying stuff to appease your conscience and trying to spin some fantasy world where there's no really right and wrong, where everybody's just doing their best and trying to express their no liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons, monsters are monsters, you're a monster.

In open rebellion against God.

When you're there in that position, that's when God set his love upon you.

Not because of any deeds that you did in righteousness.

He did not see like, oh, there's a, I can I can kind of tell that he's about to turn my way, and so I'm gonna help him get the rest of the way further.

No, you were dead.

And when you were in that spot, God, because of his loving kindness, loved you.

That's why you were saved.

So what is your salvation?

It is it is just to the praise of his glorious grace.

So why can Paul, in the midst of a place like Crete, explain to his people you should be uh remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, be obedient, be ready for every good work, speak evil of no one, avoid quarreling, be gentle, show perfect courtesy to all people.

Why?

Because you were you remember you were just like them.

And then what did God to you, what did God do for you?

He was gentle towards you.

He showed perfect courtesy to you, he showed unthinkable patience with you.

He poured his love out upon you.

This is why Paul just starts to, you know, occasionally Paul just overflows his banks and just starts, just starts praising when he's when he's laying out these doctrines.

He says, He says, He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.

The washing of regeneration is the its new birth.

That while you were dead, he brought you to life.

Renewal by the Holy Spirit.

Why is it that you can see, hey, the world, it has rights and wrongs, ups and downs.

That's wrong.

That's right.

I'm gonna try and seek the right.

How can you see something like that?

Because the Holy Spirit has enlivened you now.

Who knows the mind of a man but the spirit of a man?

Rhetorical question.

No, no one.

We have the spirit of God.

So we can know the mind of God.

Listen to these fools.

Laying out these absurd policies and the way that they're managing their relationships.

It's grotesque and it's going to end in disaster.

Yeah, how would you know a thing like that?

It's because you you were given the Holy Spirit that could show you the truths of the scriptures and show you the truth of what Jesus is saying.

You didn't, it's not because you're like smart and better.

This is a gift from the love of God to you.

That's why Paul can say, be courteous to them.

Because that's what God did to you.

This is the it's the substance of the parable of the unforgiving servant.

Do you remember the parable of the unforgiving servant?

A uh servant goes to the king, he owes the king an exorbitant amount of money, an impossible debt to repay, and the king has pity on him and says, Okay, you know what?

Your debt's forgiven.

I'm not going to sell you and your family into slavery to make up for this debt.

Your debt is forgiven.

I'll I'll eat the costs, go, you're free.

And then that servant, after just having been freed of this impossible debt to repay, finds another servant, one of his peers.

And that servant owes him a small debt, meaningful, but not impossible to repay.

And the servant who was just forgiven of this huge debt takes the servant who owes him and pins him up against the wall and says, You uh you owe me now.

You have to pay your debt back to me right now.

Now the other servants see this and they're like, ah, he got a little heated.

So they go tell the king, and the king brings in this servant.

Then his master summons him and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.

And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?

Have you forgotten the debt that's been paid?

Have you forgotten that the reason you stand in Christ is the freedom of his grace towards you?

Just a gift of free grace that he has lavished upon you, canceling your debt.

You see what type of a church, how this could be like the WD 40 of a church?

Because you're gonna sin against each other.

You're gonna harm each other, you're going to rule poorly over each other, and you're going to subvert good rule.

Then you'll think, now is the chance.

They've shown themselves to be the monsters that they really are.

Let's cut them out.

You weren't being kind to them because they weren't really monsters.

You were being kind to them because God was kind to you when you were wicked.

Because when you had a debt that you couldn't repay, it was paid on your behalf.

This is the wonder of the gospel.

Says, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, in verses six and seven, whom he poured out on us richly, through Jesus Christ our Savior.

The Holy Spirit has been poured out on his church richly.

Jesus did not hold back in pouring his Holy Spirit upon us.

That means by something that Christ has done, not that we have done, we grow in the knowledge of our Lord.

We are made more and more like him, able to understand the mind of God, to seek out the deep things that God has called us to know.

That we are empowered to be able to live out the attributes that God has called us to.

In a world which is convincing you that those things are wrong.

This is why it feels, I think people can read this and feel like Paul's a two-face.

Because in chapter two, he said, all the Cretans are liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

You need to rebuke the false teachers that have come into the church.

You need to rebuke them sharply.

And then you wait a little bit, and he's like, okay, let me soften what I was saying a little bit.

Uh they aren't, you know, liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

We should all be courteous to each other.

We should be nice to each other.

They'll probably be nice if you're nice to them.

No, he's not.

This is the the the what's wild about the gospel is he's saying, no, they really are evil beasts.

They really are.

Like our culture wants to say, like, what the children's books say, nobody's really a beast.

That's why you should actually just be nice to everyone.

Don't you see that the gospel is far stranger than this?

People are really beasts.

You should be courteous to them.

Our culture says to you, it's not being courteous to me when I when you call me a beast.

It's like, well, look, you being a beast is not the determining factor in me being courteous to you.

I was a beast.

And then God was perfectly courteous to me.

He was generous and gentle.

He could have crushed me, he didn't.

And because of that, I've been changed.

And so I can, before you extend any goodness to me, extend goodness to you.

It's a pure heart.

So that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Here's the position that you're in.

You have been justified by his grace.

You can hear it in the tense.

Having been justified by his grace, something that took place in the past is having a direct effect on the present.

You inherited a million dollars.

You are a millionaire.

Having been justified by his grace, this has happened.

You are free.

Like Zach said when we did the confession this morning, Christ has freed us.

Christ has paid the price for our sins.

He was treated like a beast, so that us beasts wouldn't be treated like beasts.

But instead we'd be treated like sons of God.

And if sons, then heirs.

I'm mixing up my verses, but this is where Paul gets great.

We become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The hope of eternal life means you can lay down this life and lose nothing.

You did not do this to yourself.

Do you see the shape of the gospel?

The shape of this is the shape of the news.

You know, let's do let's do some old gospel preaching.

By old I mean like 2014.

You know, why is the gospel news, not advice?

Because it's about something that happened.

Here's what happened: Jesus died for your sins.

He saves you.

Come to him.

You will be saved.

This is the news.

Advice is submit to all leaders and authorities, be gentle, be courteous, be kind.

It'll it maybe it'll go better for you.

That's advice.

And you can't do that because you don't have the Holy Spirit.

Because you're a liar, an evil beast, and a lazy glutton.

Here's the news.

Jesus died for you because of his great love.

While you were yet sinners, Christ died for you.

So you can live like that.

I'm surrounded by sinners.

I can love them.

In verse eight, Titus says, the saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things.

So I insist.

I insist that you don't forget.

That you don't forget that you were saved.

Not because of anything that you did, not because of works that you did in righteousness, but by the washing of regeneration.

Regeneration, it's birth, new birth.

Do you remember what you did to be born the first time?

It's like that.

This has been given to you.

The Holy Spirit has been lavished upon you, not because you drew it out, drew him out or coaxed him in some way, but because God loves you.

When you didn't deserve it.

So that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

So that you might be devoted to the love of your neighbor, to having pure hearts toward one another, toward caring for one another and overlooking wrongs and forgiving, repenting, repenting and forgiving.

Do you guys remember that?

I feel like we have these unimaginably powerful tools of repentance and forgiveness, and we'll try anything else.

But then remember, I was saved.

I was saved by what Christ did.

These things are excellent and profitable for people.

These are excellent and profitable things.

Remember that you were saved.

Remember the freedom of the grace that God offers to you.

If you are not saved, here's the news.

No matter how bad of a situation or of a person you find yourself to be, God will save you.

Come to Christ.

He died for you while you were yet a sinner.

He's not waiting for you.

Come to him.

There are any questions today.

How do we submit well to rulers and authorities who call evil good?

Submission to authority must come from the recognition that all authority is from God.

And so ultimately our submission is to God.

So when an authority, just because it's in authority over you, does not mean that it has an authority to call you to sin against God or to call you to operate in any way which is opposed to or antithetical to the goodness of God as He has shown it to us.

And so submission to authority is not like a uh you cannot hear this as like a blank check.

You know, there's like half of political philosophy is trying to figure out why it is that government just that governmental authority is justified.

And they come up with all kinds of reasons and tell all kinds of stories.

Rousseau has a noble savage wandering around and he has a house before he has a family, the noble savage.

It's a very silly story.

It's like in the end the noble savage decides to build a house.

And that's where families come from, is other independent agents walking around saw what he had built and wanted to live together in it.

And that's where it's like, okay, we got I we've got ourselves a bit of a chicken egg situation here.

Where did the noble savage come from?

And then anyway, there's scarcity of resources, and so some groups get together and arm themselves to be able to defend their resources.

You submit to the authority of the armed group, and you scale this up, and that's what justifies governmental power.

Because we need some sort of protection, and so we submit to things so that, but we make this trade-off, it's so that we can get some sort of protection.

Locke tells a different story, but it's similar and amounts to about the same thing.

There's a social contract among all of you, and it's especially beneficial to the weak because the weak can't stand up for the strong, and so they need something like a governmental authority to stand up for them.

That creates the basis for a society.

This is not the biblical frame of what justifies authority.

What justifies authority is that God has given it.

And if God gives it, that means he is over it.

So you must be sure that your submission to governmental authority or whatever authority structure, authorities that call wicked good and good wicked, is to recognize that your submission to that authority is only valid insofar that it is actually submission to God.

Because you understand that is the source of all authority.

So let's put this in a I'm going to remove this from the political realm, and I'm going to put it into a home.

So the authority of a husband over a wife.

And this wife might think he's asking me to participate in these things that just seem sinful.

But God says he's the authority in my life.

No, you do not sin.

So you do not obey that authority.

You obey the source of that authority, which is God.

So do you see how the authority structure is nested together?

That when we understand that all authority comes from God, that that builds in the necessary limits of authority.

But that when we understand that all authority is from God, that that means that our goal, like freedom, does not mean the elimination of authority.

Do you see the pattern?

Why it's structured that way?

The only stories that we can tell about authority are ground-up agreements.

And then we just say, agreed, everybody, we have to agree on this.

And if we could just get everybody to agree on this, then we'd have a good authority.

And then what that becomes is just we become tyrants to one another, forcing and compelling strange obedience.

But we understand that all authority is from God, and so we're seeking to uphold good authority by honoring God as the highest authority.

Great question.

Let's take communion.

That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Paul took the bread.

Jesus took the bread on the night before he was betrayed.

He said, This is my body which is broken for you.

And he took the cup and he said, This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood.

And then he laid his life down for his disciples, so that they and us like them might be saved by what he would accomplish on the cross.

We remember, all of those disciples, by the way, later that night would betray him.

He wasn't thinking, I got such a great group of guys here, I'd die for them.

He was thinking, I love them.

This is how we are saved by the depth of God's love, which he lavished upon us in Christ Jesus.

So for those of you who've been baptized into the name of Jesus, for those of you who confess that Christ is Lord, we invite you to come to the table this morning.

Partake of this meal.

Remember He saved us.

Let's act like it.

Holy Father, we praise you for your loving kindness which you have shown to us.

We thank you for the sacrifice that Jesus made.

We remember it this morning.

Lord, I pray that a deep and true understanding of that would become the culture of our church, that we would have pure hearts towards one another, that we would we would remember we were saved.

We were saved.

We could not have saved ourselves, but you saved us, Lord.

Let our lives just pour forth in gratitude to you for that.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.